Lorie H., a longtime blog-and-Facebook friend, sent me a link earlier this week to the Phaedra Starling post that is heating up comment threads across the sphere: Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced. It’s the indispensable post for the first half of October, and I recommend it highly. (For those of you wondering who this Schrödinger is, here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry on the famous epistemological problem about his unfortunate cat.)
Some excerpts:
So when you, a stranger, approach me, I have to ask myself: Will this man rape me?
Do you think I’m overreacting? One in every six American women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime. I bet you don’t think you know any rapists, but consider the sheer number of rapes that must occur. These rapes are not all committed by Phillip Garrido, Brian David Mitchell, or other members of the Brotherhood of Scary Hair and Homemade Religion. While you may assume that none of the men you know are rapists, I can assure you that at least one is. Consider: if every rapist commits an average of ten rapes (a horrifying number, isn’t it?) then the concentration of rapists in the population is still a little over one in sixty. That means four in my graduating class in high school. One among my coworkers. One in the subway car at rush hour. Eleven who work out at my gym. How do I know that you, the nice guy who wants nothing more than companionship and True Love, are not this rapist?
I don’t.
When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger’s Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won’t know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can’t see inside your head, and I don’t know your intentions. If you expect me to trust you—to accept you at face value as a nice sort of guy—you are not only failing to respect my reasonable caution, you are being cavalier about my personal safety.
Fortunately, you’re a good guy. We’ve already established that. Now that you’re aware that there’s a problem, you are going to go out of your way to fix it, and to make the women with whom you interact feel as safe as possible.
Bold emphasis mine. I’ve written about the “absence of a right to be presumed harmless” before. Starling’s spot on, and her point about the perniciousness of “rape culture” is something that most young men need desperately to understand, and don’t. Well-intentioned but clueless fellows cry in indignation “But you should trust me until I prove myself to be unworthy of the trust”, focusing only on the hurt they feel at not being immediately accepted — and refusing, sometimes willfully, to acknowledge that when women view them as threatening, they do so because it is rational and life-preserving to do so.
Starling offers a short but excellent list of things men who don’t like being viewed as Schrödinger’s Rapist can do; please read the whole post, and the 1216 comments currently below it.
But I’d like to pick up on the theme of trust, and in particularly, the “guilty until proven innocent” notion. One thing that I’ve learned in all my years doing men’s work and feminism: I can never prove myself “safe” to everyone. Indeed, a substantial number of women with whom I interact on a regular basis as students or colleagues or mentees or friends will retain, despite my best efforts, some small element of caution when dealing with me. Some of that caution may be based upon specific knowledge about my past, but far more of it is based on the inescapable reality of my maleness. Folks with my physiology tend to inflict far more physical harm on the world than those with female plumbing; men in positions of authority are notorious for abusing that power sexually. No mater how earnest I am about my feminism and my boundaries and my transformation, the reality is that regardless of who I might be on the inside, I still come across as “a man”. And in the inescapable math of rape culture, man=threat.
Mind you, I don’t spend much energy wondering to what degree I am trusted. It’s very important for male allies to not fall into a dynamic where they find themselves trying to pull out all the stops to convince the women in their lives that they are safe. That’s just another form of seduction after all; it places one’s own ego ahead of the very real, complex needs and concerns of the women with whom one is engaging. This isn’t a competition in which other men are rivals. I’ve seen some ostensibly feminist men make this mistake. Masculine culture sets up males as competitors, with women used to measure a man’s prowess. For many, that means sleeping with as many women as possible as a means of proving one’s masculinity — and, in some sense, bettering other men. The faux pro-feminist corollary is trying to prove to as many women as possible that you, their male feminist friend, are somehow different from all the other guys. The reward isn’t sex or homosocial validation — the reward is being told that you’ve done what other men couldn’t do, and that’s earn trust. While hardly predatory, there’s still something problematic about this kind of “safe seduction” behavior — because it places the man’s ego, rather than women’s safety, front and center.
In creating a safer world for all of us, men do well to follow the sensible sort of advice that Starling offers. They also do well to direct more of their efforts towards calling out predatory and sexist behavior in other men, rather than expending tremendous energy trying to earn women’s trust. (It’s probably obvious that the two activities aren’t mutually exclusive: a man who is actively feminist when he’s around other males is more likely to be viewed as sincere in his commitments, rather than merely pretending to be egalitarian for a female audience.) But in the end, it’s important for men who do this work to understand that no matter how hard they work, no matter how committed and sincere their efforts, a great many women will continue to view them as potential predators. They may succeed in lowering the intensity of the threat they pose until it is very near zero, but, like Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, they can likely never get to that elusive goal of total and complete trust. The sooner men understand that, accept that, and redirect any attendant frustration away from women and towards a culture that encourages rape and abuse, the better off we’re all gonna be.
Hugo,
yeah, you’re a bit like Georg Büchner’s Robbespierre ;)
I really liked the Schrödinger’s post, because it’s accessible and it’s actually speaking to men instead of about men. It works very well without inducing to many feminist axioms, and that’s what makes it particularly valuable.
“They may succeed in lowering the intensity of the threat they pose until it is very near zero, but, like Zeno’s paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, they can likely never get to that elusive goal of total and complete trust.”
Sure, women are more physically vulnerable and that is an important notion to remember when interacting with women. But that particular part of your argument is a bit problematic, because it logically devalues the very argument you’re making by pointing to the fact that - asymptotically - we’re all Schrödinger’s everything to everyone. You are my Schrödinger’s stalker, however much you love and trust your wife, she will always be Schrödinger’s Lorena Bobbit, your best friend will always be Schrödinger’s murderer, as am I, you or everyone else we know.
Trust can never be knowledge (of safety). In a way that’s the very notion thereof. Trust is the will to submit oneself to the remaining uncertainty - it doesn’t mean there will be no harm, it just means that you make a decision that you’re no longer willing to think about harm from that point on. That’s what trusting is about. Of course, people’s mileage varies, and physical inferiority will inevitably always be an important argument.
By the way, I really don’t think that an assumed “rape culture” or absence thereof would change the basic structure of that particular female vulnerability. Unless you’re assuming that there would be no rape in a non-rape-culture, I don’t see how trust could become knowledge of safety. Even assuming probabilities would change, we’d still all be Schrödinger’s rapist.
It’s a thought provoking post. BUT it DOES seriously suck to be mistrusted for no reason. Back in grad school I had a large black friend who was really sick and tired of being pulled over by the police in our suburban Chicago town. It also hurt to have both women and men scamper to the other side of the street at night. Now if you look at national statistics on violent crime you have to conclude that the average African American man is more likely to be a violent criminal than the average white guy. It’s the obvious math. That didn’t make my friend feel any better. He wasn’t (and isn’t) a criminal. MOST black men aren’t criminals. Here we have Schrödinger’s black guy in America. :) BTW, his eventual plan for mitigating the fear was to start dressing in suits.
Also, I favor people being able to carry concealed weapons. A gun is the ultimate equalizer. I don’t understand so called feminists who don’t want women to be able to protect themselves from attackers. Concealed weapons also offer “herd protection.” A potential rapist/kidnapper/robber has to wonder” is this woman going to shoot me?”
Starling already covered the “driving while black” scenario in the comments:
“And this is a completely different scenario than walking home and seeing a black man and being afraid because, you know, black! people! OMG! There’s a huge difference between reacting to a real threat (even an inadvertent one) and reacting to a threat *that exists only in your imagination because you are a bigot.*”
Also, police != ordinary citizen. They have different goals when they walk out at night and they have different resources at their disposal.
Jay,
“Now if you look at national statistics on violent crime you have to conclude that the average African American man is more likely to be a violent criminal than the average white guy.”
“There’s a huge difference between reacting to a real threat (even an inadvertent one) and reacting to a threat *that exists only in your imagination because you are a bigot.*””
In a Schrödinger Scenario, statistics don’t matter. That’s sort of the point of Schrödinger’s cat. A probability distribution will not help you determine whether the cat is deat or not, because that’s a binary state. Still, I’m don’t know what the statistics say about the likelyhood of men being rapists vs. black men being more likely to be a violent criminal. But *if* such data exists and can be considered reliable as Zendo suggests, then I’d have to ask why you would say that only one statistical risk is considered ‘real’ and the other is considered imagined? I don’t see how that follows from your argument.
Not sure why I wrote “zendo” above, when I was trying to refer to davev’s comment. strange. So much for reading blogs before sleeping ;)
Some of those lines (and the logic) are taken right from the book “The Gift of Fear” by Gavin de Becker. A brilliant book that I read many years ago (after hearing about it on Oprah) and I recommend to single women, hell I recommend it to all women… There are chapters devoted to “letting him down easy” “stranger danger” and “workplace violence”… If you ever get a chance, you should thumb through it.
A commenter on Starling’s post also tried to knock down what she saw as the “This is just like making black people Schrodinger’s mugger” strawman:
“This isn’t like Schrodinger’s Mugger, it’s like Schrodinger’s Racist. [People of Color] are absolutely justified in assuming that any white person they come in contact with has the potential to dehumanize them and there’s nothing they can do about it. The very structure of society is what makes it rational to imagine that the members of the privileged class that you, as a member of an oppressed class, come in contact with may treat you like a member of an oppressed class. That’s sort of what privilege and oppression mean. That’s why the assumption that white people may behave in a privileged, racist, or ignorant way is fundamentally rational, and the assumption that black people will knife you is not. I think the false equivalency between rape and mugging comes from missing the fact that Schrodinger’s Rapist, with a P, is not as much about the violence as about the context of that violence — that you owe a man attention, favors, or access simply by virtue of being a woman.”
