Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Usually wrong but never in doubt

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

We still have time to mess this up!

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Conservatism: there are some people the law protects but does not bind and others who the law binds but does not protect.

When your entire life is steeped in white supremacy, equality feels like discrimination.

Speaking of republicans, is there a way for a political party to declare intellectual bankruptcy?

It’s easy to sit in safety and prescribe what other people should be doing.

If senate republicans had any shame, they’d die of it.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

The GOP is a fucking disgrace.

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Just because you believe it, that doesn’t make it true.

Accountability, motherfuckers.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

So it was an October Surprise A Day, like an Advent calendar but for crime.

Let’s delete this post and never speak of this again.

The GOP couldn’t organize an orgy in a whorehouse with a fist full of 50s.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

They traffic in fear. it is their only currency. if we are fearful, they are winning.

A snarling mass of vitriolic jackals

Something needs to be done about our bogus SCOTUS.

You are here: Home / Civil Rights / Women's Rights / The War On Women / Through a Woman’s Eyes

Through a Woman’s Eyes

by | 248 Comments

This post is in: ,

Elle Casey on Facebook:

I wish every man in the entire world would read this. Men, walk in our shoes for just 30 seconds by reading this post.  Guys ask why women are so pissed off. Even guys with wives and daughters.

Jackson Katz, a prominent social researcher, illustrates why. He’s done it with hundreds of audiences:

“I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other.

Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they’ve been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, ‘I stay out of prison.’ This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, ‘Nothing. I don’t think about it.’

Then I ask the women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine.

  • Hold my keys as a potential weapon.
  • Look in the back seat of the car before getting in.
  • Carry a cell phone.
  • Don’t go jogging at night.
  • Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights.
  • Be careful not to drink too much.
  • Don’t put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured.
  • Own a big dog.
  • Carry Mace or pepper spray.
  • Have an unlisted phone number.
  • Have a man’s voice on my answering machine.
  • Park in well-lit areas.
  • Don’t use parking garages.
  • Don’t get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men.
  • Vary my route home from work.
  • Watch what I wear.
  • Don’t use highway rest areas.
  • Use a home alarm system.
  • Don’t wear headphones when jogging.
  • Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime.
  • Don’t take a first-floor apartment.
  • Go out in groups.
  • Own a firearm.
  • Meet men on first dates in public places.
  • Make sure to have a car or cab fare.
  • Don’t make eye contact with men on the street.
  • Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.”

― Jackson Katz, The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help

(The first man to minor in women’s studies at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, holds a master’s degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and a Ph.D. in cultural studies and education from UCLA.)

Reader Interactions

248Comments

  1. 1.

    Nicole

    Yeah. I haven’t had nearly the experiences many of the women commenters here, and many of my dear friends, have had, but I’ve some, as awful as it sounds to say, garden variety experiences (since when should anything sexually assault or harassment related be considered “garden variety” and yet, so much of it is). I started telling them to my husband a few nights ago, and he was horrified. And I appreciated his reaction, and at the same time I was angry, because this is the world women live in, and I can’t imagine how lovely it must be to go through life so ignorant of it.

  2. 2.

    Nicole

    (and because I know he often reads balloon-juice: I wasn’t mad at you, honey. Just the state of the world) ;)

  3. 3.

    Leto

    Vermont’s only black female state representative resigns after racial harassment, threats

    First came the racist tweets and the online threats.

    Then there were the swastikas on the trees.

    And then Kiah Morris said her home was invaded.

    For Morris, the only black woman in the Vermont House of Representatives, it became too much.

    The two-term representative from Bennington had spent the past two years enduring racial harassment and online threats that prompted an investigation by the Vermont Attorney General’s Office.

    At the same time, her husband needed open-heart surgery.

    And while she had planned to not seek reelection and to finish her term, by Sept. 25 Morris had made up her mind: She would resign, effective immediately.

    “The sacrifices were becoming too great,” Morris told The Washington Post on Thursday morning. Her family, she said, will remain her “100 percent focus” moving forward.

    Morris’s resignation leaves Rep. Kevin Christie (D) the single black representative in the Vermont House, one of just four people of color in the overwhelmingly white Vermont Legislature in a 94 percent white state.

    Morris, who defined her four-year tenure as an advocate for racial justice, women’s and workers’ rights, and health-care access, was elected to the House in 2014 and again in 2016. Fellow lawmakers, such as state Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), said it would be “hard to match her enthusiasm and commitment,” the Bennington Banner reported.

    The racial harassment Morris said she experienced began during her 2016 reelection campaign, coinciding with what Morris described as a visible rise of white supremacy in her area during the presidential campaign. Neo-Nazi propaganda started showing up at the door of the Bennington Democratic Party office, she said. Neo-Nazi recruitment fliers were left all over town.

    And then, in the days after Morris won the Democratic primary that August, she logged onto Twitter to find a photo showing an offensive caricature of a black person, accompanied by vulgar language that read in part, “I be representin dem white m—–f—–s of Bennington,” as reported by the Berkshire Eagle. The Twitter user, identified as Max Misch, told the Eagle he was “demonstrating the absurdity of a black woman being a Vermont state representative” in a predominantly white district. A judge would later issue a protective stalking order against Misch, requiring him to stay away from Morris, the Bennington Banner reported.

    …..

    Once their home was vandalized that fall, she said, once the tree trunks nearby were defaced with swastikas, it was like they couldn’t escape it.

    More recently, she said, as online racial abuse picked up ahead of her reelection campaign this year, her family received a death threat — which she said her 7-year-old son saw.

    “When I looked at all of this in the aggregate and realized the severity of what we could be facing,” she said, “I knew I needed to focus on my family and our safety. As a black mother, it’s my role to emulate the strength and courage that’s necessary to deal with a world that’s not rehearsed at dealing with issues of race, that in many ways is stacked against people of color, and those lessons about the threats to our lives that happen just because of our mere existence should not have to come in this format. It should not have to come into my son’s heart that way.”

  4. 4.

    skerry

    This is the female equivalent of “the talk” that POC have with their children.

    I pushed this list into my girls’ heads.

  10. 10.

    stinger

    Yep. Yep. Yep.

    Another way to do this would be to ask the men to raise their hands if they routinely, or ever, do #1, then ask the women to raise their hands if they do it. The same on down the list. Most men would seldom raise a hand at any of these; most women would basically sit there with their hands up. WE have to do them ALL, ALL the time. We have to think about the possibility of sexual assault all the time, and constantly do what little we can to guard against it. But it’s the thinking about it all the time that really gets you down.

    The examples I use when trying to tell a male friend/relative is that I NEVER step outside of a restaurant at night without having my keys in my hand — ready both to unlock the car the minute I reach it, and to use as a weapon if needed. And if other women are driving off alone, I NEVER leave the parking lot without seeing that their engines start and their cars move. And I can tell that they are doing the same for me.

  11. 11.

    jamey

    I wasn’t rapey as a youth, and was generally a decent guy, though I definitely absorbed and embraced a lot of the shitty attitudes toward women that were prevalent at the time (the ’80s) and took me years to unlearn.

    And the point to this is: So fucking what. For a few months now, it all keeps coming back to that one thing; the prism through which I now see the world: That a majority of women have been or will be assaulted or harrassed in their lifetimes.

    So as I was walking through the bus terminal this AM en route to the bike share that would transport me on the last leg of my commute, I just looked around and thought about the numbers: that between three and eight of every 10 women around me (source: NPR/StopStreetHarrassment.org) was at least one time touched, raped, catcalled, followed or otherwise abused.

    Fuck.

  12. 12.

    celticdragonchick

    I got a crash course on this when I transitioned as a trans woman.

    That feeling after being harassed? yeah. I’m a transgender woman. I had to learn about that invisible shield of male privilege I was giving up when I started counseling. So one night in Indianapolis I was going back to my hotel after a day at a convention….

    2) and I was a grocery store getting something to make for dinner and waiting for the hotel van. I was wearing a very nice grey skirt suit. Something you would see at a law office. As I waited, some skeezy guy in a beater car pulled up front and tried to proposition me.

    3) Nothing in my entire life had prepared me for the moment where I am standing in a public place, dressed professionally, and a guy in a car thinks I’m a hooker and wants me to blow him in his front seat. I cannot get that incident out of my mind.

    4) I reached into my bad, grabbed a utility knife I had, and walked to the other side of the store entrance. He slowly followed me in his car, leering and calling out. I have a back injury and could not realistically run away, so I kept hold of my knife …

    5) and prayed he wasn’t stupid enough to get out of the car and try to grab me, because I absolutely was going to kill him if he did. I was a helicopter door gunner in the army, and I had no doubt that I would eviscerate him if he presented a threat. Thank God He didn’t.

    6) That was my grand introduction to harassment and threats that women live with. I made sure to avoid public transportation if at all possible after that (even hotel busses, since you have to wait for them outside). It made me a believer.
    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1042795091671351296.html

  14. 14.

    Gex

    Keep in mind this is just the list for dealing with stranger danger. This doesn’t include the whole host of survival behaviors we have to have around the men in our lives. And that all exists on top of the non-sexual harassment and oppression dished out in academic, professional, and social settings that we must navigate to survive.

  15. 15.

    lamh36

    I’m tired. Can’t the 53% take the load this time? Like, my friends and I BEEN putting in work and we’re really tired. Exhausted. Always asked to work but no one says “What can I do for you?” Just “Thanks for the votes!”

    I watched Anita Hill, watched my mom cry at Anita HIll, watched her die an early death from trying to channel rage and help EVERYONE with no support.

    Can the more privileged of us opt to carry more load this time?

    https://twitter.com/angelanissel/status/1045689046540869632?s=21

    Signed: Black women voters!!

  18. 18.

    Martin

    Yesterday was my son’s first Women’s Studies class. He said it was the wildest start to a course he’s ever had. Probably ever will.

  19. 19.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Well, I splaining isn’t for boys any more…

    Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted?

    Don’t flinch, someone pushes me I push back harder, Don’t show any weakness as all. I get hurt I act angry.. You all do realize little lord Bretty and his frat boi bors spend most of their time metaphorically sodomizing each other? The guy’s a jerk off and a half so I am sure he’s woken up from benders with various things up shoved his ass as a “joke”, filled with rage and trying to take it out on anyone he thinks he can.

