By adamg on Wed., 10/18/2017 - 2:31 pm
Kara recounts an incident with a stranger on the Red Line last October.
His hand brushes my shoulder and he leans in, “Hey.â€
I don’t say anything. I turn my head. “Sorry. I’m a little drunk,†he says. I’m still frozen. That’s when he reaches down and slowly strokes my boot from ankle to knee.
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Yeah sure
By Scratchie
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 11:49am
And as a pedestrian, it should not be your goddamn problem to watch for traffic when you're crossing in the crosswalk with the light. But you're still dead if someone makes it your problem.
That's nice dear
By anon
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 12:08pm
Now, how about STOP DEMANDING THAT WOMEN NEED TO CHANGE TO "SOLVE" THE PROBLEM.
Because solving VICTIMS does not solve the PROBLEM. Solving the PROBLEM solves the problem.
And stop demanding that pedestrians need to change to "solve" the problem of bad driving.
Are you at least capable of understanding that? At all?
People aren't hearing each other
By Bob Leponge
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 1:44pm
Teaching pedestrians how to look out for bad drivers does not solve the problem of bad drivers, and nobody is claiming that it does. In no way does it shift blame onto pedestrians, or distract from the job of getting bad drivers off the road. And certainly nobody's demanding that pedestrians solve the problem.
But teaching pedestrians to look out for bad drivers is still a good idea, is it not?
You have learned nothing here
By anon
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 2:01pm
We live in an ENTIRE SOCIETY THAT BLAMES WOMEN FOR BEING BEATEN AND GROPED AND KILLED.
You simply aren't paying attention because you don't have to.
Maybe I wasn't clear?
By Bob Leponge
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 3:28pm
I know this. I've seen it up close and personal, directly affecting people whom I love dearly. What have I written that would lead you to think I disagree with it?
Look, Einstein
By Scratchie
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 3:34pm
1) I'm not "demanding" anything.
2) I never claimed that pedestrians' behavior will "'solve' the problem of bad driving."
I pointed out that if a driver breaks the law and runs you over, you may be in the right, but you are STILL DEAD!
Can you understand that?
If not, please find someone who can explain it to you.
http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr
By grrrrandma
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 5:09pm
http://whenwomenrefuse.tumblr.com
So true
By mg
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 4:24pm
Kara writes: "But we all have these stories, don’t we? You reach a certain age and it becomes an almost regular occurrence. The unwanted attention, the words, the moment of fear, the looks, it all becomes normal."
It becomes background noise after a while, until something like the #MeToo hashtag goes around and we're reminded that we shouldn't have to be dealing with this and it isn't what life's like for the other half of the population (with some exceptions).
I doubt I know a single woman who couldn't say "Me too".
This
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 4:31pm
This right there, to me, is the core. Progress is made by people whose response to "that's just the way life is...." is, "maybe it doesn't necessarily have to be that way."
The problem
By mg
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 4:38pm
is that it wears you down after a while. There are so many bigger related problems to deal with (yes, I hate being catcalled by construction workers, but I'm already trying to actively deal with guys groping on the T and the guys who molest and...)
Having allies who will actively speak up when things happen makes an important difference - especially when you see men, not just women, saying "this is wrong."
"Be an upstander, not a bystander"
By Bob Leponge
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 7:02pm
It's what I've always tried to teach and model through my own behavior. Surely I fall short sometimes, but that's my aspiration.
Attention women of Earth
By Will LaTulippe
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 4:45pm
If you kick a guy like this in the nuts, and I see it, and I'm questioned by the police about it, I didn't see anything.
That's nice dear
By anon
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 6:24pm
I see you lived to tell us all about it.
Many women are brutalized and killed for fighting back.
In Florida, women who "stand their ground" are prosecuted for murder.
Happens a lot more than most are willing to say?
By anon
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 5:35pm
From my experience sexual predation is as old as human kind. So old that it is internalized and assumed to be expected. How recent was it that in the US a man could rape his wife with impunity?
What about the co-signers to sexual predation of family members?
When I was a kid I had a family member who lived in apartment where she had 2/3rds of floor and a man (not someone that anyone in her family knew) had the other half. The bathroom was shared. The man was supposed to use the kitchen in a basement of the building.
The man masturbated periodically masturbated in front of her. He would physically press himself upon her trying to force her to let him kiss her.
He would only stop when her son heard his mother moaning "Oh no, no..."
Her sisters and aunts (her parents were dead) knew that an unrelated, unknown man was living on the same floor. If confronted they would claim they didn't know what happened. It never occurred to them that a woman who doesn't have much agency, or self-confidence, should to be left to live with a male stranger.
Her relatives did not even wonder why she did not want be in her apartment when her son was at camp in Boy Scouts. It didn't occur to them to wonder why she wanted to stay with one of her sisters when her son was gone for a weekend. Her husband had abandoned her a few years after the birth of her son.
This sexual violence did not end until her teenage son, in his late teens, came home one night, and somehow knew that he could call the police.
Why didn't the woman ask her sisters and brothers for help? Probably because she somehow felt that she was at fault. Her relatives went out out of their way to make sure she felt shame where any kind of sex was involved.
So she spent 8 years of her young adult life fearful of this stranger's sexual predation. Her relatives did not wonder about the situation. Her relatives actually effectively gave the man permission to do what he wanted.
Ironically one of the sister's includes in her likes both Jesus and Trump.
What is the point that her son wants to make? That for centuries if not millenia girls and women have been told they are to suffer in silence. Don't fight back. Women are inherently sinners, daughters of the first sinner Eve, if a woman is not a madonna then she is a whore. The terms change but it's horridly consistent across the world.