“A gun is the ultimate equalizer. I don’t understand so called feminists who don’t want women to be able to protect themselves from attackers. Concealed weapons also offer “herd protection.” A potential rapist/kidnapper/robber has to wonder” is this woman going to shoot me?””
Women can not stop rape by carrying a gun. If women start carrying guns, that will do nothing but inspire more men to carry guns. I understand where the inclination to tell women that they should be pro-active in their own protection comes from, but it’s really entirely pointless to do so. Women can not stop rape. Only rapists (who are mostly men) have any power to stop rape.
As a physicist, I’m appalled at the explanation of Schrodinger’s Cat, which isn’t about ignorance at all, but about measurement. The mathematical framework of Quantum Mechanics tells us not that Schrodinger’s Cat is alive or dead in the box, but that it must necessarily be in a superposition of both states until it’s measured; if you assume that finding a dead cat means the cat was dead all along, but that you were ignorant of it, you get a fundamentally wrong answer. It’s fundamentally different than anything remotely like what we experience in real life (Schrodinger’s point was to show that there’s a flaw with quantum mechanics, though the flaw turns out to be in our conception of how things work.) A regular cat in a box doesn’t behave like Schrodinger’s cat, of course, because you exchange gravitons with it, neutrinos with it, it exchanges photons with the box, which exchanges photons with you, which is enough to collapse the cat’s wave function. (Sorry, probably just a need to vent.)
Sam, anyways, raises an interesting point about the way it’s targeted. When I first read it, I reacted with the fairly predictable “but if I never try to approach women nonplatonically when I’m not totally (or even fairly) confident they’re also interested, I’d be entirely celibate.” reading it as targeted at men generically, I (foolishly, it’ll turn out) performed the gedankenexperiment of applying the principle to my own behaviour. After some time of mulling it over, I asked myself what should’ve been an obvious question, but was not: “Brian, how many times have you attempted to pick up a woman you didn’t know?” A quick summation reveals it to be zero, which (probably) means the advice here isn’t targeted at me (due to some difference between my actual mindset and the assumed mindset of the audience). Which isn’t to say that the points made shouldn’t apply if I were to be making the mistakes outlined in the article, only that so long as my assumed priors cause me to substitute “no” when I hear “yes”, or read doe eyes, finding excuses to give me her phone number, and playful touching as “vaguely irritated to be stuck hanging around me”, my problems are not those addressed here.
The difficulty I had in figuring this out may be partly (or even largely) my own fault, but it does seem to replicate in the discussion I’ve seen around this, and related things (there’s an XKCD comic a couple weeks old that fits into the dialogue), and the (seemingly nontrivial) number of men who object to what’s being said roughly on the grounds that it’d mean they’d have to forsake any kind of nonplatonic contact.
Brian, do you mean THIS comic: http://xkcd.com/642/
Randomizer, yeah, that’s the one I mean. There’s a lot of discussion that flows from there about the problem of men who get told no but hear continue, which is a perfectly legitimate and important feminist (and non-feminist) problem and area for discussion, but doesn’t seem to connect to the comic, where the male protagonist is already assuming she’s not interested, which is a legitimate problem (or is if it continues towards hearing “I’d like to date you”, but having strong enough priors that you’re not able to easily accept that (here I may be projecting, my timescale to convert an explicit “I’d like to date you” into thinking “well, maybe she’s interested” is a few days)), (probably especially among nerds), but which doesn’t seem particularly pressing from a feminist perspective. I would also guess that overzealous enforcement of boundary respecting is probably a fairly common problem among the kind of guys who’re not identifying as feminist or feminist-allied, but who’re willing to show up and listen/read.
Brian,
“but if I never try to approach women nonplatonically when I’m not totally (or even fairly) confident they’re also interested, I’d be entirely celibate.”
But that’s not what the essay argues. It argues that you should be aware that she doesn’t have a way to completely assess your trustworthyness and that a) her reaction to you may be informed by that and b) you should put yourself in her shoes for a moment if you’re attempting to initiate a positive conversation.
That’s the problem with applying a term like Schrödinger’s in such a setup: People will better remember it even though it doesn’t entirely capture the problem at hand (certainly not for physicists). Still, it’s a good article, certainly one that’s more about extending empathy than about waveforms ;).
And it’s also making the point that helping a woman you’d like to approach feel safe is in the man’s best self-interest. Rejection sucks badly. And increasing the chances she won’t already shoot you down upon approach because of safety concerns is definitely a good way to start. Particularly for intended romantic interactions, how do you think a woman is supposed to like you if she’s already put in a bad state to begin with.
But that’s also true - with different standards - for any kind of interaction: I’d feel much less safe if I knew anyone wore concealed weapons, as there is a tiny chance they are a lunatic.
As for the comic, I understand that kind of fear, but it’s just pretty far-fetched. Seriously. I’ve lived with this thing for years and finally I realised that this is really just about rejecting myself and not actually fear of public ridicule. The problem, of course, is, that lack of confidence in interaction can leave the same creepy impression as not being able to read someone else’s reaction can leave the impression of intentionally ignoring it. Both are, of course, not helpful. As a guy, I know that this is a thought a lot more men think than women seem to understand. But I am also aware that - at least a fair share of women - don’t care, and they don’t care because they don’t know if you’re a threat or not. Which is, as Hugo puts it, rational and in their best interest. It’s not nice. It’s just something we have to put up with. It’s the “cost of doing business” in this world, whether you blame it on rape culture or not. And not taking it personally is, in my opinion, the first step to get out of a mindset that would make you think stuff like the guy in the comic. Instead of being concerned with yourself in that moment, try to focus on getting an idea whether she’s actually inviting trying to not be engaged. I mean really, it’s not that complicated once you understand that most people don’t actually mind being approached in a socially appropriate way and once you accept that it’s in your own best interest to be able to get a good understanding of which people to talk to. It’s about putting oneself in someone else’s shoes, not about getting an equation determining social appropriateness.
“…hen the concentration of rapists in the population is still a little over one in sixty. That means four in my graduating class in high school. One among my coworkers. One in the subway car at rush hour. Eleven who work out at my gym. … ”
I don’t think that’s how those statistics work. 1/1000 chance of winning a lottery does not mean you win if you buy 1000 tickets. I think such reasoning is a bit of a fear mongering.
Other than that everything seems like it makes sense. Certainly sucks for some “nice” guys, but if they’re so “nice”, they’ll respect whatever answer they receive.
Sam
I think you’ve missed my concern entirely. Assumed is that I’m afraid of rejection because I don’t like being rejected; to be frank I find it a relief (okay, small sample size caveats), as if she’s just not interested, I have no blame, no future responsibilities; I can go on my merry way without any sort of “Well, you’ve failed yourself here”, because there was no opportunity for anything. If she’s is interested, and I fail to inquire, or I do but I fuck it up, then I have failed myself, which sucks.
That said, if I express interest in someone who isn’t interested in me, it puts them in the unhappy position of having to deal with my interest, when (presumably) they’d be much happier if I’d just never brought it up in the first place, so the nicest/most respectful thing I can do is shut up about it (and usually make a point of avoiding them, so I don’t accidentally say or do something stupid.) I would certainly not want to be hit on by some doppelganger of me, without any further information about anyone else, I would generically suppose they’d feel the same. (Golden rule or whatnot.) And the desire to avoid that imposition is being stressed in the dialogue we’re referencing. That prior assumption is very strong, it’s probably impossible for some to act in a way that’ll convince me I was wrong to assume that in the first place.
Phaedra Starling: the Glenn Beck of feminism.
Brian,
actually, you’re right, I don’t quite understand that perspective.
“And the desire to avoid that imposition is being stressed in the dialogue we’re referencing.”
Actually, I’ve read it as fear of rejection and fear of ridicule and fear of being seen as a sexual predator when all that is not true. I’d even go so far to say that his own negative understanding of male/his sexuality is the main reason for his fear. He’s not worried she may not be sure he’s a rapist and that her reaction may be informed by that, he’s basically implying “I’m not sure my sexuality is ok” (which, not rarely) can translate into behaviour that looks creepy. The problem here would be, in my opinion, not her imagined reacion, and certainly not her real-life reaction, but his thinking along this way at all.
@Martin: By calling Phaedra Starling the Glenn Beck of feminism I would assume you’re calling her post an example of reactionary fear-mongering? Your misogyny is showing.
Sam
I’ll quote Hugo as a starting point Of never feeling hot: the missing narrative of desire in the lives of straight men. Certainly the way I’ve experienced aversion to expressing interest in woman isn’t about how they’d judge me at all, but that it’d be an unpleasant or insulting experience for them, which even low grade empathy makes you not want to inflict on someone. It’s a little different from the irritation to fear being described by the women commenting, but not so much (especially with respect to irritation.) I don’t think I’ve ever anticipated much fear, but either react like “it’s irritating and bothersome to have to reject someone” to “it’s insulting that you’d presume I might be interested in you, when I clearly have attractive value and you do not.” which’re the reactions I’ve always been gunning to avoid, whether they’re plausible or not. (For what it’s worth, before I get asked, on the singular occasion where I was turned down, she claimed it was because she didn’t want to have to deal with her father’s reaction to her dating non-Hindu guys. I have no idea of whether that’s true, or whether my reading of her as non-plussed about the whole thing was correct. I’m not saying that woman are likely to react this ways, just that it seems the most sensible thing for them to do.) Uh, in short, because I think it’d be nicer to not force them to deal with my attraction to them than to force them to. (Whether by rejection, acceptance or secret option number three, though I probably always believe it’ll be rejection, since that’s what I’d do in their shoes.)