  21. 21.

    gene108

    I am feeling sort of stabby today. Why women across the country are not going on a murderous rampage is beyond me.

  22. 22.

    low-tech cyclist

    Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. I’m a 64 year old white guy, and never in my life have I taken any precautions to keep myself safe from sexual assault, or even remotely thought about it. I go jogging in the pre-dawn darkness, I go hiking through the woods by myself all the time, and when I was in my late teens and 20s, I used to walk through some rather iffy neighborhoods in DC and Hartford after dark without much thought – staying alert, of course, but not with trepidation.

    I am all too aware that if I were a woman, my world would be far more circumscribed, just as a matter of routine caution. The absence of having to constantly deal with that possible threat is a very real male privilege.

    And that’s even without considering the dozens of precautions on that list that women take in the places that they as well as I can go, that I don’t even need to think about.

    We’ve got to do something about this world. Not sure what, but it just shouldn’t keep on being like this.

  23. 23.

    celticdragonchick

    @gene108:
    Not really kidding. I own an honest to god combat grade claymore sword and I was ready to go old school Jacobite on some senators by 5:00 last night.

  25. 25.

    Omnes Omnibus

    I just called my senators. Got voicemail with Johnson and asked him to do the thing for once. Spoke to a staffer with Baldwin and told him I wanted Dems to pitch a fit. Noise and rage.

  26. 26.

    Leto

    Erin [email protected]
    Verified account

    You’re probably going to see a lot of women crying today. Just wanna note society doesn’t allow us to express our emotions through anger like they do men. So more often than not the emotion behind those tears is frustration from an inability to fully express incandescent rage.

    7:56 AM – 28 Sep 2018

  27. 27.

    Barbara

    My daughter called me last Saturday and as we were discussing what she was going to do that day she told me that she had decided not to take her dog to the dog park because the previous evening the only other person there was a man, without a dog, who began asking her extremely personal questions. She was so unnerved she decided not to go back in the evening. I have another friend who has a very large dog so that she feels like she can go for long walks in her wooded neighborhood park. I bet there are a lot of women, like me, who need to be reminded that they do things like this because they are so second nature they don’t even think about it anymore. It’s even worse when you talk to women from other countries — I once read that women in South Africa sometimes wear two and three sets of pantyhose to avoid being raped when they know they might be alone after dark.

  28. 28.

    stinger

    @low-tech cyclist: We (or I) tend that think that women who must wear burqas or niqabs and abayas lead circumscribed lives (good word, low-tech), but women everywhere lead lives that are more circumscribed than those of men.

  29. 29.

    Soprano2

    I told my husband that a key fob I can have in my purse that allows me to open my car door so that there is no chance I have to fumble with my keys makes me feel safer. He had no idea I even thought like that. I get impatient with him when he fumbles around for his keys after we get out of the car; I learned a long time ago to always have my keys in my hand before I get out of the car, and when I leave the house or wherever I am! That list should include taking a self-defense class; I took one when I was in my mid-20’s, and as best I can remember there were no men in the class. No one suggests to men that they need to take a self-defense class to be safer.

  32. 32.

    Barbara

    @gene108: From my perspective, really, I am trying not to obsessively follow the events, for work related and mental health related actions. I am thinking about how to channel the anger into a more constructive plan for the election. But I don’t hold it against anyone who really feels unable to do that.

  33. 33.

    Martin

    I learned all this in college. Went to a small school that was 85% female. That meant there were maybe 90 guys on campus. Every female student had our number by the end of the first semester. They knew which of us were problems and which weren’t. But it also meant that it was a safe campus for women, and it was a safe campus for LGBT students, which was very rare in the mid 90s. I didn’t know any openly gay students in high school, but I met a shit-ton in college.

    Most of my friend were female (hard not to be there) and because men had basically no power of numbers, and the population was small enough that everyone knew everyone else, over the course of 4 years my friends didn’t really change their conversations when I was around. It was really helpful as I learned a ton of stuff. They didn’t do much on campus for personal safety, but it seemed like nearly every outing was preceded by a collective reminder session of how to be safe. That’s where I learned about wearing a 1-piece bathing suit. What to watch out for, etc. It was eye opening to say the least. From that point forward I never turned someone down who asked to be walked to their car, to be driven home, whatever.

    I’ve repeated all that with my wife. And again with my daughter. If she wants snacks from 7-11 after dark, I go with her, no questions asked. I’ll tell you that it’s exhausting just doing those little things. I can’t imagine what it’s like having to have your guard up 24/7.

  34. 34.

    artem1s

    @celticdragonchick:

    3) Nothing in my entire life had prepared me for the moment where I am standing in a public place, dressed professionally, and a guy in a car thinks I’m a hooker and wants me to blow him in his front seat. I cannot get that incident out of my mind.

    OK I wasn’t dressed professionally just jeans and a t-shirt – the first time I was propositioned in public by a sleaze ball in a car, I was 12. I have never been able to get that out of my mind. welcome to our world. sorry.

  36. 36.

    The Dangerman

    Don’t go jogging at night.

    I had an interesting event I had 2 or 3 nights ago.

    I was driving around 9p (read: a little tired) when I saw two runners in the road in my lane. It was an odd place to be running (there is a nice sidewalk to the left of the road as I was driving) and i put on my brights as they were pretty much in an unsafe spot (there is no sidewalk on the right). It was a reasonably populated area but not “downtown”.

    Man (apparently) was trailing a woman (apparently) by a decent distance; 30 yards or so. His clothing reacted to my brights (it was runners reflective wear) and the woman didn’t really react at all. I didn’t think much about it until I was past them and thought, oh shit, maybe I better go back. I talked myself out of it because the woman, as mentioned, didn’t really react. I also live in a very, VERY safe area (with all due apologies to Rachel Newhouse; someone should have seen her and stopped her beyond the one who obviously did).

    So, I’d amend that statement; don’t run single file, man behind woman, in an odd location. Makes other drivers a little crazier than normal.

  39. 39.

    trollhattan

    @Cermet:
    That’s the bit I don’t get. “Dr.” Laura yesterday crystallized the mentality for me–FINALLY we had an assertive dude in Shouty Brett who didn’t take no crap from no Democrats or no lyin’ harpy–and so yet again, getting revenge on imaginary enemies proves a greater reward than addressing actual problems affecting real life. I’m sure your daughters thank you, Republican women.

  40. 40.

    BlueGirlFromWyo

    Me too Barbara but I know I need to vent before that step. I think a lot of us do.

    I’ve done everything on that list and more.

  42. 42.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Joe Donnelly’s a NO on Kavanaugh.

    I feel like we need to money-bomb these “Red State” Dems who do the right thing. My credit card’s groaning these days, but I’m gonna send him $25

  43. 43.

    gvg

    @Soprano2: Actually men aren’t allowed to take a lot of wonen’s self defense courses. My cousin is a cop and his wife teaches women’s self defense courses the local police sponsor. Male cops are sometimes the teachers, but the specifically exclude other men and they teach women to fight back dirty when that can work. It a hard kind of class because there are also times when giving in is the only way to survive, and other times when fighting hard and dirty is best.
    I don’t know if they address helping men who get stalked or something.

  44. 44.

    lamh36

    this means she a YES..

    SUSAN COLLINS just told me she hasn’t made up her mind yet on Brett Kavanaugh for SCOTUS.

    She declined to comment on the hearing yesterday.

    https://twitter.com/sahilkapur/status/1045695267012595712?s=21

    On the one hand, I understand if Dr Ford just wants to put this behind her…but on the other if (as it is likely the case had Kavanaugh is confirmed) she decided to go forward with pressing charges after the stuff about his calendar came out…it would be so satisfying

  46. 46.

    Miss Bianca

    @celticdragonchick: And you know, this is the thing…I’ve never, honestly, been able to figure out why a man would want to become a woman in this culture. I totally get it about wanting to trans the other way – thought about it often. I realize it’s probably just switching one whole set of gender-related problems for another but…seriously. I don’t get why any man would want to surrender all the cultural privilege and generally blissful *obliviousness* to the dangers of being a woman in this world to become one. I really, really don’t.

  48. 48.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: not hanging my hat on this, not for a moment, but last night Donnelly let it be known that he, Manchin, Collins and Murkowski were gonna hold hands and jump together

    Brian Beutler Retweeted Seung Min Kim
    This is very important if you think, as has been reported, that the final undecided votes are correlated.

    could just as well mean that C and M told him they couldn’t do it

  49. 49.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    So I just ran across something that may or may not be true – the reason that Dr Ford’s family has been so quiet is that he’s on the country club board and doesn’t want to mess that up. Apparently there is a relationship between the dads.

    Dad of the year, right there.

  52. 52.

    psycholinguist

    Avanatti says his witness is going to the press this weekend. That will be before the full senate vote, correct?

  53. 53.

    stinger

    @Soprano2:

    I learned a long time ago to always have my keys in my hand before I get out of the car, and when I leave the house or wherever I am!

    I know! And yet, when you think about it, a key or a handful of keys is a pretty pitiful weapon. Still, that’s been my ironclad rule for decades.

  54. 54.

    Obdurodon

    @The Dangerman: Yeah, that’s a tricky one. I often run in the early morning, or at other times when it’s mostly women out there. I have two routes that take me through woods. When I go out to California I use a trail (Stevens Creek in Mountain View) that’s even sketchier – lots of low-visibility spots and undergrowth. I’m well aware that I’m privileged to be able to do these things, and I *try* to be accommodating to the women I see out there. I’ve crossed the street (which I hate) or even chosen a different route to avoid coming up behind a lone woman I don’t know. Since I work at home and run often, there are a few that I see more often than I see my coworkers. Should I avoid them too? At the same time, I also want to be friendly and encouraging to people who are getting out and doing something healthy, so I often give a quick thumbs-up – no more! – to both men and women that I encounter. Should I not? I know it’s just one tiny slice of male/female interaction, but even there it can be hard to know what the right thing is. Suggestions from my fellow runners are welcome.

