If I'm looking out the window on the bus, it means I don't want a stranger speaking to me. I'm not going to instantly start thinking that I need to escape you because you're probably a rapist, but I will be thinking you're a creepy guy who doesn't know how to read an obvious signal that I wish to be left alone. I'm on the bus to get to work, not to talk to strangers or entertain somebody who's bored.
So, I sit down on the seat next to you and say, "Good morning." According to this woman I have violated you in some way by disrespecting your wishes. If I didn't know before this article what I was doing, I certainly do now, right? Are you, like this author, now planning your escape route should you need to flee?
According to the references Professor Yaffle provided, I might be more likely to be a rapist because they don't respect boundaries like that. Then again, I might be less likely to be a rapist because rapists score lower on the exravert scale, meaning they are less likely to be gregarious or assertive socially.
What? If you speak to me, when I've made it clear that I don't want to speak to you by looking out the window, I will definitely not be smiling or making eye contact. I'll glance in your general direction, give a monosyllabic answer, and then go back to staring out the window with my shoulder turned up even more.
Well, if you're just looking out the window, you haven't made anything clear except that you're looking out the window. If you think that's a clear indicator that you're unwilling to talk, I think you should reconsider that notion. There world's far more complex than that.
If you continue as you describe, you're sending a clearer message that you're not interested in conversation. Guys do this as well, only most of the men I know don't get all freaked out when somebody, male or female, persists. Some people just don't get social cues, and it's annoying.
Are
you thinking "rapist" when this happens to you? Are you looking for escape routes?
I think she makes it clear that there are different occasions for meeting women,
In what article? Seems to me you are projecting. The only other situation she describes is at church where the mothers are life-long friends, and that was only to say that this situation is "still not 100% safe. But the odds are pretty good." She doesn't get into any of the things you describe about parties, clubs or other social situations except to say, "nor have you been introduced through mutual friends or drawn to the same activities."
Of course, same activities excludes anything in public because she introduces the rest of the article with, "you want to become acquainted with a woman you see in public." Her admonition is then, "we would rather not be killed or otherwise violently assaulted."
Yes, it is overriding her wishes. If I'm sitting back in an open posture, staring straight ahead, that looks completely different from somebody who's hunched in their seat with their arms crossed and shoulders effectively blocking the space in between the seats. It shouldn't be difficult to read that body language.
It happens to everybody all the time. That's not to excuse it but to point out that it's a common and rather benign element of social interaction.
I do think that some of the men here are missing the spirit of this article, which states that women do go about their lives with different risk assessments in mind than men do.
Do you believe that anyone needed to be told that? Now, apparently what I needed to be told is that at least one woman plans escape routes on a crowded bus or subway car. I didn't know that. My advice up to now to any woman in peril is to flee
towards a crowd, not away from one. I also had no idea that when I'm standing in line at the grocery store and say, "Is that the Android? How do you like it?" that the woman is thinking, "Are you going to rape me?"
That said, I think her risk assessment is based on a warped perception of reality.
My husband will go anywhere, park anywhere, never worry about who else is out there while he goes about whatever business he chooses to, no matter what the neighborhood or time of day.
Be careful. When I said the same thing about myself, I was accused of "chest beating" and repeated choruses of "I'm glad I'm a man."
I don't think that every man out there is a rapist or is going to assault me, but I put up barriers to protect myself from unwanted attention from strangers, and I avoid potentially risky situations every single day. (Meaning, I never go anywhere alone at night, while my husband does it regularly. I also won't stop at certain places in the evening if I can't get a parking spot near a light. Overly cautious? Oh well.)
The article is not about avoiding risky situations.
Think about the elderly. They're extremely vulnerable to attacks, much more so than me. But I imagine if this were an article called Schrodinger's Mugger telling people how the elderly see strangers, and offering some insight into how best to approach them if you think they need assistance, there would be people here saying that it was an irrational article because old people are more likely to have their grandchildren steal from them.
If this woman had written the article, then I would be told that if an elderly person is "obviously occupied" doing something like figuring out how to reach a poorly situated door handle, that I would be violating their right to be left alone by saying, "Here, let me get that for you."
I've struck up conversations with elderly people on countless occasions, both male and female. In most cases they were previously occupied because, well, most of us always occupied doing
something, even if it's just staring out the window in boredom. I can't recall ever being rebuffed, which must mean I don't respect their wishes and just plow ahead without any consideration for the signals they are sending me.
I'm an extravert. I strike up conversations all over the place. The other day I was at Souper Salad with my two sons. Some older person was "obviously occupied" choosing a soup. I was waiting behind her. I said, "You gotta try the clam chowder. I'm on my fourth bowl." A very short "conversation" ensued, which must mean that she wasn't interested in talking to me, right? She must have been planning her escape route out of the restaurant.
Funny thing, though, next time she got up she stopped at my table to tell me that yes, indeed, that clam chowder was excellent and that she was going to get more. She then told me how cute and well behaved my boys were and chatted with them. I, of course, had my boys say, "Nice to meet you" and give their names.
That's the world I want to live in, not one where every innocuous comment carries with it the baggage of sexual or physical assault or one where every person who struggles with social cues is rated on the Rapist Scale. Sure, I recognize that I'm in the 90th percentile for men when it comes to weight and height, and that I'm a chest beating, chili-dog eating, friendly greeting, kindly treating, bully defeating, never retreating, rock and roll man who's kind to children and dogs, but I still understand how others view risk differently.
About 1 in 60 adult women will be raped by a stranger in their
lifetime. If we very conservatively estimate one stranger encounter per week, that's 2,500 in a 50 year adult lifetime (another conservative number). That means 1 in 150,000 stranger encounters results in a rape. So, I do consider planning escape routes on a subway car to be a disproportional reaction to that threat.