This is all emotional reacting to the idea, not logically thinking it out, so please don’t try to argue that my gut reactions to things are wrong. They probably are, but saying or thinking that doesn’t change how I feel.
This may not be the only standard, of course, but I don’t think I’m totally alone either.
Alice. By calling Phaedra Starling the Glenn Beck of feminism I would assume you’re calling her post an example of reactionary fear-mongering?
Yes indeedy. Got it in one.
Your misogyny is showing.
Gosh, the all-purpose M-word. Never saw that coming.
Quick English Vocab Lesson:
mi⋅sog⋅y⋅ny
–noun
hatred, dislike, or mistrust of women.
Hint: criticizing a very dumb article written by someone who happens to be a woman (and whose article, by the way, expresses very clear hatred, dislike, and mistrust of men) is not misogyny. I know feminists think any criticism of any woman for any reason at all constitutes misogyny, but this is not, in fact, the case.
Martin,
“criticizing a very dumb article”
sorry, but you did not, in fact, criticize the article, but rather attribute something to its author. That’s not the same as criticizing an article by said author. Just sayin’.
Fair point. Let us say that it was the content of the article that led me to make the comparison to Beck. Still, it is true that criticizing an article by a feminist, or even criticizing a feminist, or even criticizing a woman, does not make one a misogynist. A critique of one woman and her ideas does not translate to hatred of the whole gender, except to someone blinded by ideology. Phaedra, on the other hand, was condemning all men.
Martin, would you consider reading it again? I see all sorts of places where an individual could conclude that Starling was overreacting, exaggerating, or just plain wrong. I have difficulty imagining how anyone could think she was condemning all men. Sometimes I have read something that I thought was moronic, but then come back to it when I wasn’t so pissed off and found valuable things there, even though I still didn’t agree.
(Of course criticizing a woman and her ideas does not make one a misogynist!)
Brian,
your feelings are your feelings. They can never be wrong. But they may well be unhelpful. And could be dysfunctional
if you’ve read Hugo’s thread about the never feeling hot, you’ll probably have read some of my comments there - if I remember correctly, my point was that true male self sexual confidence is the most important ally of female safety. If you know “you’re hot”, if you’re not desperate for any single interaction, if you know how it feels to say no to someone, then it’s much easiert to put yourself in someone else’s shoes, even if they may have high heels.
“… but that it’d be an unpleasant or insulting experience for them…” “it’s insulting that you’d presume I might be interested in you, when I clearly have attractive value and you do not.””
I hope you’ll forgive me, but I think I know where you’re coming from. For years I’ve been repressing my sexual interest, and I’ve argued along the lines you do here. But while I had internalised a problematic understanding of my own sexuality - it’s one thing to say that everyone is Schrödinger’s rapist to someone else and another to be told that *you* are Schrödinger’s rapist and then reject your own desires because you fear they may be potentially dangerous - the fear of rejection was also always implicit. It wasn’t an afterthought. What I am saying is that there is something inherently problematic about interactions attempted form that angle. They are likely not pleasant for the other person, because *you* don’t expect them to be pleasant, because you’re not concerned with the other person, but how *you* are perceived. You’re not actually in that conversation to *give* value, simply because that’s not a situation you seem to be able to conceive of. If even you don’t think that you’re a fun guy to talk to, I think there’s a pretty high probability taht will show in your interactions, and your mindset will get the confirmations it’s asking for. Such negative feedback slopes are difficult to get out of. I know that, because I worked long and hard to over come such a negative perception of myself. Of course, I can’t tell you it will work for you like it did for me, but what I can tell you is that working on this was absolutely worth it. Because not only have I been told numerous times by women that I am hot, but I have also gained the ability to actually not think about myself all the time when I am talking to someone else. I can actually be interested in another person because I don’t constantly worry about what I am doing to them by talking to them. And, in turn, it is that confidence that also helps to better understand when someone else is actually not interested in a conversation and to leave it at that - I don’t think I’m being rejected if a woman doesn’t want to talk to me. She doesn’t know me. She probably has her reasons for not being interested, but the chances are actually pretty high that these reasons have nothing to do with me, but possibly with her fear of Schrödinger’s rapist.
To put this differently, and a bit cheesily, but I think this is fundamentally true - the more you love yourself, the more you are able to love others, and the more will others be able to love you.
Again, I don’t know you and I may be completely off the mark with what I’ve written. If so, my apologies. But if my impression wasn’t completely wrong, maybe my 2ct are useful to you.
Martin,
“Phaedra, on the other hand, was condemning all men.”
At which point I would have to ask if you actually read the article. She made a couple of sensible point which in no way condemned all men. I’m a guy, and I did not feel condemned one bit. It’s not even particularly feminist, it’s an essay asking men to consider what, in her understanding, many women worry about in cold-approach situations. These are reasonable concerns. I wonder if your reaction would have been different had you read that article as a NYT dating column, or something like that.
I will, in fairness, re-read the article. I admit the first time, I was so disgusted by this assumption of all men possessing an “inner rapist” they can’t wait to let out, I didn’t feel I could bear any more. Certainly every person has fundamental concerns about their own safety that they have to put into practice every day of their lives, with every stranger they meet. But there’s a point beyond which that eminently sensible exercise becomes paranoid and pathological. Such as racial profiling, or “sexual profiling.”
And what point is that? The point at which I can no longer be accused of “asking for it” or “being stupid” or “leading him on” or “not taking responsibility” for my safety?
I like de Becker’s definition: a decent man does not ‘prove’ that he is safe. He simply acts appropriately. And I don’t mean to shock anybody, but what Sam said about being self-confident. It’s a lot easier to think about how other people are reacting and to behave appropriately when you’re not anxious and thinking only of yourself.
I just went back and read the article and - Martin, seriously, what the heck are you talking about? Me agreeing with Sam twice in one day is probably a sign of the Acropolis, but he is right; you clearly didn’t read the article, or you saw it was a feminist writing about men stopping rape and jumped to the conclusion that she meant “all men have an inner rapist”.
Phaedra’s entire premise is that you, the male reader she addresses, are not a rapist. Not even a ’secret’ or ‘latent’ rapist. You are not even a jerk. You are a Good Guy, a decent man, you don’t want to frighten women or make them uncomfortable, and you want to approach them in a way that hopefully leads to romance without scaring or threatening them. Here, she explains, is how women may be perceiving you, and ways you can act that will not create the mistaken impression that you’re a bad guy.
How you get from this to “condemning all men”, I am at a loss to understand.
Phaedra’s entire premise is that you, the male reader she addresses, are not a rapist.
I can see how that could come across as a mixed message. On the one hand, she assumes the male reader isn’t a rapist, but Bus Woman #1 can’t prove that he isn’t, so, for her protection, she assumes he is. That also kind of muddles the “how to not act like a rapist” bit. You can’t really change a person’s perceptions of you if they automatically assume the worst before you really do anything, so why bother trying? Just don’t talk to her in the first place.
Mythago,
as long as it’s the acropolis, I’m fine with that ;)
schism, I see you didn’t read the article either. That, or you’re deeply offended that any woman might even consider the possibility that you’re not perfectly safe.
(and yes, Sam, it’s the Acropolis. Much less severe than the alternative.)
Hugo, thanks very much for the kind words and for hosting a discussion about this article.
Brian, I’m sorry for the quantum agony. Schrödinger is probably rolling over in his grave, but the man had a way with a thought experiment. Slightly repurposing it to deal with probability may be wicked, but it sure was fun. At least I didn’t butcher Heisenberg on you.
Martin, I hope the rereading has clarified the point of the article. I actually wasn’t writing either to rapists or to potential rapists, neither of which are people to whom I want to offer dating advice.
Starling
Don’t worry about it, just professional indignation. Schrodinger was pretty vocal about how much he regretted having anything to do with quantum mechanics anyhow, so I’m not sure he could assert many moral rights to the thought experiment. Superposition doesn’t really have a classical analogue; so it’s unclear to me whether the “assuming all men are rapists” is a valid “being pretty literal about the box” viewpoint. If I’m in a superposition of |rapist> and |not rapist>, then it’s not meaningful to talk about me being one or the other; depending, I’m either both or neither, which I don’t think is appreciated. It’s the only mystery, and since nobody knows how it can be that way, it’s hard to be literal about the analogy anyways.
@Sam
Err, something like that, though whatever disconnects I have aren’t around my opinion of myself, but converting anything like that into attraction. In terms of If even you don’t think that you’re a fun guy to talk to, it isn’t that I don’t, but that I can’t get why that’d cause someone to find me non-platonically attractive.
Brian,
“In terms of If even you don’t think that you’re a fun guy to talk to, it isn’t that I don’t, but that I can’t get why that’d cause someone to find me non-platonically attractive.”
Look who’s rejecting whom here… well, I don’t propose a theory about female attraction, but to that question my reply would be: you’d be surprised how many women do find guys who are fun to talk to attractive in a non-platonic way.
schism, I see you didn’t read the article either.
You see incorrectly. I don’t mind if someone decides I’m a threat and I certainly don’t fault self-interest. I just question the usefulness of trying to change people’s minds.
Of course, that applies here as well as anyplace else, so assume what you like.
Superposition doesn’t really have a classical analogue; so it’s unclear to me whether the “assuming all men are rapists” is a valid “being pretty literal about the box” viewpoint.
Brian, it sounds like you didn’t read the post. There’s no assuming all men are rapists anywhere in it. If there were, there would be no reference to a concept of something unmeasurable, because measurement is already presumed.
I’m mystified how anyone can read Starling’s post and come up with “all men are rapists” as any part of it, yet the blogosphere is full of men doing just that. Is is a widespread reading comprehension issue? Or a widespread lack-of-logic issue?
