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