  56. 56.

    Kay

    @lamh36:

    Oh, good. They will punish him too. But love is stronger than hate and his base will love him. he should die on this hill. He won’t get a better one.

  57. 57.

    Miss Bianca

    @lamh36: Ouch.

    Yeah, as a white woman, I will state categorically that most of us suck. We identify with the oppressor because we think we’re going to get something out of it. What we get, in the end, is fucked, but that doesn’t always teach us.

    I am sorry. : (

  58. 58.

    Felanius Kootea

    @psycholinguist: Doesn’t matter. Now if she’s going to press charges and have a police investigation opened in MD today, that might make a difference. But then again, knowing Mitch McConnell, it probably would not. The Republicans are about wielding naked power and rubbing our faces in it right now. I know it will eventually come back to bite them and they know that too but all they care about at this time is the power they have right now.

  60. 60.

    cthulhu

    My sister was raped in college by a fellow student.

    When they were around 12, my wife and her friend were attacked by an older teen friend of a friend. They fought him off by kicking and punching as hard as they could and he eventually gave up. It might have been a different story had there only been one of them.

    My wife was also hit to the pavement by one jealous boyfriend.

    She was beaten by another boyfriend while they were driving (he pulled a serious amounts of hair out of her scalp) and she feared that he might drive them off a cliff.

    (I’ll note, none of this was reported to parents or authorities at the time it happened)

    These cases were where men were at fault

    My wife was also fired from a job she did well.

    Separately she was forced out of a place she was living.

    In both of these cases, there were leering husbands where the wives took this course of action. So these are cases of women enabling this BS.

    These are just some of the more extreme examples – the more minor stuff happens all the time.

    Men definitely have a lot to work on but any woman still in the GOP at this stage is an enabler.

  61. 61.

    SenyorDave

    I don’t think males will ever completely get this, and white males even less so. And I include myself. As I get older I start to understand it more, and in 10 years when I am 70 I’m sure I’ll get it even more. Not because I particularly think of the risk of sexual assault, but a mugging is certainly a possibility, and the me of 22 was a lot faster and stronger than the me at a few weeks from 60.
    Any senator who votes for Kavanaugh is a disgrace, but for a female senator to vote for him is just plain shameful.

  62. 62.

    Walker

    So here is a question. Asking because I am curious, not because I am nursing any hope here. There is a lot of opinion that a president cannot be arrested and can only be impeached. Is the same true of a Supreme Court Justice? If a Justice committed a felony, could you arrest him even if you could not get 66 senators to convict him?

  63. 63.

    lamh36

    ‪If Manchin votes YES… I don’t want to hear one more damn word from his “well we need his vote” or “hey he’s a red state Dem” defenders about SHIT! The choice is voting NO…and not allowing that trash Kavanaugh on SCOTUS for a lifetime…or maybe not winning re-election or having th SCOTUS fuq’ed up for a damn generation!

    There were reports that Murkowski, Donnelly, Collins, and Manchin were all voting together.

    I’m gonna be irritated if manchin votes yes to provide cover for Collins to vote no and then pence breaks the tie.

    *throws iPad into the hallway and slams door*
    https://twitter.com/angryblacklady/status/1045703648251191296?s=21

  64. 64.

    Gentex

    @Martin:

    This is not 100% true; this is absurd. Martial arts training for boys and men is absolutely related to the idea of self defense and personal safety.

    As a father of boys, their personal safety is a huge consideration. Being able to “handle yourself” for your own safety and the safety of others is not a foreign concept to men.

    Not trying to cause a false equivalence here, but this assertion is just nonsense.

  67. 67.

    Obdurodon

    @Felanius Kootea: I think you’re right that at least some of them know a reckoning will come. Maybe some of them cling to hopes of rigging the system enough that they can keep clinging on, but others are just determined to savor being on top as much as they can while it lasts. I like to think of it as the last meal of a man on death row, and I just can’t wait for the execution.

  68. 68.

    stinger

    @Miss Bianca: I’m totally supportive of celticdragonchick, Sister Golden Bear, and others, but yeah, the HUGE lessening of status, power, influence, and freedom must be an eye-opener.

  69. 69.

    Kay

    I do the auto manuevers- I don’t park in unlighted areas or use highway rest stops alone. I also have had actual internal debates about whether to NOT make eye contact or to make aggressive eye contact. I currently use aggressive eye contact because it feels more powerful and less cowering, but I’m open to science. If the other works better I’ll switch. I also sometimes obsess over my (grown) daughter’s safety in a way I don’t with my sons. It makes me feel bad because it feels like limiting her freedom, and her agency is important to me, but there it is. I ask her questions about her route to work (she works odd hours- hospitals) and I’m not actually interested in the bus system in Pittsburgh. I want to know where she;s waiting or standing. She’s smart. She probably knows what I’m really asking. The truth is she’s small and kind and that’s a risk factor for her.

  70. 70.

    guachi

    The takeaway I have from yesterday is, in short:

    We find your accusations credible. We just don’t care.

    The Republican response has largely (almost exclusively) included no attacks on the content or presentation of Dr. Blasey Ford’s testimony. The closest is Graham calling it “garbage” with no specifics.

    We find your accusations credible. We just don’t care.

    Opponents of Kavanaugh — Senators, you, me, millions of others — can point to specific things in Kavanaugh’s testimony and its presentation to show why we think he’s unqualified and a liar. Big difference.

    But…

    We find your accusations credible. We just don’t care.

  71. 71.

    FelonyGovt

    @TaMara (HFG): @lamh36: I have to think (hope) that more and more women will be incensed by this horrible dismissiveness and hostility and will be motivated to vote.

    And yes, complete agreement about the “how not to get attacked” list of precautions. I still follow many of them,and I’m almost 65.

  72. 72.

    Aleta

    Feeling the urge to look over your shoulder when you go down a hotel hallway or empty street at night.
    Enduring frequent internal debates, like whether to take a shortcut through the neighborhood park or swim at a favorite spot when it looks like no one’s there. You can do it but you won’t relax, you’ll rush through. Or you can let fear make you give up what you love.

    Never fully relaxing on your own street at night.
    .

  74. 74.

    PenAndKey

    @Obdurodon: I’ve got nothing for you. My default behavior since I’m an early 30s white guy who jogs solo is that if I’m on a trail coming up behind a woman I sprint like hell to get in front of them and call out that I’m passing. If we’re on the street I cross to the other side.

    Both are annoying and I hate having to do them since it’s hard to make friends when you purposely keep your distance, and my reactionary self-defensive hackles get raised when people tell I’m by default dangerous because my demographic is dangerous, but I get it. The only time I’ll even engage in conversation is when I’m alone and the women I’m talking with are in a group.

    Sometimes the only thing you can do is comport yourself so the people around you feel safe, even if it’s an inconvenience. In situations like that just remember that it’s not about you.

  75. 75.

    PK

    I am not an emotional person, but I sobbed when I heard the women who confronted Jeff Flake today. I was crying for the 15 year old Dr Ford. Kavannaugh tried to rape her and Judge held her down. They laughed at her. 30 years later republicans in the US senate laughed with them. I cry for all the young girls and women.

  76. 76.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @Walker: IANAL but I understand it’s a truism that prosecutors don’t take cases they can’t win, and a sitting justice is a high bar. If I’m BK (again, IANAL) I’m scared shitless of a civil suit, of someone like Avenattie doing crowd-funded discovery. I can’t see Dr Ford doing it, but if someone else does, it’s Katie, bar the door. Lindsey Graham won’t be able to protect him.

  78. 78.

    Miss Bianca

    @stinger: Yeah, I didn’t mean to sound judgy about their choices – and hey, I will never say no to more women in the world. Just that having been a woman all my life – and a WASP woman privy to the kind of power structure that puts the Kavanaughs of the world on top – but not a *real* part of it, because, you know, lady parts – I’m just saying that I don’t get it. I guess that’s what Dr. Freud meant by P!nis Envy. ; )

  79. 79.

    Dorothy A. Winsor

    This is interesting.

    WSJ: Mitchell advised Republicans that to continue questioning Kavanaugh she was required by her oath in Arizona to inform Kavanaugh of his rights after he lied to her about July 1, 1982 entry on his calender. Maryland statutes was last question she asked, then break was called..— Alan Covington (@Alan_Covington) September 28, 2018

    It would be lovely if it mattered.

  81. 81.

    Hungry Joe

    One night, some years ago, I was walking to my car. No one around. I realized that I was very concerned about two things: 1) the drive home — traffic was heavy; and 2) how lousy the Padres were doing. Those were the only things on my mind. I looked around and tried to imagine the scene from a woman’s point of view. Pretty scary … but only intellectually: I couldn’t FEEL it. Not long after that I was in a similar situation, but there a woman walking nearby. We were on trajectories that would intersect. The only thing I could think to do was make a big deal of stopping and snapping my fingers as if I’d forgotten something, then walk back to the building I’d just left.

    I’m some sensitive dude, huh? But not really, not so much. For the most part I just amble obliviously through my privileged, un-threatened life.

  83. 83.

    Nicole

    @Obdurodon: My advice would be to react to women you encounter jogging exactly the same way you would men. If you give a thumbs’ up to a man, then sure, give it to a woman. If you make eye contact, nod and go on, do that. If you ignore, do that.

    Mainly, don’t do anything that expects a response and don’t take it personally if you don’t get one.

    And whatever you do, don’t be the 12-year-old boy who, after I passed him while I was running, said to his friend, “I’d hit that.” OH MY GOD YOU ARE A CHILD AND I AM OLD ENOUGH TO BE YOUR MOTHER.

    That was 8 years ago, but I still remember. I bet that kid is now a young man who believed Kavanaugh.

  84. 84.

    jacy

    @lamh36:

    Those 4 don’t have to vote exactly “no,” they just have to vote a conditional “no” without a 1 week FBI investigation. That seems, really, like the least dangerous option for them. It gives them a figleaf.