I can’t get why that’d cause someone to find me non-platonically attractive.
For what it’s worth, any faint hint of any kind of inability to grasp that someone else may experience attraction differently from how one experiences one’s own will automatically peg the creep-o-meter for a lot of women.
Rachel-
Not a strawman at all. Read the Uniform Crime Reports. It doesn’t mean that most African Americans are violent criminals. Heck, the whole point of the post that we’re discussing is that while women do in fact sexually assault women, most women who are sexually assaulted are in fact assaulted by men. See, it’s a matter of statistics. Anyone could be a murderer and ANY stranger could mug you or sexually assault you, but the wary person on the subway is making judgments based upon prior experience, vibes, and yes . . . odds.
Faith-
I agree that the IDEAL way to reduce crime is to teach people to not be criminals. BUT . . . we do not live in an ideal world. Unfortunately, there will always be crime and there will always be sexual assault. If more men were to carry guns, that would be a good thing. Most men aren’t violent criminals and those who are tend to be armed already. A properly trained, strapped woman is a safer woman.
Helen,
I think it’s a reading comprehension issue that’s based on the assumption that she may be “Schrödinger’s feminist” (as in yet another author trying to taint men/masculinity as violent (essentially or as a cultural product, the result is the same)) who doesn’t even try to consider a/the male perspective. There’s so much of that out there that it’s not a particularly surprising reaction, even if Starling’s post doesn’t fall into that category at all, when, in fact, she’s explicitly trying to give useful advice. If she had published the essay on a dating website, the perception would have likely been different (as I said with respect to Martin above).
And I think men generally seem to need communication advice on a different abstraction level than women. In a way, for many women, it seems to be clear what’s the behavioural meaning of “generally don’t approach someone who seems to be avoiding a conversation”, while for many men that statement would probably need to be broken down specifically.
davev–
The essay was addressed to men, but was primarily for an audience of women, which is why I posted it on a feminist website with overwhelmingly female readers. I worked for a police department for six years, and one of my jobs was training the new kids. Part of the training, over and over again, was emphasizing that there is a huge difference between responding subconsciously to real indicators, and letting your preconceptions or racism take over. So you learn to recognize real indicators by becoming conscious of the way you assess threats.
A woman who is scared of all black men isn’t just a racist, she’s an idiot. If you’re already scared, you can’t distinguish between a real threat and the threat you’re imagining. One of the primary aims of the essay was to encourage women to understand that when they get “creepy” vibes from the guy on the subway or at the grocery store, or the one on the online dating site, they don’t have to think “Oh, well, it was a compliment!” or “He was just trying to be nice!” They can recognize the behavior as a boundary violation, and understand that if it’s tripping their Creep-O-Meter, that’s a signal they should respect and value, and then act on. There is a lot of social pressure for women just to be nice, to say thank you, and to accept all attention as complimentary, when that’s often not in their best interests.
I think that the more attuned women are to genuine signals, the less they will rely on the racist and classist prejudices that are both incredibly common and incredibly misleading. The threat assessment should go something like this:
Woman sees unknown man. Threat level–low to medium, depending on whether it’s late at night in an alleyway or midday in Times Square. Race ought to be irrelevant here, although that takes some self-awareness.
Man approaches without encouragement. Threat assessment: slightly higher to much higher, depending on whether the woman is open to being approached or is madly sending signals to be left alone. (Dark alley + approached when clearly avoidant = time to get away.)
Man says something. Threat assessment: decreased if a reasonable request from a stranger (ie, do you have the time?), increased slightly if admiring in nature (that’s a lovely sweater) and a great deal if sexual in nature (nice tits!) Note: nothing wrong with admiring. It just makes women a little more wary, because it means that the approach is targeted to her, rather than any stranger who might have a watch or know directions.
Woman responds in a way to end conversation. Then man keeps talking. Threat assessment: probably still okay for now–he’s not likely to hit you on the head and drag you off to his lair under the Opera House. But this will usually set off the Creep-O-Meter, and it should, because it’s a deliberate boundary violation and a tiny little power play.
The man’s not going to actually get maced, but the woman should trust her instincts and keep her real name and contact information to herself. I’m not saying that the man in question is a rapist, but he’s a bit more of a risk than I’m comfortable taking under almost all circumstances. He’s not necessarily someone I want to get to know, particularly on romantic terms.
You see, if done mindfully, the threat assessment process is based on what people actually do, and how that actually makes you feel, rather than on a preconceived notion that all black men are threats, or all construction workers are threats, or all teenagers are threats.
I think that also speaks to Schism’s concern–the threat assessment process is always running, and it’s very fluid. The idea behind Schrödinger’s Rapist is not that all men are rapists, or even that all men have the potential to be rapists, but that women proceed with caution around strange men. Initial threat assessment is necessarily based on very minor interactions, and some interactions are always going to get a thumbs down, including dark alleys and ignoring the ‘leave me alone’ signals.
Re: self-defense–3/4 of rapes are committed by people whom the victim knows. The best defense is not to be armed and dangerous around people you trust, it’s to get better at recognizing people who aren’t trustworthy.
Starling,
I, for one, really likes your essay. As for your comment to daveev,
“One of the primary aims of the essay was to encourage women to understand that when they get “creepy” vibes from the guy on the subway or at the grocery store, or the one on the online dating site, they don’t have to think “Oh, well, it was a compliment!” or “He was just trying to be nice!””
Well, that I didn’t read in the essay. I think that’s an important aspect, but I would like to add that - if you read comments like Brian’s above - and how shyness and lack of self confidence can be perceived as creepy, there actually is a fair chance that even a creepy, shy, approach was intended as a compliment. Of course she shouldn’t continue a conversation if it doesn’t feel right to her, however much it may be a compliment, but I think it’s important to understand that, for some men, talking to women without being awkward is just really hard.
Communication is both risk and opportunity. You’ve recognized that in your essay, but, of course, you’re more focused on the risk-avoidance point than about the opportunity creation aspect. Personally, I think, those are extremely intertwined. Reducing perceived risk is the most important element in opportunity creation. I have no idea what you’re doing in your spare time, but maybe you should think about actually teaching men how to appropriately approach women…
And I think men generally seem to need communication advice on a different abstraction level than women. In a way, for many women, it seems to be clear what’s the behavioural meaning of “generally don’t approach someone who seems to be avoiding a conversation”, while for many men that statement would probably need to be broken down specifically.
I don’t buy the notion that men are so unable to do simple abstract thinking.
Especially since nowhere near so many of them have trouble telling whether men of twice their own size and strength might be interested in a conversation.
I think it’s important to understand that, for some men, talking to women without being awkward is just really hard.
Being an engineer who has spent most of her adult life surrounded by men with few women to be seen, I really get that. I’ve seen a lot of it and a lot of the associated heartfelt angst.
What I don’t get is where anyone gets the notion that it’s ok to pester strangers for help with a personal problem or for help with building a skill. I’m afraid of heights, but I don’t run around asking strangers to help me with it. I’m terribly awkward at baseball, but I don’t walk up to people on public transport, shove a glove into their hands, and toss a ball at them so I can learn.
Helen,
well, I don’t think that there was much consideration of this as a problem for a long time. Even now, this is mostly being looked at from the angle of “avoiding sexual violence (Schrödinger’s rapist)”. The flip side, male lack of ability to communicate as the most common root cause of awkwardness and creepiness in inter-sex communication, still isn’t given much thought.
Sam, I just don’t buy “male lack of ability to communicate” as some nearly-universal problem. It plainly contradicts everything I see men do day in and day out.
All day I watch them perform extremely subtle and nuanced communication, breaking every convention about men being crippled at emotional interaction.
One remark that never fails to give me a good hearty laugh is the whole “men don’t talk about problems to commiserate and get emotional support, but only to solve them” canard. In every all-male-but-me environment I’ve ever been in, men talk with each other about problems for emotional support only at least daily, and very often for hours at a time.
SamSeaborn–The essay was part of an ongoing conversation on SP, spurred by the xkcd comic, so its application to the actual audience, rather than the narrator’s audience, was pretty clear in that context. It does seem to resonate with other women on that level, although I would recast it for clarity if I were to publish it cold in a mainstream women’s magazine.
One of my objections to the xkcd comic is that it does a huge disservice to awkward men. I grew up with awkward men. My father and my older brother both have doctorates in particle physics, and my environment was always filled with scientists, mathematicians, and computer people. Consequently, I learned to derive the Bohr radius of an atom from first principles–great party trick, I know–and I have a lot of sympathy for this problem.
If you’re socially awkward and you feel the social pressure to be the one to approach, you do imagine terrible things happening to you. All the women will laugh. The quarterback will shut you in your locker. I think the kindest thing to do is to tell the good guys who are awkward that it’s really not about them. Women don’t like being approached sometimes, just because they’ve had scary experiences and they’re wary. That’s not because you’re a jerk, or because you’re ugly, or because you embarrassed yourself by daring to think you’re in her league. It’s because you’re not necessarily attuned to what the implications of your approach are. By tweaking a few minor things–waiting until either you or she are getting ready to leave, paying attention to body language, remembering and empathizing with the viewpoint of the woman alone–you improve your chances dramatically.
The confidence-building message is not, “Ignore her body language! Maybe she secretly does want to meet you!” It is, “Watch body language. Be receptive to signals. Remember that you’re a stranger to her.” Sometimes I think guys push conversations because they think, “She’s not impressed with my looks, but I really want to show her how smart and witty I am!” In fact, it’s not that you’re being rejected for your looks, it’s that you’re being too pushy because that’s what men are told to do by movies and books and a thousand other cultural influences. Pushy = threatening = not successful. It’s not that women don’t want nice guys. It’s that nice guys don’t understand how they’re spiking their own guns.
