Miami U flier: 'Top ten ways to get away with rape'

[Losonti Tokash]

Because it's supposed to be an easily understandable illustration of (a portion of) the concept of male privilege. It's supposed to help you understand what it's like for women all the time and how it's possible to imply a threat of physical violence (or social consequences) without intending to. It is not about tall men, or all men being rapists, but the fact that women basically have to think about this with everyone they meet, for their entire life. And that you need to put yourself in others' shoes and think about how you might come across to them, even if you don't think you're doing anything wrong.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Perceived danger is bullshit. My monkey brain tells me to be wary of anyone different from me and getting over that is a large part of combating social ills like racism. I might understand why my Hispanic friends have to act differently than me in a given social situation because of public perception based on racism, but I'm not about to try and justify it.

For women, being raped by someone who can overpower them due to differences in size is a thing. Over the course of a woman's lifetime she has a 25% chance of being raped or sexually assaulted and women know this. For decades, self defense classes etc have taught women that eternal vigilance is necessary to avoid being raped. Go to a party? Men take a wingman to help them get laid. Women take friends so they can watch eachother's drinks and to act as a backstop in case some dude tries to take advantage of drunkeness. Why? Because in university, that lifetime chance of being raped jumps to the same number over the course of 4 years.

You are male. That is not something you need to worry about nearly as much. Thinking "Is that guy going to rape me?" is not often a concern for you. It is a legitimate concern for women. If a woman sees a big guy in a dark alley, her monkey brain starts screaming "danger, Will Robinson!" for good reason, because that danger is actually real. Even if the guy is perfectly nice. Even if he would not hurt a fly. She has no way whatsoever of knowing that. Just like a gazelle on the african savannah has no way of knowing that the lion over there is not hungry.

Social Etiquette is a thing created in male-dominated societies where women had no say in the day to day workings of social interactions. How do you treat someone you just met? Those standards were created by the social needs of men. How to treat a business partner? Same thing. Who holds the power in almost every single social and indeed physical interaction between men and women? Men.

This is not something you have experienced. It is not something your monkey brain is equipped to understand. But look at that lifetime chance of being raped or sexually assaulted, and see if you can still tell me with a straight face that a woman being worried about a large guy in an isolated place is not something they need worry about.

[Connor MacLeod]

Perception seems to be a real issue in this thread. Alot of the initial posts rather disturbed me because of how it makes this out to be more of an inconvenience rather than addressing an important issue. Which sounds.. very selfish, and I'm not sure why there are people arguing over this - is consideration for other people's feelings (or even their perceptions of others) supposed to be a bad thing now? Because quite a few people have made the point that its a POV issue and its something you HAVE to look at from someone else's POV, but others seem either not to grasp that point or simply don't care. Which is also disturbing, in its own way.

[TheFeniX]

You are male. That is not something you need to worry about nearly as much.

I post data that says I have to worry about being murdered in public at twice to 4 times the rate of a woman and you come up with this? Fuck off. Newsflash, I understand women have to worry about rape. You don't seem to understand men have to worry about shit to. Actually victimization rates are about the same for men and women, however men are much more likely to be victimized by strangers/acquaintances and the victimizations tend to be more violent.

So what exactly don't I need to worry about as much? Oh right, reality.

If a person sees a guy in a dark alley, his/her monkey brain starts screaming "danger, Will Robinson!" for good reason, because that danger is actually real.

I modified your quote because it was absolutely correct. If you still don't consider it correct, then there's really no point in continuing this conversation.

This is not something you have experienced. It is not something your monkey brain is equipped to understand. But look at that lifetime chance of being raped or sexually assaulted, and see if you can still tell me with a straight face that a woman being worried about a large guy in an isolated place is not something they need worry about.

I love how you fuckers keep going to hilarious extremes to argue some point I never made. I comment on a situation where a guy was taking a break in a place he was allowed to be while performing as a bouncer and we're jumping to the "big man dark alley cliche?" I'm not talking about dealing with idiots in bars or frat boys. I'm talking about certain people going about their daily lives being expected to conform to some arbitrary social standard above and beyond what is normally expected so others don't feel threatened. I'm really not seeing the difference between that and my friends being hassled for "being Mexican in public."

Anyways, how exactly are men supposed to learn where they fit into all this? After-all, they couldn't begin to comprehend the issue, being male and all. Fuck your emotional baiting, I'll stick with the data, zero of which you have posted, and my original point: women don't hold a monopoly of being accosted in public. Now, let's go ahead with another round of baseless character accusations. I'll be at lunch.

[Edi]

TheFenix, perhaps you should fucking take a break from this thread and try to look at what people are saying instead of what the voices in your head are telling you they said.

Because nobody else has a single fucking problem understanding the point, but you repeatedly fail to do so and insist on continuing the screeching.