  85. 85.

    stinger

    @Obdurodon: Just my personal opinion, but a thumbs-up could be taken as “nice ass” or a condescending approval. (I’ve had younger women bicycle past me, a clearly older woman slowly jogging, and for some reason they feel they should shout, “Good for you!” Honey, I’ve been doing my daily run on this route since before you were born, and I don’t need your patronizing encouragement.)

    The greeting/acknowledgment I’m most comfortable with in such a situation is a simple ” ‘morning”. Thank you for asking for women’s input.

  86. 86.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Leto:

    The Twitter user, identified as Max Misch, told the Eagle he was “demonstrating the absurdity of a black woman being a Vermont state representative” in a predominantly white district.

    But remember, Democrats are the ones who obsess over “identity politics”!

  87. 87.

    Jinchi

    @Soprano2: Not true. Most men don’t worry about sexual assault, but plenty get threatened, almost always by men who are bigger or stronger or in a group. (Attackers never want a fair fight).

    I was regularly threatened during high school and I learned self-defense explicitly for that reason.

  88. 88.

    lamh36

    FUQN COWARD!!!

    I hope he’s hearing the assault survivors voice in his head until his dying day!!

    Ok this is weird. Every senator on Judiciary Committee is giving closing statements of sorts, but Jeff Flake was just skipped over and now he’s walking out of the hearing room. So he’s just going to say nothing about why he decided to support Kavanaugh?

    Grassley skipped right over Flake to the next Republican, Mike Crapo who looked confused and asked Flake if he wanted to talk. Flake held up his hand and shook his head no, then got up and left.
    https://twitter.com/pdmcleod/status/1045709215539621895?s=21

  89. 89.

    Obdurodon

    @Hungry Joe: I do wonder whether *that* might have seemed suspicious. Maybe it would have been better to make a point of staying in plain sight, but keeping your distance. Or maybe not. That’s the thing: sometimes it’s really not “just common sense” as some would undoubtedly say. If I see a woman *possibly* in danger but I’m not sure, my natural inclination is to offer assistance but I have to be fully prepared to have my actions interpreted as threatening in their own right. Perhaps there should be a companion list to this one, of things men should do to improve women’s safety or at least allay their suspicions, because even the woke ones don’t always know and the majority are *utterly* clueless.

  90. 90.

    debit

    @stinger: It could just be the practice of general encouragement so many cyclists seem to take part in. I get a lot of “good job!” as I’m passed and try to take it in the spirit (I assume) it’s meant. In reality, it does feel condescending. I’d much rather get a “on your left” or “passing” as they go by.

  94. 94.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    Couple of things:

    1. A number of people have talked about Maryland prosecuting him. That’s a fools’ errand. As a criminal act, it would be a weak set of facts at best – practically impossible to meet the burden, particularly on a juvenile crime (and that does not address the notion of the age of the claims).

    2. I’m pretty forgiving on notions of juvenile crime. I think that a lot of highly paid commentators were off in the weeds and discarding several decades’ worth of research on juvenile justice and developmental psychology. Had he approached this correctly – he wouldn’t even have to admit it – I’d have been inclined to say “he’s an asshole and shouldn’t have the job, but he’s not a psychotic piece of shit who should get locked into a small room”. Instead, he demonstrated extreme partisanship, churlishness and rage, all of which are disqualifying in ANY judicial officer. Any republican could run to that as a reason to vote “no”.

  95. 95.

    The Dangerman

    @Obdurodon:

    I’ve crossed the street (which I hate) or even chosen a different route to avoid coming up behind a lone woman I don’t know.

    Yeah, me too. I don’t really hate it; it’s a bit of a courtesy really. I, as a Man, would think women would appreciate the courtesy.

    I do a fair amount of hiking and hate it when I cross paths with a lone woman; I’m 6′ 7″ and I’ve been told I’m a little intimidating. I give as wide a berth as possible if it isn’t a cliff.

    The Tall thing works in my favor, too, in these kind of situations; once, I was walking with a grad school classmate in downtown SF and she was dressed to kill. I stayed fairly close to her, maybe even closer than just a Friend should, and I think she appreciated it. Also, a Ranger once told me Mountain Lions might be a little intimidated by my size so that’s cool too (that might be BS, but she said it’s mostly kids and dogs that need to be worried).

  96. 96.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    (Surfaces, looks around, sees that a floor vote hasn’t happened yet, sends money to Emily’s List and Act Blue and ducks back into cave)

  97. 97.

    Kay

    Rebecca Ballhaus
    ‏Verified account
    @rebeccaballhaus
    20m20 minutes ago
    More
    Yale Law School—where Kavanaugh said yesterday he got admitted by “busting my tail in college”—calls for an “additional investigation” into the allegations, saying proceeding without doing so is “not in the best interest of the Court or our profession.”

    ha ha. Someone apparently overruled Tiger Mom. As much as he bragged about his grades this has to smart.

  99. 99.

    Elizabelle

    Haven’t hit them all, but Murkowski’s voice mailboxes are full. Did leave one courteous and earnest message on the Ketchikan VM — joint office for the Alaska delegation.

    Phone: (907) 225-6880
    Fax:(877) 857-0322

  100. 100.

    Obdurodon

    @The Dangerman: I don’t hate road crossings because I’m doing them for someone else’s benefit. I hate them because they involve extra effort, and some (tiny) risk. They could mess up my pace, which I like to keep track of, or even deny me credit for a run on a course where I’m gunning for the leaderboard. All small things, I know. TBH crossing the street so a woman can feel safer is one of the *best* reasons to do it. Better than doing it so a careless driver or cyclist doesn’t run me down, or because some landscaper/contractor was too lazy to get his truck all the way off the street.

  101. 101.

    The Dangerman

    @Dorothy A. Winsor:

    Mitchell advised Republicans that to continue questioning Kavanaugh she was required by her oath in Arizona to inform Kavanaugh of his rights after he lied to her about July 1, 1982 entry on his calender. Maryland statutes was last question she asked, then break was called.

    As I posted last night, her departure was way odd; now, we may know why. Shit, her reading him the riot act would have been sweet. Also, in retrospect, when BK insulted Klobuchar (sp?), the Senator should have outright asked him if he’d been drinking yesterday.

    I’m fairly sure BK has no memory of the event. I’m also 99.9% sure that he has consumed to blackouts with his buddy Judge. I’m 100% sure he’s a liar (“boofy” is NOT flatulence).

  102. 102.

    Kay

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    You probably know this but sexual harassment is a big issue in public schools. They approach it in a way that garners a lot of support- they make it about girls’ ability to do what they come to school for- learn something and get their work done. There are the rump wingnuts who insist it’s fine to just be bugging the shit out of girls but they’re the same people who opposed anti-bullying initiatives and the thing about those is- they work. They DO stop hurting each other. You tell them there’s a higher standard and enforce it and they rise to meet it. They’ll meet this one too. It’s better. Beating people up at school was bad and a detriment to their education – their work. People know that now.

  104. 104.

    stinger

    @PenAndKey:

    my reactionary self-defensive hackles get raised when people tell I’m by default dangerous because my demographic is dangerous

    I understand that. I sometimes have a hard time feeling that I am privileged, as a white person, because I experience so much negative treatment as a woman. But I am privileged.

  105. 105.

    r€nato

    I have asked a similar question of those who are angered by #BLM.

    “How old were you when your folks sat you down for ‘the talk’?”

    “What TF are you talking about? The birds and the bees?”

    “No. The talk about how to interact with law enforcement so that you don’t end up in prison or dead because you didn’t show enough deference to the cops or just for being black in the wrong place.”

    Almost all the time the other person loses it.

  107. 107.

    bluefoot

    @artem1s: do you remember the what I was wearing Twitter hashtag from a while back? People were tweeting what they were wearing the first time they were raped or assaulted. A very high percentage were things like “footie pajamas” “Disney princess dress”….so many young girls.

    It’s also partly why I skeptical the the report rate for sexual assault and rape is 30%. In my experience, that is way too high.

  108. 108.

    schrodingers_cat

    Devil’s triangle is not a drinking game, and not a threesome either, which makes little sense. The definition I have come across is the woman is the devil and triangle represents 3 points on her body where she can be forcibly penetrated.

  109. 109.

    West of the Rockies

    I watched the Flake elevator encounter. Republicans, to their peril, can ignore the pain, disbelief, and rage in that woman’s voice. I think the #Me Too movement has just been turned up to 11. I hope the whole damn party ruptures.

  110. 110.

    Millard Filmore

    @stinger:

    And yet, when you think about it, a key or a handful of keys is a pretty pitiful weapon.

    If you come to a situation where you you think you will be that close to the attacker, put a bunch of coins in the other hand. To throw at his face, make him blink. That will give you at least a second’s worth of advantage to use the keys.

    I am a lightweight male, my rule for fighting is:
    Fight to kill, cheat like hell.

  111. 111.

    rikyrah

    I never unlock my door if I can literally SEE a man walking up or down the street. I will wait until he passes.
    I have three deadbolts, and there’s no way that I can get them all open that fast. I will do the first one, and then have the key for the second one in hand as he walks by.

  116. 116.

    Yutsano

    I have similar experiences as a gay man. But this is the time I sit back, shut up and LISTEN. It’s not about me. It’s about the pain women experience just existing. And I’m not going to pretend I understand that exhaustion. But I’m going to listen and learn.

  118. 118.

    PenAndKey

    @stinger: This, absolutely. I’m currently a fit, middle class, heterosexual white guy in a predominantly white part of the country. Literally the only things that are minority status for me are that I’m a liberal and I’m an atheist. Neither of those are outwardly visible so I never have to worry about them being an issue unless it’s on my terms.

    I grew up dirt poor and wasn’t able to go to college until I was 25 because of it, so I’m keenly aware of the class privilege I never had (but get accused of frequently these days), but given all the other privileges in my life I find it best just to disengage when I’m lumped in with the trolls I look like. If that’s what it takes for people to feel safe it’s no real burden for me, and even when it is, it’s seldom major.

  119. 119.

    D58826

    I realize this is probably an oversimplification of a very complex and emotional process on Dr. Ford’s part but why come forward with this story if it is a pack of lies. What does she have to gain? A book deal? A TV sit-com?. Given BK’s connections he can have her stored checked a dozen ways from Sunday. She has everything to lose and nothing to gain.