I write fiction in my non-spare time. (The spare time is eaten up by blog comments, martial arts and the lure of NYC.) What I write is commercial fiction, not the literary stuff, but I try to describe good relationships, not the antagonistic pushy fight-filled dramafests that are too often presented as Hot Romantic Love. Changing that cultural perception is a huge task, and I can only do my bit, but that seems to me to be one way to help everyone.
Starling,
“I have a lot of sympathy for this problem.”
Believe it or not, I think I got that from your essay. Subtext-wise, but still. I think that was present on some level and may have been why I didn’t react defensive like Martin above.
“I think the kindest thing to do is to tell the good guys who are awkward that it’s really not about them.”
Absolutely. I don’t know if you read what I’ve written above in my longer reply to Brain, but, yeah, I think that’s something fundamental to understand, and it’s really, really difficult if you don’t have a history of success in inter-sex interactions.
I know that because I know both sides. I had huge issues of (religious and feminist) sexual shame and was a virgin when I got my graduate degree. I wasn’t quite Steve Carell, but close enough to not find the “40yo virgin” funny when it came out.
So there’s two issues, as I see it - one of them *was* about me, and it’s likely similar for other socially awkward men. It was my issues and I was the one who needed to address them. But understanding that also required to understand that any particular rejection very likely, as you say, didn’t have anything to do with me as a person. She doesn’t know me. So her reaction is *her* reaction, and it probably has to do with her life, where she is right now. It may have something to do with how I present myself, the awkwardness thing, but that is something that can be fixed in most circumstances if one really really wants to. If a guy can derive the Bohr radius, his brain is good enough to learn how to interact, even if intelligence may sometimes get in the way of fluent small-talk.
But it is difficult. And there’s no fast way to deal with one’s emotions and fears. It takes time. And learning means approaching and talking to people, and giving oneself credit for trying and celebrating even asking a woman for the time instead of a man. But it’s worth the effort - well, for me it was.
I’m a bit over thirty now and in the last twelve months I’ve met about 2 women that I didn’t know before per week, and there were only two conversations that didn’t get to the 10 minute mark, but there were women suggesting on-spot sex, and there was a follow up of some sort (from facebook chat to actual sex) to the initial conversation in almost all other cases. And yes -
““Watch body language. Be receptive to signals. Remember that you’re a stranger to her.””
is maybe the most important element in the equation. And that should be tought in school.
“Pushy = threatening = not successful. It’s not that women don’t want nice guys. It’s that nice guys don’t understand how they’re spiking their own guns.”
Yeah. I agree completely. But there’s a subtle difference in behaviour that is hard to understand in theory but makes all the difference in practive: it’s good to be *assertive*, to communicate what you want at the appropriate time in the appropriate way, but it’s *bad* to be pushy. And while I don’t think “nice guys” will usually be pushy, they will also be so afraid of being *perceived* as pushy that they will, usually unsuccessfully, hide their own sexuality to the extent that it comes over as creepy, or even pushy, when it finally gets released, usually at an inappropriate time.
I think we completely agree, we just look at the same phenomenon from slightly different angles.
“Changing that cultural perception is a huge task, and I can only do my bit, but that seems to me to be one way to help everyone.”
Very true. Best of luck with that!
The fact that you are starting with the assumption “she thinks I’m a rapist right off the bat” suggests rather strongly that if you indeed read the article, you read into it what you wanted to see. That or you don’t understand the “Schroedinger’s” reference. I suppose there may be some other explanation for the petulant declaration that if women might be concerned for their safety from a stranger, well then you just won’t bother talking to them.
Sam, I really don’t think it’s some issue with The Male Brain being unable to perceive that another person doesn’t wish to strike up a conversation.
mythago, they perceive it just fine when the other person is, say, their boss. So nope, basic inability is not the issue.
I suppose there may be some other explanation for the petulant declaration that if women might be concerned for their safety from a stranger, well then you just won’t bother talking to them.
Given that 1) women are, for valid reasons, constantly on guard around strange men and 2) my approaching said women exacerbates matters, the most ethical thing, it seems to me, is to avoid that scenario in the first place. That generally involves not bothering (or talking to) random women who happen to be nearby).
Brian, it sounds like you didn’t read the post.
I wasn’t advocating that viewpoint, just discussion whether it’s a valid result of “leaning heavily on a fairly literal following of Schrodinger’s Cat”. The author probably wants to say “maybe, maybe not, I don’t know”, but by invoking our little cat and the vial of cyanide, things have additional meanings. Dangers o’ the metaphor. Schrodinger’s cat isn’t alive or dead, and we just don’t know, it’s in a superposition of alive and dead, in the closest possible classical way of thinking, it’s both alive and dead, and so Schrodinger’s rapist is both a rapist and not a rapist, not just from your perspective, but in some objective physical way.
With respect to Is is a widespread reading comprehension issue? Or a widespread lack-of-logic issue? I said something about why I was really defensive at the get go, and I wasn’t really thinking about who it was supposed to be aimed at; the second person writing style really overrid that. Trying to apply the thinking presented to my own circumstances would force me to withdraw from non-platonic interactions entirely, and one does have to step back and really ask “Is she talking to me?” (in fact, I actually realised how many times I’ve expressed some romantic/sexual interest in a woman I’ve known less than a month, say, which is zero times. So, uh, no, it isn’t aimed at me.) I suspect as a woman, you’re so far removed from the target audience that you’re not really inclined towards thinking it’s directed at you.
For what it’s worth, any faint hint of any kind of inability to grasp that someone else may experience attraction differently from how one experiences one’s own will automatically peg the creep-o-meter for a lot of women.
I’m not sure how this’d work out. As I figure it, you should just end up representing yourself as not interested. That said, I can’t honestly say I have any idea how many women have known that I’ve been attracted to them (well, except that I can set a floor of … nine, I think, that I’ve expressed it to directly.)
Not getting it certainly can make one creepy (not correctly reading indications of non-interest, and assuming it’s there, or a possibility), sure. Just how it does so in the reverse (where you assume non-interest, that it isn’t a possibility, and read indications of interest as … well, usually vague irritation, I think, though YMMV) isn’t at all clear, is all.
“If more men were to carry guns, that would be a good thing. Most men aren’t violent criminals and those who are tend to be armed already. A properly trained, strapped woman is a safer woman.”
This is going to be my last comment on this because it is off-topic:
No, it would not be a good thing if more men, or more women, walked around armed. That would quite obviously do nothing but lead to more violence.
I’m also not going to tell a woman that she can’t arm herself, but I’m certainly not going to encourage her to do so. I’m also not likely to have anything to do with a woman who carried a gun simply because I refuse to have much to do with anyone that I know who carries a gun. I loathe guns. Loathe isn’t even a strong enough word for my feelings about guns. And, I still do not believe that carrying a gun will keep a woman from being raped. Most women are raped by men that they know. This means that most women who are about to be raped aren’t likely to have the gun on their person when the assault begins. It also means that the woman is going to be less likely to pull the trigger than if it happened to be a stranger attacking her. Even if it is a random stranger on the street, she’s still unlikely to be able to draw the weapon in time to actually pull the trigger.
All that aside, it is not my responsibility to stop rape. It is also not the responsibility of other women to stop rape. That responsibility is the responsibility of men. I flat-out refuse to take on another person’s responsibility. I have enough of my own, thanks. I’m also not going to encourage other women to arm themselves with guns that aren’t likely to do anything but get their own selves killed instead of her attacker. Or maybe it might be her child who gets killed when he/she finds mommy’s gun in her purse. I was raised in a houseful of guns. There is no such thing as a safe gun.
Brian, you claimed Starling’s article included “assuming all men are rapists.” If you read the article, it’s clear that’s not true. I’m unable to follow your double-speak trying to get around the fact that you made a false claim.
Schrodinger’s cat isn’t alive or dead, and we just don’t know, it’s in a superposition of alive and dead, in the closest possible classical way of thinking, it’s both alive and dead, and so Schrodinger’s rapist is both a rapist and not a rapist, not just from your perspective, but in some objective physical way.
And if you read the comments thread, you’d know that the discussion worked out that this is in fact the case more often than most people realize, and only interaction with others “collapses the waveform” one way or the other.
Sometimes I think guys push conversations because they think, “She’s not impressed with my looks, but I really want to show her how smart and witty I am!”
Probably, yes, though I’d expect a more agnostic attitude towards looks (or even a complete lack of consideration of that issue, see this). Probably much more along the lines of difficulty reading signals, though this may be a result of perspective. I’ve known few men who’re probably too pushy, but a good stack who were exactly the opposite, and took their inability to read signals as an indication none existed; such men generally withdrew from trying to form nonplatonic relationships in general, except where entirely unavoidable (which’re usually of the form “I offered to sleep on my couch, but she insisted we share my bed, even though it was a single. I didn’t think anything of it at the time, but the next day I found out…” or “well, she sat in my lap and took a nap, but I wouldn’t want to be presumptuous…” (in my defence, only one of those is me))
One can react a lot of ways to the general problem, I think. Be confident really only means “assume signal”, but it may work to make you pushy if you go to far (of course, when you’re doing everything in your power to explain away signal (consciously or not), and have a hard time converting “I’d be interested in dating you.” into thinking [maybe it would be okay to ask her on a date], even though you’d spent the previous evening making out (in that case, I was very intoxicated, which reduced my ability to … okay, so I forget what happened. As I said, very intoxicated.) then maybe being a bit more presumptuous is helpful. And certainly there you learn the wrong lessons anyways (I kept reading people as uninterested, but then it turned out they were, so …)
But the truth is probably I don’t grok men who’re being too pushy about this sort of thing, since I, and probably all the men I’ve discussed the subject with, have acted in almost the exact opposite way. Trying to assign them the same, or similar motivations, may be a complete mistake.
