The Atlantic - Latest Comments in This is real talk

Re: This is real talk

PeterGuillam — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:00:08 -0000

@ bitri

How are those two things even related? Or are you one of those people who blame all the nation woes on PC, feminism and multiculturalism?

Re: This is real talk

bitri — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 06:36:38 -0000

American leads the world in 'diversity' and 'privilege' studies. But can it make a decent car.

Re: This is real talk

kris — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:26:55 -0000

I have a different take on this topic of mens' vs womens' attitudes about street violence. I think the difference between men and women is that many men have a false sense of security in believing that if they just look tough, walk confidently, go to the gym more often, know how to hold their own in a fight, or use their 'spidey-sense', that they'll never be a victim of crime. This causes them to take foolish risks that I think most women would avoid...like walking home from a bar at 2am. This is why on the overseas travel websites I frequent, while it's normally women who are most worried about being victims of violent crime, it's usually the men who actually end up being victims of it. I think women perhaps have a more realistic view of potential danger. Because let's face it, no matter how much of a tough or smart guy you think you are, when a crackhead is holding a gun to your head, you're going to piss your pants and give up your wallet, just like any sane person would do. No amount of muscle is going to prevent a bullet going through your skin. And any punk can get a gun...it's the great equalizer. Which brings me to my next point, which is, I don't see Elizabeth's elevator-sans-dude behavior any more irrational or abnornmal than the opposite extreme, in which a a guy goes out walking at 2am on the streets every night thinking he's particularly safe just because he's a guy, 'street smart', or Steven Seigel's twin brother. In fact, at least Elizabeth's so-called 'problem' behavior will likely never result in her being killed. Wish I could say the same for the over-confident guys who think it will never happen to them.

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 06:20:22 -0000

Thanks Surya.

I get you now. Certainly there are a lot of men out there who aren't comfortable discussing the issue, and plenty of guys who just haven't put any thought into it (thats the privilege, is it not?). I will freely admit that I was too busy arguing to Christina that I wasn't one of them to properly acknowledge that. (Nobody wants t ba called a racist, even indirectly; that, of course is the heart of the matter.) Let me correct that here.

"I believe that passive benefiting does qualify as privilege, even if the beneficiary doesn't realize it or would somehow reject it if he knew about it."

I actually agree with you on this point (assuming we are using the same definition of the word). Rich kids don't ask to be born rich, though I doubt anyone would argue that they aren't privileged. Men undoubtably benefit form privilage. My question is, once you recognize that, where do you go from there? What's the next step?

Funny. I am starting to think that I might not be so opposed to the term in future. My own biases are largely due to my experiance, in which the usage was entirely hostile. Having had a conversation about it with people who were (mostly) not hostile makes a difference, and may help me to be more comfortable with it.

I still think its a poor choice if you are intending to reach the majority of males in discussion, however.

Re: This is real talk

surya — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:32:53 -0000

Triumvere, I had no particular (male) commenter on this thread in mind when I said that some american men are not completely clued in to the advantages they enjoy. my point, based on time living in both US and India, was to make a very general contrast between the two places; here, men fight cannily and with much societal support to keep the advantage they understand all to well. i still do think that nice guys get a bit too upset when their assumptions are called into question. Seems a bit like hair-splitting to argue about use of the term "privilege," based on the well-meant intentions of the person in question. I believe that passive benefiting does qualify as privilege, even if the beneficiary doesn't realize it or would somehow reject it if he knew about it. Obviously we'll just have to disagree on this point.

But anyway, though the thread went an entirely different direction than TNC expected (I bet), it has certainly been productive, and I appreciated most of all the contributions made by you, Elizabeth, and Cristina.

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:20:56 -0000

Surya,

Thanks for responding to the Japan stuff. I'm not sure I get your point, however. (That last comment was directed at me, ne?) At no point have I denied the existence of 'privilege', I only argued that I disliked the way the issue was being framed. There seems to be this idea that anyone arguing against the term is doing so because they feel guilty and/or want to avoid the discomfort of self-examination. The problem I have is not with the concept of 'privilege', but rather with the associated arguments. (words have connotations, though their interpretation varies between individuals.) To me, 'racism' (or misogyny) is primarily a conscious act of discrimination, and secondly an unconscious bigotry. Passive benefiting from 'privilege' doesn't qualify. I didn't ask for it, and I can't turn it off. All I can do is to treat everyone as equals, and teach my kids to do the same.

