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From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: crre: crossing streets
Message-ID: <1281@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 15-Dec-84 15:57:59 EST
Article-I.D.: dciem.1281
Posted: Sat Dec 15 15:57:59 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 15-Dec-84 20:39:40 EST
References: 
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 44
Summary: 


>I'm shocked at the responses I've seen to the suggestion of men doing
>something to alleviate apprehension in women.  I'm sure we women all
>know the option of crossing the street is open to us.  So also is the
>option of not going out in the street, or walking angrily toward our
>potential assailant/harasser.  These are things we women can do to
>protect themselves from harm/harassment on the streets.
>
>But I am suggesting something that you, a man, can do to make the world a
>nicer place for a woman -- even a woman you don't know.  This suggestion
>was made in good faith.  I don't think it's difficult, I do think it is
>a gift that men can give women.  Yet every (just about) response by 
>a man has been to tell women that he will do nothing, and that all 
>responsibility should lie in her hands.  In the reponses I've seen, men 
>are so offended/angered by the suggestion that their presence ever makes a 
>woman uncomfortable, that they (revengefully) end up suggesting that women 
>must be paranoid...   Remember, this is a street we're talking about.
>
>I can't believe that there aren't any men out there that, knowing
>the apprehension women feel about man(men) coming toward them, want to
>do something to alleviate that fear.  This is a chance for you, a man,
>to do something concrete.  Do this instead of opening doors for women.

Is this a fear felt by women generally, or just by some women who live
or have lived in dangerous parts of US cities?  The whole problem seems
incredible to me.  But then, I'm just a man, living in a city I believe
to be reasonably safe to walk in at night.  I know we have had US visitors
who have expressed surprise at seeing solo women (obviously not streetwalkers)
walking around downtown after midnight in Toronto.

If it is a regional problem, the proposed solution (the man to cross the
street) seems appropriate until something is done about the danger of
those areas.  If it is a general problem, a more appropriate solution
might be to find a way to change an inappropriate fear level (I don't
know how one would do this, but it seems akin to other phobias, like
fear of spiders or of flying).  Why should a woman fear a man walking
on the street in an area where the threat probability is very low?

It would be interesting to hear from European women on this one.
-- 

Martin Taylor
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