I’m not sure how this’d work out. As I figure it, you should just end up representing yourself as not interested.
Uh, who asked you? Go wave your Penis of Instruction elsewhere.
Regarding reading an article defensively or non-defensively, target audience has nothing to do with it. I’m a scientist; I’ve spent the bulk of my life learning to get around or still preconceptions and confirmation bias when reading articles. I’m surprised it’s such a problem for you. It doesn’t trouble me in the slightest when reading articles on how not to be a racist, for example.
Helen
Go back and look at what I said, which is probably so it’s unclear to me whether the “assuming all men are rapists” is a valid “being pretty literal about the box” viewpoint. (at least, it’s the only place I said the exact phrase assuming all men are rapists., I’m not sure where else you might’ve gotten the impression I said the article advocated this idea, excepting maybe from a “how do we map quantum states onto classical descriptions?” physics discussion.
only interaction with others “collapses the waveform” one way or the other. Well, if one prefers Copenhagen. (Sorry, that may be heavy on internet sarcasm.) But a many worldser, or a consistent historieser, or a retarded potentialser (personally, my favourite!) or a pilot-waver might take a different level of offence to the suggestion of Schrodinger’s rapist, because it carries different connotations to them (and realistically, many worlds is probably most popular among people who worry about this sort of thing, even if Copenhagen is usually taught to quantum chefs.) After all, in many worlds it’s clear that I do rape (everyone!) even if it’s not me-me that does it; while with retarded potentials or pilot waves, I was never going to rape anyone, so how I feel about that description might be radically different, no?
Uh, right, Brian, sure.
You’re saying you brought enough scientific mindset to reading the article to wade into clearly unwarranted pedantry, but not enough to get around your own defensiveness and confirmation bias. That’s an enormous failure of scientific reasoning on your part, not on the part of the author.
Helen
If you don’t mind, I’d rather say things for myself than have your expectations substituted for what I say. Yeah, I discussed why one might become defensive, and the problems of how one interprets the metaphor; that saying “a mindset can exist” and “a mindset is the correct one to have” are different is something I’ve taken for granted, I can try and be more explicit if you’re having trouble following. How you go from me saying “I don’t know if it’s valid to say the author implies/assumes all men are rapists” to “I know it’s valid to say the author implies/assumes all men are rapists”, I don’t know.
Beyond that, I thought I was pretty clear that it provoked a defensive reaction from a misreading associated with the difficulties of reading something written in the second person not directed at me, which I then recognised and explicitly labelled as a misreading. How I say The difficulty I had in figuring this out may be partly (or even largely) my own fault, I (foolishly, it’ll turn out) performed the gedankenexperiment of applying the principle to my own behaviour, said something about why I was really defensive at the get go, and I wasn’t really thinking about who it was supposed to be aimed at and you take this to be me blaming the author for any misunderstandings is not something I’m able to grok.
If the charge is zealously engaging in pedantry, then I’d plead guilty without knowing whether it’s judged unwarranted or not; I won’t concede that pedantry can be unwarranted though. ;)
No failure of reasonings in what I said here that I can see (though I did describe my earlier failure of reading comprehension, and label it explicitly as such). That you’ve accused me of taking positions I didn’t take, and that I can’t defend the unjustifiable positions you hope to ascribe to me, doesn’t surprise me, but I fail to see how it’s any failure of reasoning on my part. Or are you still taking my it’s unclear to me if this is a valid literal viewpoint to mean it’s clear to me this is the only valid viewpoint?
Brian, your mode of expressing yourself here is so rambling and incoherent that there is no other possible way to read it than to try to rephrase it. The best that I can make out is that you are engaging in double-speak, goalpost-moving, and more logical fallacies than I can track.
It’s possible that your intention is otherwise, but that’s not remotely how you’re presenting yourself. I realize the vague, rambling, convoluted-mess-of-plausible-deniability mode of discourse is in fashion among physicists, but sheesh, you’re taking it far.
Brian, Helen,
“That’s an enormous failure of scientific reasoning on your part, not on the part of the author”
It’s not a failure of scientific reasoning per se, in my opinion. It’s a demonstration of the importance of emotions for people’s arguments in *this* dimension.
Helen
I’m discussing why a lot of men are reacting defensively to the article, and misinterpreting it, without saying that they’re right to do so. Which is why I don’t want to cop to advocating their lines of thinking (or feeling, as Sam notes) but still don’t think it’s necessarily the case that they’re reacting out of nowhere, or at random.
That I read it, reacted in a similar way, recognised the disconnect between how I understood it and how it was aimed is the starting point. It’s not hard to mistake the second person language aimed generally at “men” as aimed at yourself (if you’re a man who is attracted to women, anyways), and go along with thinking things that maybe aren’t true. She writes Now, you want to become acquainted with a woman you see in public. and maybe I say “okay, sure”, even though that doesn’t sound like me at all, really, but the narrative is engaging and whatnot so you go along with it.
Okay, maybe my initial comment’s:
Which isn’t to say that the points made shouldn’t apply if I were to be making the mistakes outlined in the article, only that so long as my assumed priors cause me to substitute “no” when I hear “yes”, or read doe eyes, finding excuses to give me her phone number, and playful touching as “vaguely irritated to be stuck hanging around me”, my problems are not those addressed here.
is too weak. Perhaps Which is to say that the points made should apply if I were to be making the mistakes outlined in the article. for clarity as it seems that wasn’t obvious enough.
Why then do so many men seem to think the article says “You are a rapist, never speak to a woman again?” Is that not an interesting question to ask? (At least here, in a blog much moreso than average aimed at men, on a topic very explicitly aimed at men) Why’re they hearing this? Well, okay, I didn’t really hear the first half, but I took away a very strong “never speak to a woman again” impression. That I (eventually) recognised why, I think, is of interest. As it stands I hit on women with a frequency of ~10 nHz, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that I wouldn’t be keen to decrease that (especially since I’m not even a gigasecond old). The author assumes implicitly that I might be inclined to ignore signals of disinterest, so the advice ain’t all that helpful for those who invent signals of disinterest. If you already solve the Those women do not want to be approached, no matter how nice you are or how much you’d like to date them. Okay? That’s their right. problem by reasoning that you should never express interest in a woman (which I have a subdiscussion with Sam about, which may make me seem rambly. Also, I ramble.), and that you should always interpret her actions as disinterest if at all possible (and I usually continue to do so longer after that, too.)
It may be showing that it was in a lot of ways written for a female audience, in that it speaks to men more as women experience us than as we experience ourselves. Not that the guy who doesn’t take disinterest on the bus as a sign to take off doesn’t need a talking to, obviously he does, I’m just not sure he’s the guy reading and reacting. I certainly wasn’t reading and reacting as that guy, but as the guy who deals with attraction by avoiding you as much as I possibly can. And I thought I saw a lot of that mentality in the “I don’t think I’d be willing to give up hitting on women for the hope that someday, after all men have stopped doing this, they might starting hitting on us.” objection. (Not necessarily other ones, which I may not understand as well).
tl;dr
tl;dr
I don’t think an argument or explanation of mine has ever been so effectively demolished. ;)
Given that you claim to be a scientist but apparently can’t construct a thesis statement, yeah, that actually does qualify as demolishing the notion that your long screeds qualify as “arguments”.
Isn’t the point of the article that “how women are perceiving you” is useful information for a man to have?
I suspect the reason that a lot of men are reacting defensively (it seems to be bouncing aroung the MRAsphere right now) is that it suggests that a) some men are rapists and b) some well-intentioned, non-rapist men may unwittingly behave in ways that women perceive as threatening. And some people have a very hard time hearing that they might be making a mistake, particularly if doing so requires them to get out of their rut.
Brian–
Why do men assume that they’re being accused of being rapists? That’s a core question. The article begins by explicitly stating that the Reader, the man in question, is a Good Guy who would never do something like that. And then it tells him that, despite his good-guy-ness, he’s still in the maybe-maybe not category in the eyes of women he doesn’t know. By point five, the Narrator has developed the idea enough to remind the Reader, again, that even she is currently in this category of Woman Interacting with Stranger, and that the world in which we live necessarily results in women having to treat strange men with wariness.
The phrase “Schrödinger’s rapist” is a deliberately provocative one. It is too easy for the male reader of an essay like this to unconsciously put himself in the category of ally without asking himself what that means. He thinks, “Yes, men ought not do these things” but not, “The group of men who ought not do things like this actually includes me.” The intent of the provocation was to break through this unconscious assumption and challenge it.
It is a little mind-bending to be told that the Reader is in fact both a non-rapist (a good guy) and still a potential rapist, even in the eyes of the Narrator. That’s the quantum-friendly interpretation my physicist family and I most enjoyed; the Reader is both harmless and potentially harmful. The two states actually are superimposed on one another. The Reader has to understand that the two states–genuinely good guy, and potential threat–really do coexist and that he has to recognize that he is a potential threat as well as not a threat at all in order to successfully interact with a wary female stranger. In fact, he’s Schrödinger’s Threat, not Schrödinger’s Rapist, from the quantum POV.
This gets into a complicated intersection of textual analysis and quantum mechanics, so I tend to avoid discussing it in responses to the article. But you’re interested and you seem to be up to speed in your science, so all I really have to do is give you some close reading of the text. (BTW, this is what us literature majors were doing with our time: learning how to lure our readers in, bash them on the head, turn them inside out and send them on their way.)