That, and confront racism or misogyny where I see it. I think that is probably the point people have the issue with. They think because I am criticizing the term that I am trying to avoid the underlying issue. Really, I'm just criticizing the frame. If your position is that misogyny exists, is bad, adversely effects the lives of women in ways men don't usually have to think about, and should be acknowledged, then I'm with you 100%.

Re: This is real talk

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:20:54 -0000

I find myself agreeing with Triumvere. I read Elizabeth's initial post and my reaction was confused: she described a legitimately horrible episode from her life, and made a good point regarding the fact that very few women would or could walk home at 2am the way Brian was. But then she attempted to underscore it with two anecdotes that seemed to just be about strangers talking to her, and shared a strange personal tic about elevators.

Elizabeth, you are clearly a thoughtful person, and I do appreciate your contributions to this discussion. But you do sound a little phobic; it does seem like maybe you are living in fear to an unhealthy degree.

I'm a man. I'll admit my ability to relate to what you're saying is limited. The best story I can use is this: when I was a little kid, I was at a friend's house, and I decided to pet his dog. All of a sudden the thing wheeled on me and chomped its teeth into my face, through my lips, and shook me. I don't remember what happened next too well; snapshots of the back of my mom's car, with blood appearing on the windows from I don't even know where.

I was fine, ultimately, and didn't even look much worse for it. It sure did make me scared of dogs for a while, though. The one that turned on me seemed to just be resting; he'd been a good ol' dog, there was no reason to think he'd go nuts. The lesson, I told myself, is that you really can't tell what an animal is thinking. Any one of them could turn on you at any time, and it's on you to make sure they don't get the chance.

This feels like wisdom when you're thinking it, but it's not. Because yeah, in a certain sense any dog could be dangerous at any moment. That's true. But on the other hand: the cues you get really are reliable most of the time. That lab that's getting walked by that family in the park really is less dangerous than that pit bull with the clipped ears whose owner is yelling at him all the time. You can find counterintuitive anecdotes to defy that sort of conventional wisdom, but those stories aren't going to keep you safe, they're just going to turn your life upside down in service of some imagined idea of safety.

Or the part of your life spent around dogs, anyway. If I'd had the same thing about half the human population, it seems like it would've been an even bigger problem. Elizabeth, I hope you're able to stay as smart as you are but get less afraid.

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:04:28 -0000

Christina,

I don't think you are being particularly objective here. I never said that people telling Elizabeth to "get help" was proof she needed to, but rather, proof that her story could be interpreted (due to the vague descriptions of her interaction with men) in a vastly different way than *you* did. Of course *you* didn't see it that way because *you* identified strongly with it. But to people who didn't, it was possible for it to come off a very different way. Is that so hard to understand? No one is being snide here. No one is angry (well, except Steve...) And, despite Chet's odious assertion, no one is trying to get Elizabeth raped.

I thought the clarifications that Elizabeth gave were extremely beneficial. They allowed me to re-evaluate her posts and see them differently. I'd be interested in hearing more. But I can't have a conversation with someone who is not willing to believe anything other than that people who disagree are really nothing but enemies out to silence or 'oppress' them.

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 22:52:09 -0000

Hrrmmm. Last post got eaten by the internet apparently.

Re: This is real talk

Chet — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 14:11:50 -0000

I think it might be worth examining why it seems "unhealthy" for a woman to maximize her physical safety.

Obviously a certain kind of man objects to whatever a woman might be doing that would make it harder for her to be raped.

The threat of rape, after all, is a significant tool used to oppress women. And we can't have women going around thinking they can do something about rape, now can we?

Re: This is real talk

Stacy — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:27:57 -0000

I didn't notice one man point out that he doesn't benefit from male privilege. Care to point out where that was?

Re: This is real talk

surya — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 13:04:02 -0000

I'm rather late to this thread, but THANK YOU Elizabeth, Christina, and Triumvere for your thoughtful conversation.

Triumvere sums it up well: "In this way gender is a proxy for “easy mark” the same way race appeared to be in the video discussion."

Here in India, most men not only benefit from male privilege, they assert it knowingly and with little challenge. Sounds like in America, there are a lot of men who *think* they don't benefit from it and perhaps get a bit too defensive when it's pointed out to them their institutional advantage. Familiar, ne?