I also really fucking love the strawman of yours related to the risk of being murdered. A woman has a statistical risk of 25% chance over her lifetime of being raped. What's the general risk of being murdered during a general lifetime? Somewhere around 0.002%? Or less? Which makes your fucking four times more likely risk out to be 0.008%, which means that the risk of woman being raped, using these figures, would be 3125 times more likely than of you being murdered.

Just try to think before you fucking post, please.

[Connor MacLeod]

I live in an Apartment ocmplex on the third floor and one of the interesting/frustrating things for me is how other people interact in that sort of enviroment. In one way, your renting an apartment alongside a bunch of other people, but one aspect I never thought about it until recently was - my existence, my possessions, everything I am and own is reliant on someone else in another apartment not being a fucking moron. If they get negligent they could damage or destroy the place and might hurt/kill people or damage/destroy their possessions in the process. What's more, many of these people who smoke or have pets have to go outside because the buildings are 'no-smoking' - A certain percentage will refuse to go outside and may just smoke in the garage. Or they may go outside but jam a rock in the door and not bother to take it out (or just damage the door. This has happened on more than one occasion.) And it sounds tirival but the apartment complex opposite us (owned by the same company and on the same lot) actually had their garages broken into and stuff stolen. And people just leave all sorts of shit out in those gargaes - bikes, or leave their cars unlocked, whatever. And all it takes is one guy too lazy to pay attention to using the security doors properly and wedging it open, or just not bothering to close it properly, to put other people at potential risk.

And then there's pets. Some pet owners don't pick up the shit their pets leave on the law when they take them outside, despite teh fact bags are provided and the rules say they're supposed to pick it up. Hey what's a little health risk? Its cold out and its inconvenient for me to bend over and pick up shit. And its so icky...

It even manifests in little things. If I try to go to sleep at 10 am, during the summer you can bet someone out there is throwing some sort of big fancy party in another apartment late into the night. Drinking, loud music, people going outside to smoke and talking loudly (and you can hear them quite easily) and they'll just keep doing it even after they get talked to or reported on.

I see this really interesting 'individual' vs 'society' dynamic going on here that plays into that. Things we may be forced to do or participate in can be inconvenient (and I can think of alot of things I have felt I wasted my time on or would rather not have been doing) or annoying, but it's part of a price of being part of a group or living in a society. We rely on people being considerate of others for that society to actually function. If people don't obey stop signs or traffic lights because its inconvenient for them, people can get hurt and property damaged. If we don't pay the taxes we are obligated to, vital services won't have the budgets to continue functioning. And the thing is.. in a society, alot of that functioning is dependent upon perception and consideration of others, looking beyond our own needs and interests and wants, etc. And another thing about society that is inconvenient (but neccessary) is modification of behaviour, for much of those same reasons - if we only focused on ourselves and our immediate wants/needs, society quite simply couldn't function, and you can't really have everything your way all the time, etc.


I was watching MSNBC today when I visited my parents, and one statistic that got mentioned is (I think this is the gist of it) 'one in four women in their lives will experience sexual assault' and at first I didn't really think about it. But on further reflection, I thought of all the women I run across in my day. Neighbors who are sisters, mothers, wives, chidlren, etc. People I see when I go out to the grocery store or the bank. People I see when I go out jogging. And when I overlay that sort of statistic with people I meet every day, its.. disturbing. And then you start wondering how they view you, considering I'm tall, broad and quite possibly very intimidating (not unlike what LaCroix said, actually.)

Bleh, I think I had a point with all this rambling, but the tl;dr version is: empathy and consideration for other people's viewpoints is an important part of functioning in society, and its disturbing when people don't exhibit this or simply refuse to step back from their own personal little views to consider it from another angle.

[TheFeniX]

A woman has a statistical risk of 25% chance over her lifetime of being raped.

Of which, 80-95% (depending on the statistics) will be perpetrated by a spouse, close friend, or as date rape, instead of the stereotypical visage of a large man in a back alley. I said what I wanted to say. You win, I'll bail out.

[ryacko]

Just curious, what is the exact source of this 25% statistic?
Considering that a large percentage is unreported, and many of these statistics which cite numbers greater then 15% come from surveys, it is a bit suspect.

But still, a substantial number of women are raped, any number of which is too high.

[The Yosemite Bear]

Rape Crisis Center extrapolation based on the likelyhood of someone not reporting being 90%

[ryacko]

Rape Crisis Center extrapolation based on the likelyhood of someone not reporting being 90%

According to a google search:

The FBI estimates 37% of all rapes are reported.
The Justice Department estimates 26%.

Until the FBI completes it's 2012 Uniform Crime Reports two years from now using it's modern definition of rape, it would be hard getting a count of how many women are raped per annum.