    On the other hand BK has a SCOTUS seat to gain by lying.

  121. 121.

    Emma

    @Millard Filmore: I was taught by an older (male) friend when I was a teenager. Do something to get them distracted, then go for it. Keys to the throat or eyes, sharp stab. Heel to the groin. Break their nose. Claw their eyes, if you don’t have keys. And then run like hell.

    I was terrified. But at least once his instructions saved me.

  122. 122.

    Miss Bianca

    Well, for what it’s worth, here’s the fax I sent to Cory Gardner this morning:

    Dear Senator Gardner,

    I watched the Kavanaugh hearings yesterday. If that man wasn’t drunk at his hearing, then he has other serious mental issues that preclude him from an appointment to the Supreme Court. Anger issues, emotional control issues, misogyny, naked partisanship – all on display. The man isn’t fit to be a pool cleaner, let alone a Supreme Court Justice. That appointment is a privilege, not a right. Although that son of privilege seems to consider it his right, it is not. And you and other Republicans need to step up to the plate and recognize that.

    I’m pretty sure he was drunk, and is a serious alcoholic. I recognize the signs. My father was an alcoholic too – tho’ he sobered up before he died – and was also the product of that toxic WASP/prep school/Yale cycle, but at least he had a powerful intellect, a bitchin’ sense of humor, and the dignity not to ever pull the weepy Drunk Daddy routine where he blames the whole rest of the world for his failings. I think he, a life-long Republican, would have been livid at that display.

    Vote ‘No’ on Kavanaugh’s appointment, Senator – at least until there’s been a full FBI investigation on the charges that Dr. Blasey Ford and others have brought against him. Your constituent Deborah Ramirez deserves at least that much.

    Regards,

    MB

  124. 124.

    r€nato

    @D58826: for the ‘stick it to the libs’ crowd, it’s good enough to say, “she’s a liberal Democratic activist from California, you can’t believe anything she says!!!”

  126. 126.

    PenAndKey

    @Millard Filmore: my father always used to tell me, having grown up in Elkhart, Indiana (violent shit hole of Lake Michigan) that the only good fight was the one that never happened. After that, it’s the one you walk away from and the other side doesn’t.

    He and I are both 5’9″ and 170lb soaking wet, so fighting dirty is the only option against other guys so that’s how I was taught. Honor has no place in a self defensive fight.

  127. 127.

    Ksmiami

    @Miss Bianca: as I told my husband, white Republican women are brain dead and that’s why I’m not friends with any of them anymore. It’s just a bridge too far.

  128. 128.

    bemused

    Even when out and about during the day, I practice dual vision. I check out my perimeters in parking lots, other spaces with few people, etc while at the same time deliberately not looking passing men in the eye even in stores unless I feel they are entirely harmless, like a very senior citizen.

    I’m an old but it’s a life long habit.

  129. 129.

    Calouste

    @Jinchi: Yes, the whole thing isn’t just men, it’s white (upper) middle class suburban isolated college campus men (like Brett Kavanaugh). Of course the risk of sexual assault is minimal for most men, but the risk of getting a beating or being mugged is non-zero outside that bubble. I don’t do all the things that the women list at top, but I definitely make sure the windows are closed, because I have been robbed in my own home by someone who snuck in through an open window. Also, I went to a university in Europe, with most of the student nightlife right in the city, and students were regularly warned to go home in pairs at night because otherwise they would be beaten up by townies.

  130. 130.

    jacy

    @Millard Filmore:

    The thing that was always drummed into my head is that if a man tries to force you into a car, make him kill you before that. Because if he gets you into the car, you’re dead anyway. Scream, fight, whatever you can do. That’s internalized. That has always just seemed to me to be a truth, like the tides.

  131. 131.

    Kay

    @schrodingers_cat:

    AP:

    Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh misrepresented the record Thursday when he stated that three witnesses have refuted Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation that he sexually assaulted her at a party more than 30 years ago.
    The three swore they had no recollection of the party — providing no support for Ford’s accusations laid out to the Senate Judiciary Committee. But their statements do not disprove the allegations, either.
    KAVANAUGH: “Dr. Ford’s allegations are not merely uncorroborated, it’s refuted by the very people she says were there.”

    They never should have let him characterize the statements rather than read them but they probably didn’t anticipate he would lie so blatantly. When I heard it I was thinking about the people who made the statements. They know. He just doesn’t care that they know he’s a liar. It’s kind of a dirty trick to them. He made them complict in his lie. There are hundreds of people at this point who have real knowlege that he’s a liar, if you include all the people who drank with him or around him. It’s extraordinary. You could fill a room with witnesses on his lack of credibility. One after another.

  132. 132.

    dww44

    @Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes:

    Any republican could run to that as a reason to vote “no”.

    You are correct, of course, but it’s not gonna happen because all the GOP’ers have had the figuratively, perhaps literally, screws put to them by the leadership and by the big money interests. The GOP is a wholly owned subsidiary and there’s no weakly independent Senator who can withstand the onslaught.

  133. 133.

    Major Major Major Major

    Some years ago I was jumped and beaten up randomly while walking home at night. Once the acute PTSD settled down into lower grade chronic PTSD I had to do many of the things listed here to feel safe. Reading the thread I realized that’s gone away finally, some time in the last couple years. But having to feel that way your whole life…

  134. 134.

    Nicole

    @PenAndKey:

    Sometimes the only thing you can do is comport yourself so the people around you feel safe, even if it’s an inconvenience. In situations like that just remember that it’s not about you.

    If it’s any consolation, African Americans have to do that all the time. I remember when friends of mine would express frustration with Obama’s mild temperament, no matter what was thrown at him, and I couldn’t help but notice all of said friends were white and male.

    Thank you for putting the effort to think of others’ comfort. It’s rarer than one might expect.

  135. 135.

    Lalophobia

    My last job I worked as a solicitor. The first week I was going around from house to house with a guy who was showing me the ropes. Every day you had to come into the office and they’d give you variations on the same spiels over and over again: rebuttals, ways to circumvent questioning and arguments before they happen, how important it was to keep a good attitude, etc. Safety never came up, which I thought was very weird. One of the ”good signs” (signs that the person was receptive to your pitch) was that they’d invite you in to their house. And I asked the guy who was teaching me if there were any extra lessons or strategies, especially for women, to avoid bad things happening to them when they were out on their own. Guy didn’t understand what I was talking about.

    Second neighborhood I hit on my own I was walking up to a porch with a glass see through sliding door and the guy on the other side of it pointed a shotgun at me. I didn’t know what it was at the time (I had never seen a shot gun before in real life) but I knew what it looked like so I bolted. No one had told me anything about what to do if that happened, I needed the money, so assumed that the policy was that if something like this happened it was your own tough luck. A couple hours later the guy drives up to me in his truck, tells me he’s the one that pointed a shotgun at me, asks me what I’m doing there and drives me out of the neighborhood. I call my guy to come pick me up and after the nut case drives me a ways out of the neighborhood we meet up, drive away and call the police.

    My guy and our boss don’t seem to understand why I didn’t inform them right away. The answer “You never told me what you would want me to do in this situation” is so obvious to me (in a water is wet kind of way) but I still try to get through to them about it anyway. When I get back to the office I eventually talk to one of the admins (who are all or mostly female from what I can see) and she gets it right away, because she used to be a solicitor and tells me that a lot of the admins who used to be solicitors had problems with people not letting them out of their homes, following them in cars, calling them names, etc. She also tells me that this particular office is not only new but started out with a core group of XY carriers, so the rules were set on that baseline. So we’re dealing with obliviousness, at best. We talk about a bunch of stuff, but one thing she does is tell my guy that he has to be working neighborhoods that are closer to mine.

    The guy who was teaching me was supportive while all the bad stuff was going down, but on hearing this he says he was only five minutes away. She says that doesn’t matter and while I don’t say anything (I am very bad at voicing my thoughts at the right time) I think to myself that it takes less than that to get assaulted or hurt. Later on, even after she says that, he says to me privately that he really didn’t think he was that far away, and at one point as we were talking about deals I didn’t make in that neighborhood, he seems to suggest going back there to rehash with a sale I almost made. I tell him straight up I’m not going back there. (Really, it was a terrible neighborhood for sales even without the psycho in it, anyway. Which was his fault because he picked it. I’d would’ve been a waste of time just on purely practical level.)

    The cops told me because I waited so long to call it’d be a problem. Asked me if I wanted to press charges. I said yes because I worried about the other people in that neighborhood. Guy who was teaching me said he got a call back from the police. They never called me back.

  136. 136.

    Calouste

    @The Dangerman: BK said “Devil’s triangle” was a drinking game. I have taken part in drinking games often in university, and the result has always been that people got very drunk and probably blacked out, because that is the sole purpose of a drinking game.

  140. 140.

    khead

    I’d like to take this opportunity to thank PenAndKey and Obdurodon for their many sacrifices on the jogging trail.

  141. 141.

    D58826

    @Calouste: On ocassion this male had to drive home at night thru a bad part of town. Summer. car did not have ac. windows rolled up tight!!!!

  142. 142.

    Gelfling 545

    @stinger: Still, as a cisgender woman, I for one would not want to be male, in spite of their self asserted privilege. It is who I am and I mostly like that person. I’m guessing that it might be similar for trans women: knowing who one is and desiring to live that way even when it’s harder to do than it should be. Obviously, this is a mere assumption on my part. Feel free to tell me if I’m talking through my hat.

  143. 143.

    lamh36

    Grassley just announced: “We’ll stand at ease until the fall of the gavel.” This is unusual. Flake is the only committee member who hasn’t spoken.

    everyone Wondering what it means

  144. 144.

    Miss Bianca

    @Sister Golden Bear: Debit made a similar point, so all I will say is: On one level, I don’t get it, but on another level, I *do get it. I’ve always felt like a man trapped in a woman’s body, myself, but I’ve made my peace with it. I admire your guts.

  145. 145.