Re: This is real talk

moppet — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 10:01:30 -0000

"What seems unhealthy is the image you painted of yourself was one of a women gripped by abject, pathelogical terror or men. (If you think this reading of your origninal post is off base, please note the number of male and female posters urging you to "seek help".

Please don't use that as some kind of proof. There were two folks who said that "get help" nonsense, which is such a dismissive phrase -- like they care whether Elizabeth "gets help." That's just a backhanded way of saying "you're crazy." And do you think that the two people who said that were really honest brokers in this conversation?

Go back and see how many people said "thanks for saying what you did." Or who actually (yikes!) defended the use of the p-word. I was one, but not the only one. At no time did I think that Elizabeth was coming across as somewho who was gripped by pathological fear of men. I'm black, and I didn't think she sounded bigoted, either. Read her original post. Just read it and put your bruised "but I'm a good guy!" feelings to one side. If you were interacting with Elizabeth, I doubt you would even notice the protections she takes -- as she notes, most women don't go into a whole song and dance about what they do. I don't announce that I don't walk the streets at crazy hours -- I JUST DON'T DO IT.

And I find it fascinating how merely saying something like "I don't get into elevators with men that I don't know" and that she avoids men who don't show what she feels is proper respect could not only bring out snide suggestions that her mental health was at risk, but could actually prompt someone to be deeply ANGRY about it. What does it matter to anyone else if she doesn't take public transit? I do what she doesn't do. But she already acknowledged she's more cautious than most, and I'm not upset or hurt about what a stranger does (though, Elizabeth, I feel like I know ya!) when she has labored to explain her thought processeses so well.

This thread is old, it's long, people will and have moved on. (And so will I!) But I just find it interesting in an ugly, depressing way, how people were able to squeeze a whole lot out of her words than what was really there.

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 07:36:32 -0000

Elizabeth,

That last post of mine was rushed and rather inarticulate. This is a bit cleaner:

When I read your story the frist time, the image I formed of you was of a women terrified by the thought of getting into an elevator with a man. The image I am now getting is one of a woman who has, after deliberation, that she simply isn't going to take any unnecessary chances.

There is a big difference conceptually, between the two, even if neither woman atually gets into the elevator.

Re: This is real talk

ms world — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:44:01 -0000

blklikeme WROTE:

a humble suggestion

if you are a black man take some time off and leave this country. go where black and white do not exist. cambodia laos or myanmar for example

you own it to yourself to experience what it is like to be simply a man. and an american

--------------------------------------

I concur with his main point, and add that all African-Americans need to get out of this country for a break on all the black & white shit that goes on. It is so freeing to feel and be treated like a human being. I wouldn't go to Myanmar right now though. I am an African-American woman who has travelled quite a bit internationally. I'm a big fan of Southeast Asia, especially Laos, Singapore, Malaysia & Thailand, and Hanoi, Vietnam. I'm also a big fan of Mozambique.

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 02:52:24 -0000

Elizabeth,

I have absolutely no issue with a women who wants to maximize her saftey. What seems unhealthy is the image you painted of yourself was one of a women gripped by abject, pathelogical terror or men. (If you think this reading of your origninal post is off base, please note the number of male and female posters urging you to "seek help". I'm pretty sure that that sort of reading is what set Steve off, and made him think you weren't worth reasoning with.) There is a huge range of interpretations that can be taken from your comments.

"Especially now that you know I'm not talking about freakishly bolting from men." This is an especially important point. I honestly wasn't sure that you weren't. Now that I know, it allows me to re-evaluate your posts in a new light. You seemed a person literaly paralyzed by fear. Now, I'm inclined to think differently, though I still don't really know the extent that fear is effecting you. Its a terribly damaging thing to live in constant fear, even if that fear is justified.

A highly personal question, I realize, but I am wondering to what degree you have taken control of this fear and to what extent it is crippling you.

I apologize, but I really don't have more polite way of saying it.

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 02:32:43 -0000

So, here we go… (I want to get this out before the thread falls off the main page, and I’ve got a lot of stuff lined up tonight, so I don’t think I’ll have the chance later.)