Kara deserves praise for sharing this story. I also hope she gets a bottle of pepper spray. Not because she should have to. She shouldn't. Yet there are depraved men in the world (there's one in the newspaper everyday) and when they act out they deserve to burn. (Note about pepper spray - it does not work against everyone).
An observation for my fellow men
By Tim Mc.
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 7:31pm
If you were sitting on the train, there's a real good chance you wouldn't have noticed anything was amiss. Ever notice a disparity between what the amount of sexual harassment you observe and the amount that is reported in #MeToo and similar? It's because these creeps are pretty good at this.
They'll use a low tone of voice, or a buddy system (I've seen this! one of them distracted me while the other hit on my friend), act as if they're an acquaintance. They'll also do it more when there aren't other men around. I don't know how much of this is conscious and deliberate, but it sure is effective for avoiding confrontation and gaslighting their victims.
I don't have a good takeaway other than I guess "keep your eyes and ears open" and also "believe women".
Me too
By anon
Wed, 10/18/2017 - 11:00pm
Several years ago I was waiting for the green line at Gov Center minding my own business as most do when...waiting. I notice a shorter gruff older man puddling about and next thing I knew he was right there next to me - I could smell the beer and cigarettes on him.
"I just want to tell you you're beautiful." He says. "Oh thank you" I reply. I'm terrible at confrontation and am too polite for my own good - too many years working customer service. He gets closer and closer to the point he has his arm around me and I'm wondering if anyone else is seeing this. It's gets to the point where our foreheads touch and his hand is going further down my back - I don't know what what to do, it was like everything went black and it was just the two of us (in the most unromantic way possible) and he tells me he's married but we should go do something. At this point I say, "No no I'm good, I'm in a happy relationship." He tells me he doesn't need to know and that I don't need him. The train is pulling up - the Lechmere train I need - I tell him, "You should get on, go back home to your wife." He reluctantly gets on and I sick down on a bench and realize I'm sweating - what just happened?! I'm mad at myself for not telling him off, for being polite, for no one else stepping in an old helping. I waited for the next Lechmere train in a daze.
I forget about it every now and then but every now and then when I roll through Gov Center I'm reminded and it's like a shadow of sadness and anger. I hate that I have to worry if it's going to happen again and if I'll act as weak as I did in that moment.
Hey now
By M
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 9:27am
Take it easy on yourself. Most of us don't have a plan of how to act in abnormal situations. I froze the first time i was groped on public transit, because i didn't have a blueprint for what to do. I still remember the guy leering at me as i fled off the bus onto a stop nowhere near where i needed to go.
I took my anger&channeled it into a series of unpleasant what-ifs so i wouldn't feel so powerless next time. Forgive yourself for reacting totally normally (not "weakly") to a screwed- up situation.
Not on you
By thesandal
Fri, 10/20/2017 - 8:23am
Drunk people are less likely to react predictably. While it's not the most empowering reaction, being polite "keeps the peace." Speaking from experience, he could've got more aggressive or tried to follow you. Please don't be so hard on yourself.
These stories matter a lot
By Bob Leponge
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 1:10am
These stories matter. Bearing witness matters. Most men (myself included) don't have the necessary experience to understand at a deep level what this constant baseline of fear must be like. We know it's there, but hearing about it, putting ourselves in the shoes of the women we know and love, brings it home in some kind of visceral way that statistics just don't. The more of these stories I hear, the more I notice classic patterns of PTSD, which is a devastating, debilitating consequence of trauma. Real psychic damage gets done here, and the amount of loss and misery is staggering.
At what point do women simply burn it all to the ground?
By lbb
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 11:42am
Especially for whyaduck and anyone else who thinks that women are "angry": you're fucking right.
I'm going to make the assumption here....
By Bob Leponge
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 11:49am
... that pretty much everyone on this thread, including the people who are yelling at me, and the people who are yelling back at them, is a fundamentally good person who sincerely wants to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Beating people up because their (entirely reasonable) anger gets in the way of their persuasive effectiveness, or because you don't like the way they argue, or because you think they aren't sufficiently woke, doesn't move anybody forward. At all. Fight the real enemy.
Bob, you do realize
By anon
Fri, 10/20/2017 - 9:21am
that this is not about you, right?
You have done a great job hijacking this story to talk about how great and generous of a businessman and father you are.
Good for you and whatnot, but I hope that in your brilliance and progressiveness and perfect-man-ness, you realize that you are still part of the problem. I know it's hard not to be the center of attention, but give it a shot.
WOW!
By anon
Thu, 10/19/2017 - 12:49pm
lookit all these menz telling us wimminz how we should react, how we should behave, what's best for us.
guess what? your need to constantly be the protagonists is a central part of the problem.
be quiet. listen. learn. stop. talking. you do not know everything and until you have to live with the reality that every day is potential harassment in big and small ways (which later, men will claim is "nothing" or a "compliment" or call you "crazy" for objecting), you have absolutely nothing to say. look inward, deal with your own issues and help your brothers, sons, nephews, friends and colleagues to do the same.
Let's follow this through,
By thesandal
Fri, 10/20/2017 - 8:33am
Let's follow this through, because I see a lot of men here who want to help. If personal stories and hearing form friends and relatives helps you to understand the magnitude of the problem more than statistics, it's because this is otherwise a bit difficult to relate to, since it doesn't happen to you. This is normal and I'm glad for any man who has admitted this and still makes an effort. By that same logic, don't shout down women with your advice about how to handle these situations. You've already admitted that you inherently don't relate to or understand what is happening. Yes, teaching young girls that they have autonomy over their own bodies will help, and that is patently a good thing anyway. However, "self defense," in many of these situations, will make harassment drastically worse. We know this. You don't.
Don't make women do the emotional labor of explaining this again and again. Please just listen.
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