    Aleta

    Kav demonstrated his bias and paranoia toward Democrats yesterday, which should also keep him off the SC. Is it enough to remove him from any bench whenever a Democratic president/governor is DOJ is arguing in court? How can someone get a fair hearing from a man who claims he’s being mocked or targeted during proper, polite questioning? ‘He’s careful to be apolitical’ — another lie.

  146. 146.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: Happy to even though I can’t really afford it till a check comes in on Monday. I understand from thousands of pleading emails that end of month FEC reports are a big deal, so I’m happy to boost those end of month numbers and send the message.

  147. 147.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Burgess Everett @ burgessev
    “I’m a single white man from South Carolina and I’m told I should shut up. But I will not shut up, if that’s OK,” Graham says.

    Just a US Senator with walk-in privileges to the Oval Office, struggling to get by in this socialist matriarchy where white people are the real victims of racism

  149. 149.

    PenAndKey

    @khead: Would you rather we not care and blissfully ignore the fact that our mere presence as solitary men on the trail is uncomfortable for some people because it triggers fight/flight responses for them?

  150. 150.

    guachi

    There’s such an easy out for Republicans. Demand that in the interest of justice and due process that the Senator shall be a ‘no’ vote until there is a further inquiry by the FBI. Wrap it up in words that show you are doing this for Kavanaugh and his reputation.

    Kavanaugh deserves a full investigation!!!

    Easy!

  152. 152.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    @lamh36: everyone Wondering what it means

    not me, he’s gonna go gaze admiringly, longingly, at his sad face in the mirror(s) in his office, maybe get out quill and parchment to draft his very important statement of how he must, verily, he must, by James Madison’s knickers! stand up to Donald trump by voting for Brett Kavanaugh

  153. 153.

    TenguPhule

    That entitled prick Grassley is requesting Farmer bailout money (the one for the tariffs).

    And so is Jon Tester.

    Mueller, please finish before the Republic burns to the ground.

  155. 155.

    Mnemosyne

    @celticdragonchick:

    I only mean this half-facetiously — that was the day you truly became a woman. You are fully in the sisterhood, and never let some bigoted asshole tell you otherwise. ?

  157. 157.

    Elizabelle

    @guachi: Just got through to Susan Collins’ office in Lewiston; talked to a very kind gentleman who says they do pass along all the messages. Asked for a delay for a full FBI investigation, if she can’t do an outright NO at this time, and also noted how Sandra Day O’Connor said many years later that she regretted her Bush v Gore vote, but something like that is something you can never undo.

    Lewiston, ME office: (207) 784-6969

  159. 159.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    I’m smelling some kind of deal, a three day FBI inquiry if Manchin and a couple others pledge to vote yes on day 4

    (yes that is totally uninformed speculation, Balloon Juice, as it were)

  160. 160.

    Miss Bianca

    @Enhanced Voting Techniques: Yeah, that’s kind of how I deal with it. Even if I’m quaking inside, I am Roaring Girl on the outside, and it seems to work. Apparently, or so I’ve been told, I have Resting Bitch Face. I hope that means that when I ‘m angry…really, really, Bruce Banner level angry (or scared)…that I look fucking terrifying. Because I have gotten a couple assholes to suddenly think better of furthering their attempts at messing with me.

  162. 162.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist:
    Some idiot on the radio last week took a similar tack. They don’t understand (or refuse to) the concept of privilege or even the basic idea that you should try to actually listen to others.

    I don’t get Graham. Why did he turn into such a MAGA cheerleader the past few months? Afraid of getting primaried from his right or something?

    Is Graham the canary in the coalmine that this new right-wing populism isn’t going away anytime soon?

  164. 164.

    lamh36

    @pdmcleod
    10m10 minutes ago
    More
    A bunch of Democrats just came back in. Some Republicans, Cornyn and Ted Cruz I could make out, are talking to Flake.

    HUH Whitehouse says “given what’s happening in the end room” the vote needs to be delayed.

    @pdmcleod
    Follow Follow @pdmcleod
    More
    My God, Flake may actually be on the brink of changing his vote.

    @pdmcleod
    7m7 minutes ago
    More
    Am told CNN is reporting Collins and Murkowski, the other potential GOP swing votes, are also here talking with Flake, though I haven’t spotted them from my vantage point into the room.

    @pdmcleod
    5m5 minutes ago
    More
    Di-Fi and Grassley huddling, several other senators checking their phones. Looks like they’re all waiting on which way Flake comes down.

    @pdmcleod
    2m2 minutes ago
    More
    Republicans do not look thrilled, I’ll say that.

    https://twitter.com/pdmcleod/status/1045724087824330758

  165. 165.

    khead

    @PenAndKey:

    Sometimes the only thing you can do is comport yourself so the people around you feel safe, even if it’s an inconvenience. In situations like that just remember that it’s not about you.

    I suspect I’d be ok if you could just refrain from dropping gems like this one for the rest of the thread. Again, sorry for your inconvenience. See also @Nicole:

    Helpful hint: It’s not about you.

  166. 166.

    Elizabelle

    @Jim, Foolish Literalist: I want a full FBI investigation, and if it takes 2 weeks or longer, the Supreme Court demands it. (Seriously. Do you think they want this tainted jerk joining them? 5-3 they do not, I would guess. John Roberts may be concerned about a Trump get out of jail free card.)

    Thank Dog there is no jurisdiction for the whacks in the FBI field office.

  167. 167.

    Kayla Rudbek

    @stinger: yeah, I just ordered a set of 7” stiletto pointed knitting needles today. I bought the thickest ones the company sold.

  168. 168.

    lamh36

    Maybe Coons is telling his “close friend” WTF are you doing Jeff?

    Coons seemed overcome when he heard Flake was a Yes…

    @lrozen
    6m6 minutes ago
    More
    Coons and Flake are extremely close, @GarrettHaake says. They are apparently talking in the ante room.

  169. 169.

    WereBear

    @Barbara: My daughter called me last Saturday and as we were discussing what she was going to do that day she told me that she had decided not to take her dog to the dog park because the previous evening the only other person there was a man, without a dog, who began asking her extremely personal questions. She was so unnerved she decided not to go back in the evening.

    Yes. Just like that, a place or an activity can be crossed off our list forever.

  170. 170.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @khead:
    Dude, being a total ass right now. These are guys who are struggling with trying to be better people by not making women feel uncomfortable unintentionally and you’re poo-pooing that.

  171. 171.

    Martin

    @Gentex:

    This is not 100% true; this is absurd. Martial arts training for boys and men is absolutely related to the idea of self defense and personal safety.

    I don’t know any boys that were advised to take a self-defense class for this reason. Even the Karate Kid wasn’t – he asked himself. My son got his black belt, but it wasn’t for self defense, it was for self discipline and self confidence. I’m not saying that martial arts training isn’t useful for that purpose. I’m saying we don’t have a culture of actively advising boys to learn martial arts for self-defense. We advise it for a host of other reasons. For girls we advise it for self defense.

    I’ll note that he stopped after a particularly bad stretch of sparring. He was regularly paired up with a female student that was absolutely beating the shit out of him and he couldn’t bring himself to hit her back hard enough to get the upper hand. We even went through the process of having him ask her if it was okay if he hit her harder to which she responded ‘yeah, of course’, but he still couldn’t do it.

  172. 172.

    trollhattan

    Sen. Whitehouse:

    Whitehouse vowed to continue investigating Kavanaugh’s past — regardless of whether he’s ultimately confirmed.

    “We have done a botch of the investigation, over time I expect the facts to come out,” he said. “They have a way of doing that. Coverups never last. The sand is running through Kavanaugh’s hourglass, and I pledge whatever I can do to make sure that the truth of his conduct is ultimately determined.”

    Without control of the senate it’s hard to imagine the Dems launching an effective investigation, but should that change….

  174. 174.

    Miss Bianca

    @Mnemosyne: @celticdragonchick: Yep. That experience never leaves you.

    And in case that question I posed earlier sounded judgy, or snotty or something, let me hasten to say ‘Welcome to the sisterhood’, too, celticdragonchick. I wish every woman born a man would be able to do what you and SisterGoldenBear et al. have done. The world will be a better place when we all have the resources and the support to be exactly who we want and need to be.

    Unless you want to be a rapey whiny asshole like Brett Kavanaugh. *That* guy and his ilk can all go straight to hell where they belong.

  175. 175.

    ??? Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)  ??

    @lamh36:
    Fingers crossed, but maybe those sexual assault survivors actually had some kind of effect on the man. I’m hoping this is the case

  177. 177.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    I said this yesterday, but I suck at math because the boy who sat behind me in freshman algebra wouldn’t stop snapping my bra strap, and I was too embarrassed to tell the teacher why I wanted to move my seat. And I was too embarrassed to tell my parents that was why I was flunking.

  178. 178.

    Miss Bianca

    @khead: You seem like you’re edging into asshole territory here. Maybe you should stop paying so much attention to your RW buddies on FB.

  179. 179.

    Patricia Kayden

    @Leto: That’s horrible. Democrats in the state should have rallied around her because if she can be ousted like this so can any of them. According to the article, she felt as if she was on her own fighting racism.

  180. 180.

    stinger

    @debit:

    I’d much rather get a “on your left” or “passing” as they go by.

    Yes, those are good, if they’re coming up from behind. If they’re coming in the other direction, “Have a good day” or “Nice day for a ride/run” are fine too.

    It seems weird to me that I have so much to say on this subject! I guess a lifetime of experiences and no one really to talk to about them — no one I’m close to jogs.

  181. 181.

    PenAndKey

    @Mnemosyne: There is, that a segment of the male population is irredeemable violent and/or condones violence as a means of control. Who, but that segment, is arguing otherwise? Of that list in the main post I personally do 15 of them on a near daily basis and I’m as stereotypically white male as you can look.

    Just because Dr Katz can have an article about his talks that makes it seem like all guys are clueless and feel perfectly safe doesn’t make it true. Maybe it’s true of the college demographic he’s speaking to, but that’s inherently a privileged demographic that more that likely grew up in safe communities.

    I don’t know what it’s like to be a woman, but please don’t try to say that no men understand. Many of us do, and we’re pissed at what’s going on here right alongside you.

  184. 184.

    Elizabelle

    Heidi Heitkamp’s Senate website is down for “maintenance.” Will check again in a moment. Her Bismarck office number is busy.