I don’t know that this is practically helpful for male readers, at least in the way the Narrator offers to be helpful. You point out, correctly, that the kind of guy likely to read and be affected by this is not often the kind of guy who’s being a problem in the first place. But you can take away the ideas that 1) women are first assessing threat rather than attraction when approached by a stranger (anywhere) and 2) ignoring the signals you do recognize (particularly the ones like, “Stop e-mailing me, you’re scary”) will make you a jerk, despite all the social encouragement never to quit. Being able to see the courtship dance from a woman’s point of view, rather than strictly from your own, is always a huge advantage in dating. It makes you much less self-conscious (because it’s NOT about you, most of the time) and much more competent at communication.
Hope that helps!
Starling,
“Why do men assume that they’re being accused of being rapists? That’s a core question.”
That’s Naomi Wolf territory, I think. Feminism has a large vocabulary about male sexual violence, but positive views of male sexuality aren’t often expressed. That’s not unusual, few people are vocal about they appreciate and most people are vocal about the things that bother them. But this structures a discourse, and likely in a way that leads men to the (wrong) assumption above when they read an article like yours.
“You point out, correctly, that the kind of guy likely to read and be affected by this is not often the kind of guy who’s being a problem in the first place.”
Which is an important point: if you’re the kind of guy who’s hanging out in feminist boards you probably like to think of yourself as part of the solution not the problem. And then instead of listening to what guys reply a common reaction seems to be - “you don’t get a cookie for listening to us…”. Which then leads to an adverse reaction. In this context, I’d say even more so when the man is among those who have problems saying hi to women without being awkward.
Again, I think I understood your desire to be actually helpful and I got your awkwardness-emphatic subtext, I think. But I’m also not surprised that some men’s reaction is not purely based on what you’ve written but also by the context in which it is appearing, and certainly based on the *perception* of the context in which it is appearing. It’s still wrong, but explicable.
Feminism has a large vocabulary about male sexual violence, but positive views of male sexuality aren’t often expressed.
Expressed where? I encounter feminists talking about positive views of male sexuality all the time.
Further, why are you complaining about a lack of positive views of male sexuality written by those victimized by male sexuality? That sounds pretty darned childish. How about writing positive visions of male sexuality yourself, visions that actively work against those men who are violent while pursuing one’s own healthy sexuality?
Helen,
“I encounter feminists talking about positive views of male sexuality all the time.”
Where? Seriously. I think Hugo’s blog is the closest to that among well known feminist blogs and it really takes a while to read even his positive message between the lines (I’m also reading feministing and there male sexuality simply isn’t a topic there unless it becomes a problem).
So Starling asked a question about why men would perceive her essay like a lot of men seem to be perceiving it and I offered what I think could be the reason for that. I think it’s understandable when feminists are vocal about issues that they are concerned about rather than issues that they like (positive male sexuality). But just as in every public discourse where there’s a negative bias in publishing (”bad news is good news”) that’s also why you get a negative perception bias, and, in this case, reactions from men who get defensive.
“How about writing positive visions of male sexuality yourself, visions that actively work against those men who are violent while pursuing one’s own healthy sexuality?”
I’m not saying I woudldn’t do that, but at this point in my life I’m really just leaving my own sexual shame and my issues behind me and don’t really feel confident advising others except when I really think they come from the same place, like I said with respect to Brian above. So, yeah, maybe, for the future that’s an interesting idea.
In the comments threads all over the place. Shakesville, for one.
negative perception bias That doesn’t mean what you think it means. Women who have had negative experiences with male sexuality are overwhelmingly silenced. The existence of one small corner of the world of discourse where that is less true doesn’t mean that corner has any sort of negative bias, it means it’s a bit less egregiously positively-biased than the rest.
Most of your comments about why you think some men making false claims about Starling’s article boil down to, “because men are narcissistic children given to sociopathy.” Dude. Way to hate on the men.
Helen,
“Most of your comments about why you think some men making false claims about Starling’s article boil down to, “because men are narcissistic children given to sociopathy.” Dude. Way to hate on the men.”
interesting reading of what I’ve said. Your words, your interpretation. Not mine.
Sam–
I think it’s actually super-important for allies to realize that they still have male privilege that works on unknown women, whether they like it or not. That’s the single most powerful thing Hugo’s said here. Male allies suffer from what we refer to as rape culture, as well. I hope there are groups of men who talk about the positive forces of masculinity and male sexuality in the context of gender equality and erasing rape culture, particularly focusing on enthusiastic participation. But male sexuality is not my bailiwick, and it would be noxious and presumptuous of me to talk about it based on the fact that I know some men! Who like sex! And therefore I have some special insight into what is really all about you.
The essay should shock the reader in his Ally status, where he’s cheerfully munching a cookie (yeah, we do give ‘em out sometimes) and feeling warm fuzzies about the cool feminists he knows. Because even if you have the Gloria Steinem Order of the Finfriendly Waterbike, you’re still a male stranger. And being a feminist, being an ally, does not allow you to shed privilege, even when it would make your life and everyone else’s lives easier. That reality-based world? It sucks. For you and for us. You can no more duck out of your part in this dance than we can–there’s a bigger cultural expectation pulling all our strings.
I am really glad people are talking about this. I would like to write more, and if I do, I assure you that male sexuality will not get such short shrift. In the context of this article, however, it was important to emphasize to men reading that even their positive and appropriate sexuality is rightly perceived a potential threat by a strange woman. This is horrible, but it isn’t my fault, and it isn’t the fault of your sexuality or men’s sexual desires in general.
I should probably take this opportunity to remark that I really appreciate and approve of male sexuality. Yay, men! I don’t think I have much to add to that, but it’s a sincere statement. :-)
Sam, you keep going on about how men get all caught up in their feeling maybe possibly being hurt when the topic is about women trying to just stay alive and all too often failing.
That’s sociopathy in a nutshell.
Starling,
“rightly”
English is not my native language, so please remember that when I say that “rightly” seems too deontological to me here. It’s always “usefully” seen as potential threat, “justifiedly” seen as a potential threat, and “appropriately” perceived as a potential threat, but “rightly”, it seems to me, would only be correct in the cases where the potential threat would *actually* be a real risk. Does that distinction make sense to you?
“This is horrible, but it isn’t my fault, and it isn’t the fault of your sexuality or men’s sexual desires in general.”
True, but that’s something not heard very often. It’s probably assumed a lot of the times, but not said very often. So it’s often difficult for a lot of guys to not take this stuff personally. Here’s a link to a post by a woman called kiki which I once found linked to by Hugo, and of which I still think it’s among the very best things I’ve read about male sexuality from a feminist author.
http://saucebox.almeidaisgod.com/?p=85
“I should probably take this opportunity to remark that I really appreciate and approve of male sexuality. Yay, men! I don’t think I have much to add to that, but it’s a sincere statement. :-)”
Glad to hear :). As I said, part of my positive reaction to your essay was that I had the impression you were serious in your attempt to give advice rather than blame. I think if more feminists said what you say above more often, or would be much easier for many men to not take presumed abstract “attacts” personally and get defensive. It’s an understandable reaction, in my opinion, but not a helpful one.
Sam-
I think the use of “rightly” is valid, because the male stranger is a threat, even when he is also the Reader, who is not a threat. That gets us straight back into quantum mechanics, and it emphasizes the essential, immovable, indigestible and disturbing central idea of the essay: even good men are threats to women they don’t know. Not criminals, not rapists, not attackers, but threats.
I hope this makes men angry, and that then they figure out that their anger is properly directed not at me or at feminists but at the incredibly ugly cultural training we receive. Some men won’t ever get to that point. The least self-aware vent their anger on me by expressing their desire that someone rape me–hello, anyone seeing any central inconsistency there?–but these aren’t men with the combination of intelligence and moral fiber that is required to make change. I hope, though, that others will choose to do so, because they are so angry that the world is like this for both their sons and their daughters.
I thought you might enjoy this follow-up to the SR post, also on Shapely Prose: http://kateharding.net/2009/10/14/have-you-tried-not-being-so-sexy/
-S
Sam, this is more insightful than you know.
Because speaking as a feminist who isn’t of the 1970s male-sexuality-is-toxic school of thought, it doesn’t really matter what we say. Never mind the Susie Brights or Pat Califias or Amanda Marcottes of the world celebrating sex, including (and in the latter case, especially) the kind that involves a penis. Those men who don’t want to hear unpleasant truths will cherry-pick out the unpleasantness and ignore anything positive.
It’s like that Far Side cartoon. What we say: Sex is great and male sexual desire is a good thing, but it’s a problem when sex is used as an excuse to vilify women and put them in a subordinate position to men. What defensive anti-feminsits hear: Men are bad because they want to have sex with us!
Which is perhaps why ‘you don’t get a cookie’ may come as a shock to somebody who doesn’t perceive what he said that led up to that. It’s like Phaedra’s discussion of unconscious, unwitting, but still wrong behavior. The guy who swaggers in and talks about how egalitarian his sex life is and how he would never rape may think he’s being supportive; to a lot of women, he sounds like he’s asking for a cookie.
Mythago
Isn’t the point of the article that “how women are perceiving you” is useful information for a man to have?
In a very big picture, yes, in a smaller picture it’s more nuanced. Maybe It may be showing that it was in a lot of ways written for a female audience, in that it speaks to men more as women experience us than as we experience ourselves is unclear, what I mean is that it’s written to men collectively the way women collectively (or maybe individually by the author, harder to tell) experience men collectively, which may not be applicable to how we experience ourselves individually.
You say I suspect the reason that a lot of men are reacting defensively (it seems to be bouncing aroung the MRAsphere right now) is that it suggests that a) some men are rapists and b) some well-intentioned, non-rapist men may unwittingly behave in ways that women perceive as threatening. Both of these may be valid classes of reactions that probably exist in some proportion, but I certainly reacted defensively for neither of these reasons, and have seen reactions I understood to be very similar to mine.
