Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: Notesfiles $Revision: 1.6.2.17 $; site uokvax.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!ihnp4!inuxc!pur-ee!uiucdcs!uokvax!emjej
From: emjej@uokvax.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: crre: crossing streets
Message-ID: <6500008@uokvax.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 18-Dec-84 22:10:00 EST
Article-I.D.: uokvax.6500008
Posted: Tue Dec 18 22:10:00 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Dec-84 02:03:57 EST
References: <477@hou5g.UUCP>
Lines: 28
Nf-ID: #R:hou5g:-47700:uokvax:6500008:000:1526
Nf-From: uokvax!emjej    Dec 18 21:10:00 1984

/***** uokvax:net.women / hou5g!jdh / 10:32 pm  Dec 15, 1984 */
I don't think it's difficult, I do think [crossing the street to
avoid passing women on the sidewalk] is a gift that men can give women....
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...
/* ---------- */

But gee, if I were the potential rapist that I am prejudged as by the
hypothetical woman, I could cross the street, then threaten the woman
from afar with a gun and return, so merely crossing the street doesn't
seem to suffice.  Wearing a straitjacket when walking on any street
that might contain women isn't enough either, since I could always be
wired with explosives.  (This wouldn't benefit me, but I could think of
myself as adding to that general fear of men that is supposed to do
males lots of good (like causing them to be automatically tagged as
probable sex criminals), and thus die in a good cause (:-> ** aleph-null).)
How far must I go to assure others of my harmlessness?

Conversely, as a person who doesn't follow the advice of the Vikings
and hence carelessly sits with back to the door, I often put myself in
a position in which the women in the room could, without too much
physical effort, stab me in the back or shoot me. Should they make a
point of walking in front of me always, perhaps with hands up or nude
to assure me that they carry no concealed weapons?

					James Jones