  188. 188.

    D58826

    @Elizabelle:

    I would guess. John Roberts may be concerned about a Trump get out of jail free card.)

    Roberts is a lot of things, and I disagree with most of them, but he does care very much for the reputation of the court. I wonder if he is whispering in the ears of his GOP friends not to send this ticking time bomb to SCOTUS. There are enough Federalist Society judges who will write an opinion using the same logic a BK but w/o the baggage

  189. 189.

    Aleta

    At least 20 min ago :
    Sahil Kapur @sahilkapur
    JON TESTER IS A NO on Kavanaugh.

    I wonder if this is about the lies Kav told the questioner (ariz prosector) yesterday before Rs halted her.

  190. 190.

    lamh36

    @imillhiser
    3m3 minutes ago
    More
    I’m not willing to invest one ounce of emotional energy into hoping that Jeff Flake does the right thing.

  191. 191.

    Elizabelle

    Think of Sandra Day O’Connor.

    You just cannot get all of your good reputation back, once it’s gone.

  192. 192.

    Jim, Foolish Literalist

    Parson Meecham on my TeeVee reminding us all that all of this is really about, as everything is really about, Bill Clinton’s wee wandering willie.

    I’ve never read any of Meacham’s books, I wonder how he worked the Clenis into the life of Andrew Jackson and TR or whoever the fuck.

  193. 193.

    Doug R

    @schrodingers_cat: Last time we were camping, around 4am I heard a snuffling between campsites. I found my key fob in my pants, got my wife and daughter to move their heads awy from the edge of the tent, and “slept” the rest of the night with the keys and fob under my pillow.
    So women have to live their ENTIRE LIVES as if they are being hunted by bears.

  194. 194.

    PenAndKey

    @khead: Oh fuck right off with your faux superiority. If you don’t want men in the conversation come right out and say so. If you’ve got a problem with me in particular say what it is. But this snide and substanceless snark? It serves no purpose but to, as Miss Bianca said, edge you toward asshole territory.

  196. 196.

    Ridnik Chrome

    I was coming home from the store one night and passed a woman and a man walking in the opposite direction. The man was walking a couple of feet behind the woman, and as I passed I could hear him saying “Hey, b****, hey, c***” just loud enough for her to hear. I turned around and started walking behind the creep; didn’t say anything, but I made sure he knew I was behind him. He immediately shut up, and dropped a few steps behind the woman, so he wasn’t right behind her anymore. Followed them to the end of the block, where the woman went one way, and the creep went the other. This was about twelve years ago, in Queens, and to this day I’m sorry I didn’t yell at the asshole to leave that woman alone.

  197. 197.

    Kay

    @Mnemosyne:

    It’s funny how you can put anything under the heading of “they have to get their work done” in schools. It gets past the “culture” debates that are so infuriating. I made real headway with people who were nostalgiac about bullying because I remember that. Those days. WTF was that about? We shouldn’t have been torturing one another in school under any set of circumstances – we can call it bullying or we can call it bad behavior. It has to stop.

  198. 198.

    Cheryl from Maryland

    Late comment, but I just want to add that in addition to the list of things to keep myself safe dictating when and where I go, the other issue is an ingrained sense of wondering how much pushback is too much. A colleague once french kissed me in the ear at a conference (he was trying for my lips but I turned my head in time). I hit him in the face, hard. Did not see him the rest of the conference as he slunk away from everything. And guess what, he still takes up space in my head as I sometimes think I overreacted. Dealing with men is a full-time job, and it shouldn’t be. And I have it better than POC.

  199. 199.

    Gelfling 545

    @WereBear: On my night time dog walking Iche k out the front window to see if any neighbors are outdoors, getting in their cars, etc. Then I feel it’s pretty safe to walk. Ive got a few neighbors who get home from work late-ish so I time the walk for then.

  201. 201.

    D58826

    @Ridnik Chrome: but you did help her get to her destination safely. I doubt that yelling at the a**hole would have had any effect. That kind of A*hole is deaf to that kind of warning.

  202. 202.

    Calouste

    @Martin: Dude, your white middle class privilege is showing, and quoting a movie to support your point only makes it worse.

    My working class parents, how shall we say it, strongly encouraged me to take judo lessons when I was 6 or so (I sucked at it). A couple of my non-white friends when I was a teenager did martial arts and they definitely had thought about how to use it for self defense.

  203. 203.

    khead

    @PenAndKey:

    You want a pat on the back for crossing the street? Lol. Ok. Congrats. Have a Chris Rock cookie. But the language you used? About how you were “inconvenienced”? In a thread about massive injustices towards women ? Well, let’s just say that was a bit much for me.

    So, call me what you want, but I’m pretty sure there are a lot of jackals out there that get my point. And, again, I am sorry for your inconvenience.

  204. 204.

    Obdurodon

    I thought the whole point of the anecdote that started this was that men need to learn, and as much as possible understand, the safety issues that women have to deal with. To do that, we ask questions and we consider alternatives. That helps us play a more positive role going forward. Thanks to those who have offered advice; apologies if anyone felt I was derailing or appropriating.

    On a slightly different note, there are some others who also need to learn these things. The people who design public spaces are the first that come to mind. I’ve escorted many colleagues back to their hotels at conferences. Sometimes the design of the hotel itself, or of the other spaces we must pass through, has seemed almost designed to maximize opportunity for evildoers. Poor lighting and obstructed lines of sight are often particular problems. Cameras (if they exist) are inevitably placed to protect the hotel’s assets, often meaning they’re pointed *away* from the places that might matter for safety. Am I alone in thinking that these aspects of safety – particularly but not only important to women who might be there alone – should be design considerations on a level with the affordances we make for the disabled?

  207. 207.

    MCA1

    @Obdurodon: I do some of the same things – it seems a small imposition on my life and preferences to go run on the other side of the street or in the opposite direction if it might avoid making a woman feel uncomfortable. So I do so, although mostly I run on routes that are well-enough trod that it’s usually not really a concern.

    If it’s a trail and I don’t have any choice I often clear my throat or scuff my shoe intentionally or something so that my presence is heard before it’s felt, and someone can turn around and see me in advance rather than just all of the sudden feel someone right on top of them. That seems to work better for me than announcing that I’m passing, because it’s just so awkward to say “on your left” and then it takes you 30 seconds to actually make up the ground and get past. If there are headphones involved it can get weird, too.

    I never do the thumbs up or “way to go” thing to fellow runners or people on their bikes. Especially if we’re headed the same direction, so I’m passing them by running substantially faster than they are. I figure they know whether they’re doing well or not by their own standards, and are already happy/proud about the fact that they’re out there, so it just sort of feels like I’m condescending to them. It’s not like I’m just laying down 6 minute mile after 6 minute mile or something. I’ll do the quick semi-sheepish hand open/close “wave” thing, or say “morning” or “howdy” with a head nod from time to time.

  209. 209.

    Ceci n est pas mon nym

    I gave into temptation and listened.

    Ok my understanding is that the Committee has sent BK on to a floor vote, they all agree there should be an FBI investigation, but they have no power to ask for it and if McConnell wants to have the final vote 5 minutes from now, he can.

  211. 211.

    D58826

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: Well they might not have the power to order an FBI investigation but they can vote NO on sending the nomination to the floor until some one with the power orders such an investigation. If they could manage not to vote for Merritt Garland for a year, surely they can delay this vote for a week or so

  213. 213.

    Mnemosyne

    @Sister Golden Bear:

    I think what Miss Bianca is trying to say is that she envies male privilege and wonders why someone would give that privilege up for the crappier world of being a woman. But if I understand you and the other transgender people who post here correctly, that’s kind of your point — it’s not a “choice” that a transgender person makes in a logical way of listing the pros and cons. It just IS.

  214. 214.

    D58826

    @Ceci n est pas mon nym: or delay the vote by the full Senate until the investigation is complete. If it was me I would want every possible investigation to look down every single rabbit hole to prove my innocence. And presumption of innocence might be a good way to approach these issues it applies only to a court proceeding not a Senate proceeding.

  217. 217.

    Mnemosyne

    @PenAndKey:

    I am on edge today. Do not fuck with me unless you want me to say things to you that you will regret.

    This will be your only warning.

  218. 218.

    Obdurodon

    @rikyrah: The triple-deadbolt thing seems like a real double-edged sword (pun sort of intended). On the one hand necessary to keep others out. On the other hand an impediment when you need to get through quickly yourself. I have to admit I’ve barely had to think about the first, and never the second. Now I will.

  220. 220.

    stinger

    @Millard Filmore:

    If you come to a situation where you you think you will be that close to the attacker, put a bunch of coins in the other hand. To throw at his face, make him blink.

    That’s not a bad suggestion. Most useful if he’s coming up in front of you, not behind you. And if your other hand isn’t carrying your purse, or the gifts you just received at your retirement or birthday party, or the doggie bag from your oversized portion, or your gym bag, or your groceries.

  221. 221.

    C Stars

    Knowing nothing about how this process works, my guess would be that Coons cornered Flake with a tidbit of inconvenient information; some other shoe that will drop about Kav over the weekend, that could make a hurried yes vote embarrassing for someone of Flake’s tepid temperament. Maybe I overestimate the GOP psyche’s capacity for shame or regret… But I just don’t see why Flake would say yes in the morning, and then change it to “yes, but” in the afternoon unless something had given him pause about potential damage to his own reputation. Or maybe it really was those brave women in the elevator…

  222. 222.

    stinger

    @Mnemosyne:

    @celticdragonchick:

    I only mean this half-facetiously — that was the day you truly became a woman. You are fully in the sisterhood, and never let some bigoted asshole tell you otherwise.

    Seconded.

  223. 223.

    Dan B

    @Miss Bianca: I’ve got half a dozen M to F trans acquaintances and a couple F to M. The M to F trans seem like they couldn’t be anything but female. They’re who they are. It’s probably a lot easier in socially progressive Seattle. And their male friends are unlikely to be douchebags. There’s the advantage of social pressure here. Douchery is most likelt to be knocked. It’s no paradise but it’s better overall than any other place I’ve lived.