I am a white male in my twenties. Growing up I didn’t spend much if any time in “working class” or “high crime” areas, or ethnically mixed ones for that matter. My fairly rural community was nearly entirely white and I rarely ventured into the city. When I was going to college, I spent four years living in Philadelphia, two of which had a single apartment in West Philly, right on the edge where it meets University City. Talk about gentrification. I’ve never been mugged, accosted, or experienced anything in the way of racism, so it won’t surprise you if I tell you I don’t spend much time worrying about those things. I did a bit of walking in the city (I like walking), often coming back from Old City, through Central City and University with a friend or two fairly late at night. I also have, on occasion, walked back to my West Philly apartment at 2 AM alone and never felt that I was in danger. The thought did occur to me that this might not be the safest thing to do, however, I must reiterate that I never felt threatened. (There were plenty reasons to be cautious; a colleague I worked with on campus, an older white gentlemen, had been threatened with a knife, beaten and robbed near one of the bridges near work, and there were plenty of horror stories left over from the 80’s when the area was a lot less safe.) I did, however, heed advice to appear alert and focused, and followed the conventional wisdom, avoiding North Philly and West Philly proper. (Another few blocks west and who knows…)

So, now I live in Japan, where security is even less of an issue for me. Japan is considerably safer in terms of crime statistics, and it shows in the lifestyle. I routinely carry up to $200 in cash on me, where as I would have been nervous to carry over $25 in the US. Walking around at night is never an issue (unless you count worrying about how cars are going to run you over on the narrow, poorly lit little side streets.) I sleep on the train, with my bag in my lap (along with everyone else – took a while for me to get comfortable with that one, actually.) It’s not that I am not conscious of the potential dangers, but rather the acceptance of the idea that the chances of anyone jumping a large male foreigner in Japan are fairly low.

(An aside - I hesitate to bring the “privilege” thing up again, but it might interest you to know it is in full effect here; I originally had a connection to the expat community here, but after moving around a bit, virtually all my friends and coworkers are Japanese. Despite the fact that everyone looks different to me, the time I spend thinking about that or how it might affect my interactions with people is virtually nil.)

I am, however, quite conscious of how my female friends (specifically expat girls I used to hang out with) have had a different experience than I have. Japan is still struggling with the whole equality thing, and there are some unpleasant hold-overs. Chikan (the practice of groping women – and on rare occasions, men – in trains) is widespread enough to warrant “ladies only” cars in most trains at rush hour. (Especially bad in Chiba, apparently, though I should caution I’ve never seen it happen and don’t have any statistics to gauge the frequency. I don’t want to give the impression everyone’s being felt up constantly in trains, but I figure if you have a special word for it than you aren’t doing so well.) Less obvious, I have had a number of friends tell me that they have been subject to cat calls or approaches by men who seem to assume because they are foreign they are prostitutes. (There are a lot of Russian and Eastern European bar hostesses and working girls about, which seems to be the basis for this.) And, (I hesitate to add this as it’s not my story, but I don’t think she’d mind my posting it) a guy in a van tried to grab a friend of mine off the street and pull her into the vehicle while she was jogging (alone) on a fairly major road during the day. Luckily she shoved him and got away, but not surprisingly she was fairly shook up about it. Once again, I don’t want to give the wrong impression, Japan is fairly safe as far as places go, but I suppose it just shows that women are confronted by these problems everywhere.

There is a second point in which you may be interested which connects back to the original discussion fairly well. We have had a spate of recent random stabbings in Japan. The perpetrators are invariably socially stunted men in their 20’s up through middle age who are unable to deal with the pressures in their lives and have decided to take out their “frustrations” on random people on the street. (The quotes they give after they are caught are mind-boggling: usually, “I felt stress at work so I decided to stab someone.” Literally. I’m serious. We just had a guy stab an ex-health minister and his wife to death because he was angry about his dog dying several years back.) Fortunately, the damage tends to be minor as the cowards usually knick someone and then run away, but still… the trend has been increasing of late. The targets of this barbarism are usually young women, primarily school girls. However, there is no indication that the crimes are sexually motivated in anyway (you can never tell, I guess, but the second most likely targets are old people leading one to believe that:) The primary motivation behind the selection of victims appears to be that the girls are not expected to put up any sort of fight. In this way gender is a proxy for “easy mark” the same way race appeared to be in the video discussion. (I don’t doubt there are some hierarchy issues involved here, but we can get in to that in a later post.) Few of the attackers would dare to face adult men, even in a situation in which they had a knife in their hands and the target didn’t (let alone a foreign male…).

Like I said before, I’m not sure that his really adds much to the discussion, but it’s kind of interesting to see how things play out in a foreign setting. I would personally be interested in hearing more from people not living in the US on the subject.

