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From: js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: crre: crossing streets
Message-ID: <412@mhuxt.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 17-Dec-84 10:49:01 EST
Article-I.D.: mhuxt.412
Posted: Mon Dec 17 10:49:01 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 18-Dec-84 02:41:23 EST
References: <477@hou5g.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill
Lines: 32

> 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,

Maybe that's just it, maybe we DON'T know the apprehension women feel about
men walking on the streets.
    Are you talking about reasonably well lit, non-empty streets in non-nasty
sections of town?  Those are the only kind you're likely to find ME on,
anyway.
    Throughout this discussion, I've thought about crossing the street, but
the whole thing seems as though it would look so SILLY.  Unless you're talking
about streets which are nearly deserted, dark, etc.  
    Am I wrong here?  Are you apprehensive on ordinary well-lit, peopled
streets in good parts of town?  Or has this whole discussion included,
unstated, the idea that we are talking about nearly empty streets.
   I have no problem in crossing in this latter instance, although I don't
usually travel in places like that myself, so I doubt if I'll often need to.
    But surely we're not expected to cross back and forth avoiding women
on normal streets?

Jeff Sonntag
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