    The M to F guys had issues with testosterone dosing. They’d be manic ( to put it nicely). And they’d get creepy macho. Social attitudes and biology. Who says we’re the pinnacle of evolution?

    As awful as Trump and Kavanaugh are there are some bright spots and signs if awakening. The task is to rouse enough people to action, to awaken them before petro billionaires wreck the world.

  224. 224.

    khead

    @Mnemosyne:

    Still not quite sure why folks are so upset. When you combine the post that I originally complained about…. with the post that you last complained about…. and another by the same poster…. well….

    A person might just come to the conclusion that those posts reeked of #notallmen. Apologies if you want to go off now, but I’d rather you didn’t.

  225. 225.

    low-tech cyclist

    @Cheryl from Maryland:

    A colleague once french kissed me in the ear at a conference (he was trying for my lips but I turned my head in time). I hit him in the face, hard.

    Good going!

    Did not see him the rest of the conference as he slunk away from everything. And guess what, he still takes up space in my head as I sometimes think I overreacted.

    Nope, not at all. You did good.

    And you’re right – it shouldn’t be a full-time job for women to deal with the risks we men pose to you. It just shouldn’t be like that. I don’t have any brilliant ideas on what to do about it, but I sure hope someone does. It just shouldn’t go on like this.

  226. 226.

    Aleta

    @C Stars: Or is news of some other incident on the horizon? Dems convinced him that going right to the floor now would cause a bigger mess?

  229. 229.

    Bill Arnold

    @lamh36:

    Lindsay Graham just called Dr Ford’s story “garbage.”

    Projection.
    And whatever he is(has been) under the influence of is strong stuff.
    Is it blackmail? Bribery? A threat of death by interesting means? The demon pointing out with cruel amusement that The Contract clearly says on page 37 that he will be required to slowly eat and drink his own soul for a thousand million years if Kavanaugh is not confirmed?

    Advanced opposition research needed, as at least one somebody in a previous thread suggested.

  230. 230.

    TenguPhule

    @Martin:

    I’m saying we don’t have a culture of actively advising boys to learn martial arts for self-defense.

    Oh bullshit. You obviously never went to a public school in the 80s and 90s.

  231. 231.

    Mnemosyne

    @khead:

    It was lumping in Obdurodon, who does seem to be trying to do his (clumsy) best to not freak women out and is hoping to get some feedback on what he can do better. He wants to learn.

    Feel free to go off on the other mansplainers who are just so, so insulted that random women might consider them a threat.

  233. 233.

    Mnemosyne

    @Calouste:

    Dude, your overall male privilege is showing. Think the stuff we middle-class white ladies have been talking about is comparable to your male working-class upbringing? Go talk to some working class women about the shit THEY have to deal with on a daily basis at their shit jobs with no escape. Ask them what it’s like to be trapped with their mom’s new boyfriend who’s the sole financial support of the household and has grabby hands. Then go talk to some women of color for the really bad shit that happens.

    Once you do that, then you can come back here and tell us that your male working-class upbringing was way worse than what your working-class sisters and cousins and female friends had to deal with.

    Again: you’re getting the nice, middle-class, suburban version of what it’s like to be constantly victimized by men and you think that’s as bad as it gets. You are very, very wrong.

  235. 235.

    Obdurodon

    @khead: Just for form’s sake (not because you need anything from me), apology accepted. It’s all good. We’re all on edge, we’re all human, and I did digress a bit too far. Cheers to everyone.

    P.S. @Mnemosyne Clumsy? Hmph. But you’re right.

  238. 238.

    Mnemosyne

    And since this thread is almost dead, I’m going to say one more thing:

    There are some men out there who do take all of the same precautions that women do. They are usually men who were sexually assaulted as children and have never had the same sense of personal safety from sexual assault that most men in our society have. I’m sorry that they have to live the same way most women do, but those men DO understand.

  239. 239.

    PenAndKey

    @khead: @Mnemosyne: Seriously? I say almost the exact same thing as Obduron and offer him my take on how I deal with the same situation as a fellow male runner, get attacked for it, by you, and then have the temerity to push back against uncalled for rudeness and suddenly I’m a mansplaining #notallmen troll?

    We’re all on edge here right now, but I really don’t feel like I deserve your vitriol considering I’m doing everything in my ability to be one of the good guys in this situation and trying to help another guy do the same. If you want to paint me as an enemy for that have at it. We’re all on edge right now. That’s still no excuse to be assholes to each other, and if we continue defensive sniping at each other that’s all that will happen. Whether you believe it or not I’m on your side in this fight so I’m out. This argument is accomplishing nothing.

  240. 240.

    Mnemosyne

    @PenAndKey:

    You just had to push, didn’t you?

    So, tell me, which 15 things on that list do you do, exactly? Make sure your skirt isn’t too short? Not get in an elevator when there’s a lone man or a group of men in it? Have someone watch your drink at the bar to make sure no one slips any drugs into it?

    What actions do you personally take every day SPECIFICALLY TO AVOID SEXUAL ASSAULT? Not just general security measures to avoid having your house burglarized or your car stolen or being mugged, but avoiding having someone break into your house in order to rape you? If you get carjacked, you’re getting your car stolen and possibly murdered. If a woman gets carjacked, she gets her car stolen, raped, and THEN murdered. But it’s all the same, amirite?

    When you go out with a group of male friends, do you have an explicit agreement that you will keep an eye on each other and no one goes off with a woman alone unless you tell your friends first?

    When you go into a public bathroom that seems out of the way, do you check every stall to be sure that no one is hiding in there, waiting to rape you?

    Do women follow you down the street no matter how many turns you take? When you go into a store, do you see them still lingering outside waiting for you to come out?

    When you drive home at night, have you ever had another car follow you all the way to your driveway and wait for you to turn in — and you know it’s not one of your neighbors?

    Fuck you. We don’t need you to pat us on the head and tell us that our fears of being sexually assaulted while trying to live our lives are just like your fears of being robbed. Don’t fucking tell us that there’s no reason to be afraid of guys who follow us too closely, or try to talk to us in a deserted park, because #notallmen. You have NO FUCKING IDEA why we have these rules, because you’ve never had a random stranger try and grab you when you’re out walking. You’ve never had a random guy decide you must be a prostitute and try to force you into his car.

    You live in a different world every day, and you want to tell us that we’re too paranoid about the men we encounter every day who may or may not be the ones to try and grab us, depending on the luck of the draw that day? Fuck you.

  241. 241.

    Mnemosyne

    @PenAndKey:

    Oh, and all of the examples above? Those are either my direct experience — something that happened to me — or something that happened to a woman I know personally.

    So again: fuck you. Shut up and listen so you can fucking learn something.

  242. 242.

    PenAndKey

    @Mnemosyne:

    I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other.

    Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted?

    Given that line from the original post, and my statement that I engage in at least 15 of his precautions on a near daily basis, you do the math. I’m done trying to justify my not “being the enemy” to you. Pie.

  243. 243.

    Mnemosyne

    @PenAndKey:

    Oh, does my history and my friends’ history of being sexually assaulted makes you uncomfortable? Too fucking bad. I’m not here to make you feel better or to soothe your feelings. I’m not here to help you minimize what women have to deal with every fucking day of our lives or let you feel like what we have to deal with is normal.

    And if you’re trying to hint that you do all of these same things because you are also a survivor, try to understand that as a man, YOU ARE IN THE MINORITY, and making your experience universal is not going to work in this realm.

    I told you not to test me, and you insisted on doing it anyway. Don’t whine because I gave you the exact pushback I warned you I would.

  244. 244.

    Kathleen

    @Obdurodon: I run in the morning about 5:00 am ish through downtown Cincinnati, Mt. Auburn or Mt. Adams. I’ve also run in West End and my neighborhood, Price Hill, Over the Rhine, Covington & Newport (in KY). Most people are aghast that I run in what they consider dangerous areas (translation: Black neighborhoods, with the exception of Mt. Adams). I’ve been doing this for over 30 years. I stay away from wooded areas if I’m running by myself. There is always lots of traffic on the streets and many pedestrians in these areas at that hour of the morning.
    All that being said, my running ritual is to greet everyone I pass on the sidewalks, including, of course, runners. I do need to be more careful when I’m running behind before I pass someone. I don’t want to be loudly alert them (that startles them) but I don’t want them to jump as I run by (I got a lecture from someone about that and I totally saw his point.) For me, it’s all about courtesy.
    The only scary incident I had during a run (other than a few rat sightings here and there) was in affluent, lily white Mt. Adams. where a big dog bit me on the ass on a bright sunny Saturday morning. I reported it at the District One police station and I had them cracking up when I said dog bit me on the ass in lily white Mt Adams.

  245. 245.

    Kathleen

    @lamh36: Amen. I’m so sorry your mother, and all the African American mothers, grandmothers, sisters, wives and daughters have had to endure so much pain and oppression and illness as a price to be paid for staying alive. You deserve a long, peaceful rest., and it is up to we white women to pull the load. Bless you (-:.

  246. 246.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kathleen:

    My white, blonde BFF used to live in Inglewood, CA, which is majority black. People used to ask her in hushed tones if she ever “worried” about the neighborhood, but she said she actually felt very safe, because EVERYONE on her block knew exactly who she was and where she lived. Her neighbors would have known immediately if something happened to her.

    It helped that she grew up in a majority-black neighborhood in Detroit, so she was better equipped than most white people to judge who was an actual threat and who wasn’t.

  247. 247.

    afanasia

    @Emma: If you’re a small woman and have been grabbed from behind, slam the top of your head under his jaw. I’ve done it. Just be aware there’s a risk you might sever his tongue.

  248. 248.

    E

    Speaking as a guy, with the exception of maybe two things on that list I DO ALL OF THEM. Not to avoid sexual assault, but just to prevent being assaulted in general. I took it as a given that everyone, irrespective of gender, checks their back seat, avoids dark secluded places etc. I literally check all my windows and doors multiple times before I go to sleep. I don’t drink, ever. I never wear headphones in public ANYWHERE. The danger is obviously worse for women, but all the things on that list are good general advice for everyone.

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