Re: This is real talk

Elizabeth — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 01:27:47 -0000

There is something about it that seems unhealthy about it, even if it makes you physically safer.

I think it might be worth examining why it seems "unhealthy" for a woman to maximize her physical safety. Especially now that you know I'm not talking about freakishly bolting from men. And you know, a lot of women are taking precautions you're never going to notice. The ones you notice are the probably the ones who are being kind of dumb in the first place. Like clutching her purse. Um, maybe you should have been holding on to your purse (or had your car door locked) in the first place. Generally, making your self-protection into some big melodramatic gesture is a fool move. The person was being dumb by not being secure in the first place, and then doubly dumb by seeing a black person and suddenly all "oh noes, better grab my stuff!"

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:57:36 -0000

Elizabeth,

I meant 'normal' in the sense of average. (Or did I? There is something about it that seems unhealthy about it, even if it makes you physically safer.) I think you'll agree that you are on the extreme end of things in terms of behavior.

Part of the issue is the vague nature of the original description; I was picturing you bolting out of elevators abruptly the moment a male tried to get in. I have a lot more sympathy for the "lonely parking garage" scenario than, say a busy office building (I imagine the fellow you asked to wait felt the same).

I don't think that you should be surprised, however, that some men might feel insulted. It's a fairly natural reaction, really. It's an emotional thing, not a rational one. The guy is not going to sit down and do some sort of complicated social calculus as to what the risks involved for women getting into elevators with strange men are and why you might behave that way. He's going to have a gut reaction of "WTF, I didn't do anything! I'm not some rapist!" The fact that you don't have a way to determine that doesn't really enter into the equation. The sense of injustice is a powerful emotional force, even for those who may not have suffered much of it.

This is roughly analogous to the white guy putting up his windows (or the white woman grabbing her purse) when a black man walks by. They may have legitimate concerns in doing so (or complicated personal histories) but that's not going to take the sting out of it for the black guy.

A critical point here is the *manner* in which your "elevator avoidance" is performed. If it’s a very polite sort of "Oh, if you don't mind I think I'll wait for the next one." then I wouldn't be surprised if the vast majority of men weren't insulted by it at all. (They might be surprised, but they can probably put 2 and 2 together and in that situation without feeling slighted.) But if it’s some sort of reflexive flinch you are going to get a reflexive response. To use a personal example: I’m a fairly non-threatening guy, but on very rare occasions I’ve had girls flinch when I have inadvertently “violated their personal space” as you put it earlier, and follow up with a look that says “creep!” The gut response is “what the hell, I’m not even hitting on you!” Note there isn’t any time for rational parsing of the situation, just emotional response. This is reinforced by that everyone has a different conception of “personal boundaries” and that the vast majority of girls don’t respond this way, making event when one does all the more jarring. In contrast, I wouldn’t feel insulted at all (and haven't, in fact) if a woman walking ahead of me on an empty road at night looked back and then decided to cross the street. It’s pretty easy to follow that sort of logic.

Re: This is real talk

Triumvere — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:53:42 -0000

Steve, seriously, shut up now. You aren't helping anyone here, and the insults are definately not welcome.

One of the things I prize about this blog are the civilized and thoughtful nature of most of the commenters. Let's keep it civil.

Re: This is real talk

Steve — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:31:13 -0000

Elizabeth needs to be locked up. That last post was bat shit crazy. Yeah, of course those men don't act like they have a problem. Once they realize how crazy you are, they're probably ecstatic to be spared an elevator ride with you.

Stop trying to engage this woman. She is nuts.

Your view of the world is completely fucked. Get help. Now.

Re: This is real talk

moppet — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:19:31 -0000

No, Steve, you're definitely helping me see that Triumvere is not the jerk.

Elizabeth, maybe your point about "reading" creeps is why I have a probably unwarranted trust in black guys? I feel as if I can "read" them better, maybe? Hmm.

Looping this back to the very beginning, I do wonder, if I had been somehow on the street at 2 a.m. like Brian, would I have been harmed? Would I have felt like I was about to be harmed? Maybe men don't feel like they need a gun to overpower a woman, so that would never have been an issue. But maybe I would have been left alone because I'm a black female? I'm so very unthreatening.

