(no subject)

[oyceter]

ginmar's last few posts in general make me feel very queasy and very angry that I am female. I hate that I have to think about this, that I worry about walking outside when it's dark and I'm alone but my boyfriend doesn't. I hate that people I knew at college laughed at the Take Back the Night marches and thought they were unnecessary and quoted the same kinds of statistics on male rape or females lying about being raped (ala Disclosure, stupid ass book). I hate that I feel nidgy and frightened whenever a strange man talks to me, even if he's just being friendly. I hate that I feel almost physically threatened when men invade my personal space. I also hate that my mom tells stories of people being raped to make sure I am more careful, that my sister sometimes blames unwelcome attention from guys on herself being "too friendly." I hate that when she does that, my mom substantiates it and says my sister should be more careful who she smiles to, because people could get the wrong impression.

I hate that this fear has power over my life just because I am female.

Comments

[ann1962]

Yes her posts are provoking. I read her randomly. All women feel the way you do about their safety. But many laugh instead of feel the fear because they are sailing along the Nile enjoying the architecture rather than realizing it can happen to them. I worked at a rape crisis center when I was in college because I was so moved by the suffering of so many. Hassled way to much as a teenage and I, like you, was angry. This discussion of men getting raped and its numbers seem only to be popular on LJ. Other than one book, is it being discussed in popular culture? Men do get raped. Usually by men. Boys get raped as well. People get raped. I think women fear it more then men, but I would guess the fear of prison rape would be the first thing to come to mind when a man is sent to jail.

We all need to be careful, but most women are safer on the streets with strangers then they are in their own homes. To me, this is the worst crime. The fathers, son, grandfathers, uncles, step fathers, neighbours are the perpetrators of most rapes. This is why the focus is on stranger rape. It is too horrible to open "family" doors and see the brutality behind them. But I am glad Ginmar is discussing this. Interesting that it is a focus especially since she is in the middle of a war. Violence reveals violence.

[oyceter]

I haven't seen the men getting raped thing discussed in popular culture all that much, but I have encountered numerous other situations back in Princeton that reminded me of it -- when I showed that to my boyfriend, his first reaction was that people shouldn't be too hasty in enacting "draconian" laws re: sexual harassment, because *gasp* women might use them to get men in trouble! And people postering over V-Day posters at school, the general attitude that it wasn't "cool" to be PC/feminist and care about issues like this. It felt like a sort of atmosphere in which people pretended things like date rape didn't happen. Also, lots of protesting when the female president of the univ. hired *gasp* female staff members. I knew a good deal of people talking about it being discrimination and being overly PC and filling quotas or whatnot, but you know, no one ever said anything when the old male president hired other male staff members.

Things like this piss me off incredibly, and I'm still ashamed of myself because I never went up to my friends and told them what I really thought.

And you're so right about personal crime and things like date rape and the like.