Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site watmath.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!saquigley From: saquigley@watmath.UUCP (Sophie Quigley) Newsgroups: net.women Subject: Re: rape and streetwalking Message-ID: <10452@watmath.UUCP> Date: Wed, 19-Dec-84 12:34:47 EST Article-I.D.: watmath.10452 Posted: Wed Dec 19 12:34:47 1984 Date-Received: Thu, 20-Dec-84 00:41:10 EST References: <221@decwrl.UUCP> <608@burl.UUCP> Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario Lines: 62 > > The point I was trying to make is that it is not reasonable to expect people > to go out of their way to avoid bothering others. Each of us make it through > life the best way we can. If I spend my time trying to avoid hurting everybody > elses feelings, I will be doing nothing else (and probably end up a nervous > wreck -- ANYTHING I do could possibly hurt SOMEBODY's feelings (do I smile? > how much? If I don't smile will he/she think I'm pissed at them? and so on)). > I try to avoid hurting other people's feelings, but I realize I can't always > avoid it, and when that happens, tough. Sorry, but tough. With friends I > am willing to go further out of my way than with people I don't know, but > there are limits even there. I am not on this world to be anyone's doormat > (but then I don't expect anyone else to be mine). > Of course it is not reasonable to expect other people to spend their life going out of their way to avoid hurting others, but nobody ever claimed it was. What was suggested was that strong people be a little more careful not to scare weaker people if it is not too inconvenient for them to do so. Nobody ever asked you to be anybody else's doormat. Why all this paranoia? > Attempting to get others to conform to your idea of courtesy is futile at > best (much flaming on the net has very little in the way of courtesy to > recommend it -- at least as far as my definition of courtesy goes). You Not at all, politeness probably came out of people expressing to others the way they would like to be treated. Try as we might, it is tough to imagine how other people feel (especially if they live in different realities, as men and women do), so why not listen to or even (gasp!) ask them? As a woman, I would like you to know that I will appreciate it, if you cross the street to show that you do not intend to harm me, if we are alone in a deserted street at night. I am telling you this, not because I will call the police if you don't, or think you are a jerk if you don't, but because I want you to know that if you do care about all of this, this is the way I prefer you to act. Judging from other men's postings it is not such a bad idea to express this preference, as a lot of people are under the misconception that other behaviour (such as smiling or talking) is more appropriate when it actually isn't. > get a little self-righteous anger out of it (as well as maybe an ulcer > or two) but you really don't affect the situation. It is much more effective > to take what steps you can to directly affect your situation. As an obvious > first step to avoiding anything unpleasant, avoid situations which are > conducive to such unpleasantness. In the case of rape, don't walk through > bad sections of town late at night (chances of getting robbed are quite a > bit higher, too). If you can learn some self-defence, great. These are > direct actions and require no one's judgement or activity but your own. > Trying to change the world at large ain't gonna work, and is likely to > leave you rather bitter towards the world in general. The world isn't > mean or nasty, just indifferent. > Why bother being organised in a "society" then, if we cannot expect it to better the lot of the people in it? Not trying to change the world at large and just accepting your miseries is certainly not likely to make you less bitter towards the world; my suspicions are that if anything, it will make you MORE bitter. The world might be indifferent, but there certainly are a lot of mean and nasty people in it. You might be lucky not to have encountered too many, but other people are not so lucky. > > geoff sherwood Sophie Quigley ...!{clyde,ihnp4,decvax}!watmath!saquigley