You can really make your head spin trying to parse all these variables. Mostly, at this point, I don't say anything to anybody regarding what they need to feel safe. Your need to feel safe isn't about anyone else's feelings, and it seems like the vast majority of men you interact with understand that. I used to get more high-horsey about white women and the clutching of purses and all that, and I don't like automatic assumptions. But, I have a much more nuanced view of this than I once did, because I decided to put my high-horseyness aside for a moment and listen to what my white girlfriends were telling me.

It's a difficult situation.

Re: This is real talk

Elizabeth — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:06:52 -0000

Christina, that Cleveland Plain-Dealer article is interesting. Thanks for linking to it. I have only read the first section so far, but it has already demolished part of what I was getting at in my previous post to you: the stereotype I have that says "a bad black guy is more likely to just come out and overpower you, and a bad white guy is more likely to be a tricky creep." Obviously the reporter's experience blows that right out of the water. But that still leaves me with the fact that I've caught a "creep" vibe from more white guys. I think that I probably don't know black people well enough to read when a black guy's being creepy. I mean, I've been in a number of situations where I've thought "is this guy creepy, or a nice guy who wants to flirt but doesn't know what white girls want to hear?"

Rufus commented that he finds it informative to frame street situations "as if I were female." One thought I immediately had about the reporter's situation was, would a man have found it plausible if another man invited him back into the theater like that? I do think it is a useful reality check in some public situations: would he be talking to me like this if I was a guy? Why/why not? I don't know enough about the situation the reporter found herself in, but it seems to have something of the classic script where the man has something to show off and the woman goes along to see it, like that old joke about "coming up to see my engravings." If you're in that situation, it might not even cross your mind that this is not something that happens between men the same way.

Re: This is real talk

Elizabeth — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:32:12 -0000

categorically refusing to get into an elevator alone with any strange man whatsoever is decidedly not 'normal'. Justifiable, perhaps, but not normal. (And it’s also not hard to see how that man might feel insulted.)

Honestly, I've never seen that they have been insulted. I have ridden alone in elevators alone with men many times, where we weren't the only ones there to begin with, but then others got off and so it obviously isn't a situation of the guy's making. It honestly doesn't come up that often. But I won't get into an elevator with a guy who is the only one there. I always say "thanks, I'll wait" or pretend not to be interested in that particular elevator. One time in a big, ominous parking structure I asked a guy not to get on with me. I just said "can you wait? thanks!" and he shrugged. No big deal. I mean there were big signs all over the place about how escorts are available, it's not like female fear of assault is something he can't understand. And why should he take it personally? Because he's white and respectable, therefore I should presume he's not a threat? I don't know anything about him except race and apparent class. That I should trust him based on that seems to imply that if the reason not to trust some other guy (and surely you acknowledge that I shouldn't just trust every guy) would be that other guy's race/class. And that's a lot of what I was getting at originally: guys don't get automatic extra trust from me just because they're white.

A couple of times I've also been in situations where a guy I was waiting for an elevator with me volunteered to wait when he saw that I was going to wait. I don't expect that, but I would find it very concerning if a guy showed that he really cared. I think most men who have goodwill toward women, particularly older ones or those who've been around the block a few times, understand what it is we have to fear from men less benevolent than themselves. In fact, based on conversations with various male friends I think that some of them may understand it better than many women do.

Is it "normal"? I don't know what normal means in this case. Sure it's not average. Most women are less wary of men than me, and frankly the majority of those women decide which men to be wary of on the basis of race/class. For example, a huge number of white women are extremely afraid of minority men, and stupidly trusting of white ones. But if you mean "normal" in an evaluative sense... pshaw. Given the amount of male-on-female crime that goes on, I don't think women need to hedge their bets on personal safety just to prove that they're sufficiently easygoing. Everybody has their own unique set of personal boundaries, and pathologizing that seems kind of weak. I choose to live in an urban locale, by virtue of which I am arguably less afraid than a lot of white women and men. That doesn't entitle me to claim that all white suburbanites are paranoid freaks.

Re: This is real talk

Steve — Sun, 07 Dec 2008 23:17:39 -0000

Nope. Sure not. Its clear all you guys want to do is talk. That's cool. Typically. But when you are going to talk to a woman like Elizabeth without first pointing out that she's a bigot, and a nutcase, well, that doesn't really work. Good luck with your discussion. Even though the only thing you guys have been discussing is how Triumvere shouldn't act offended. He was the only person to even slightly call out Elizabeth's bullshit. And somehow he's the jerk?