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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!princeton!astrovax!fisher!eosp1!robison
From: robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: crossing streets
Message-ID: <1309@eosp1.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 20-Dec-84 09:37:26 EST
Article-I.D.: eosp1.1309
Posted: Thu Dec 20 09:37:26 1984
Date-Received: Fri, 21-Dec-84 02:11:03 EST
References: <259@boulder.UUCP>
Reply-To: robison@eosp1.UUCP (Tobias D. Robison)
Organization: Exxon Office Systems, Princeton
Lines: 39
Summary: 

(Quote at end of article)

It's a great nuisance to think about crossing the street to avoid
frightening women, but this suggestion reminded me of the time I was
out walking late at night, in our nice moderately safe suburb, and
starting gaining on a n elderly woman 100 feet ahead, in a deserted
street.   Suddenly I could hear her trying to walk much faster,
obviously to keep her distance from me; it clearly wasn't easy for her
either.

Now I might, like the author to whom I am responding, have become
very angry at being "accused" of being a mugger, but I could all too
easily see this situation from her point of view.  She simply didn't
want the risk of being mugged, and she was afraid (and perhaps also
horribly embarassed at how her behavior looked at me).

I can't think of any easy way to resolve this situation except
to do something reassuring like walking in another direction,
or slowing down.  Anything else that I might try, a mugger could try
as well.  I will direct my anger toward our current situation in
society, which has created this problem (my own belief is that many
more policemen and better birth control would clear it up in a
reasonably short time), and give my empathy to those who walk the
late night streets with me.

By the way, that elderly woman could just as easily have been an
elderly man, or a young child of either gender (yes, their parents do
let them out sometimes late at night).

  - Toby Robison (not Robinson!)
  {allegra, decvax!ittvax, fisher, princeton}!eosp1!robison

In article <259@boulder.UUCP> jon@boulder.UUCP writes:
>
>	You know, I really try hard to understand women, and to treat them
>with the respect and friendship that they deserve.  I have been told that I
>do fairly well (most of the time).  But I feel hurt when confronted with the
>attitude displayed in the message above.  You see, I just do not like being
>treated as a violent criminal.