More or less, c)some well-intentioned, non-rapist men are already looking for and respecting signals of disinterest, but still try to apply the advice to themselves anyways, and come away figuring the only ethical option is to just flatly refuse to ever express interest in a woman. If that the conclusion they take out of it, it shouldn’t shock that they’re defensively and unwilling to accept what they think they’re being told to do. It isn’t a reasonable reaction in the much bigger picture It took a lot of effort for me to step back and say “No, you already stretch events past the limits of the plausible to ignore signals of interest and invent signals of disinterest, this isn’t talking about you.” I reacted that way, I certainly saw the same sort of mentality in some (though by no means all) of the men responding. The article is for men who take “uh - the Grapes of Wrath” [return to book] to mean “continue”, it is not for men who have problems taking “I’d be interested in dating you” as a signal of interest. (I hope that latter quote is verbatim.)
It’s a fair guess that most of the men who’ll read feminist blogs who’re not there to pick a fight (or to pick up chicks) are probably already pretty vigilant about looking for & respecting signals of disinterest. I know that I am. I know I’m also vigilant about imagining signals of disinterest, and discounting signals of interest. You’re experiencing the guy on the bus hitting on you and not taking your disinterest as a “no”. What’s going on there is pretty obvious. Maybe less obvious what’s going on when you make eye contact and smile and he looks away, and avoids your gaze. As an expression of interest, this is perhaps more subtle. I suppose it is kind of the same, ignoring your signals is ignoring your signals, but erring on the side of caution seems like the more respectful or safe way to go, to avoid accidentally imposing.
Starling
Why do men assume that they’re being accused of being rapists? That’s a core question.
Well, fair enough, though it’s not a question that I pretend to know the answer to. “It’s implicit in the metaphor” is the only candidate answer I see. Why do men get “Never approach a woman, ever” as the take-home message?, on the other hand, is a question I think I can start to address, because that is what I took out of it the first time I read it. A lot of steps are taken that should work against that, but some parts play out that way pretty strongly for segments of the audience, and resolving seemingly inconsistent messages happens in a lot of ways, including discounting chunks. More sensible is usually to realise you and the author are assuming different things that’re never stated, but life ain’t always sensible.
1)women are first assessing threat rather than attraction when approached by a stranger (anywhere) and 2) ignoring the signals you do recognize (particularly the ones like, “Stop e-mailing me, you’re scary”) will make you a jerk, despite all the social encouragement never to quit. Being able to see the courtship dance from a woman’s point of view, rather than strictly from your own, is always a huge advantage in dating. I’d guess all the audience that might seriously consider taking the advice is already doing 2), harder to say about 1) (at the very least, it’s probably never crossing my mind that strange women might ever get around to assessing attraction. Still, even the first half of 1) has value, no doubt. I don’t doubt that being able to see the courtship dance from a woman’s point of view is helpful, though my own failues mostly lie elsewhere, it seems worth keeping in mind.
Mythago
What we say: Sex is great and male sexual desire is a good thing, but it’s a problem when sex is used as an excuse to vilify women and put them in a subordinate position to men. What defensive anti-feminsits hear: Men are bad because they want to have sex with us!
Those men who don’t want to hear unpleasant truths will cherry-pick out the unpleasantness and ignore anything positive.
I’d guess that is only the half of it. The men for whom the unpleasant bits fit much better with what they already believe will do a much better job of noticing (and latching onto) the negative bits. If you get the standard gender role indoctrination that young boys get (or at least the one I got), your reaction to “sex with men is great/enjoyable/palatable/better than being poked in the eye with a stick” is often going to be along the lines of “no, that doesn’t sound right.”, while “men hitting on us/expressing interest in us/liking the way we look/wanting to touch us is really unpleasant and traumatising” will elicit “yeah, that sounds about right.”
Mythago,
“Those men who don’t want to hear unpleasant truths will cherry-pick out the unpleasantness and ignore anything positive.”
Well, yeah, we all tend to see what we expect to see. And you know I have my issues with feminist standpoint epistemology but let’s ignore that theoretical bit. If the idea were to actually get through to those men, then their perception bias should really be more positively addressed, not by telling them they don’t get a cookie for listening. That’s ignoring the first rule of change management: Help people get rid of their fear of change, make them see the positive aspects (and the usual bit about “full male humanity” really isn’t that appealing to most men when compared to their perception “men are bad because they want to have sex with us”.) That’s actually what I felt was so positive about Starling’s essay: it was stressing the positive, practical bit about “how to approach *without* being maced”.
“What defensive anti-feminsits hear: Men are bad because they want to have sex with us!”
Well, yeah. But it should be noted that that is a valid perception and meaning is always constructed by the recipient, not the author. I mean, that’s an analogy of Starling’s essay - my intentions aren’t decisive when I’m approaching a woman, her perception of me and my intentions is. If I want to talk to her, I need to take her perception into account.
Brian–
Thanks for that link to Hugo’s post. There is so much that is devastating in the sexuality model in which women tease-resist-capitulate, and destroying the sense of men’s beauty and desirability is one of those things.
You know, one of the sweetest parts of becoming lovers, at least for me, is the time afterward, when I can do an inventory and say, “I love this part of you, and this, and this. This curve of your back makes me weak in my knees. The line of your shoulder renders me speechless with desire.” Because women feel those things, and we would like to say them, but admitting explicit sexual desire for a man is tantamount to taking off one’s shirt and bra–it’s usually interpreted as a direct lead-in to having sex, right now. Meanwhile, men express their desire throughout the process, since making a woman feel desirable is more or less essential to getting her into bed.
We have got to change this. Truly. Because, while I am sure Brad Pitt is a lovely guy when you get to know him, he’s irrelevant to the inner terrain of my desires. It is the roughness of a man’s shaved cheek, the curve of a belly, the somewhat foreign shape of his arm that arrests my attention.
The man who taught me that my body was worthy of desire gave me a great gift. I am sorry that so few of us women think to show men that in return.
Whoa, Sam, you really need to read up on the concern-troll concept as applied to privileged groups talking about those whom over they have privilege.
In short, your attitude is the opposite of helpful and progressive. If you think men need hugs and cuddling about their sexuality being positive, get off your lazy tail and provide it instead of whining about how you want it done for you. Sheesh. And you’ve just proved that for all your pontificating, you haven’t actually read up on feminism to any reasonable degree, because if you had, you’d know that “say it more nicely” not only doesn’t work, it continues the problem.
And Sam, I really wish you would stop insulting men with the “men are sociopaths” reasoning. Saying that someone will only be interested in not harming people if their feelings are catered to is saying they’re a sociopath. It’s horrible.
Starling,
“The man who taught me that my body was worthy of desire gave me a great gift. I am sorry that so few of us women think to show men that in return.”
Following up on Hugo’s post, this has become one of the things I tell all my female friends when they ask me for advice about guys. My impression is that women, for all their alleged emphatic qualities, really aren’t aware of how much most men lack sexual confidence or how much they would love to hear this kind of compliments. When I was in my late 20s and got my first actual kiss, she was the more active part, but she said “you’re so good for me”, assuming my being used to this kind of compliment, never even thinking about how much her attraction to me changed everything I knew about the world around me.
“admitting explicit sexual desire for a man is tantamount to taking off one’s shirt and bra”
True. In most cases. But it can be done. My best friend is a married woman. But we do have sexually explicit chats when we help each other and there’s a chance I know more about her sexually than her husband, despite never having seen her naked. I know she finds me sexually attractive, and she knows I find her sexually attractive. That feels good for both of us, and we also know that we’d never go beyond that. But, since you linked me to that submarine post, it also means that we won’t tempt ourselves by doing pillow fights in the guest room when she’s staying at my place.
“Because, while I am sure Brad Pitt is a lovely guy when you get to know him, he’s irrelevant to the inner terrain of my desires.”
Damn, you’re good :). You should really think about teaching men about women :)
Helen,
you have an interesting way of interpreting me. Since I cannot recognize anything I’ve said in your reply, I’m sorry there’s nothing I can usefully reply to you.
Sam–
I think that two things come into play here: the first is that women really have to be sure that they’re with someone who won’t take a comment of that sort as an invitation. We’re rightfully wary–there are men who consider a short skirt an invitation–and what with the prevalence of date rape and acquaintance rape, it’s usually safest not to go around implying invitations. Sad, unfair, but true.
The other facet is that women are in a subordinate position vis a vis desirability. We are considered The Desired, and our social value is pinned to our desirability in more ways than I can count. Lots of people dislike Newt Gingrich, but they don’t attack his sexuality as a way of attacking his worth. Look, though, at the ways the culture chooses to deride the polarizing female politician such as Sarah Palin or Hilary Clinton. She’s either a MILF or a ball-breaker. She’s too sexual or asexual. She buys slutty flight attendant outfits, or she’s a lesbian. She’s a fox or a bitch. Two different people, two vastly different public personas, but the criticisms are about sexuality and sexual attractiveness.
So while there are tons of construction workers who have no hesitation at all in informing me that they want to hit my ass (thx, guys!), none of them seem terribly concerned that the feeling might not be mutual. It’s kind of irrelevant. In pop culture, the nerd desiring the Prom Queen may be hopeless, but it’s not hopeless because he’s utterly unworthy. It’s hopeless because she’s shallow. While the ugly woman or the fat woman who desires the handsome man is pathetic and clueless, or (if she’s the heroine) she’s transformed into a desirable woman in order to be worthy of her beloved. Cinderella, right?
A woman who expresses sexual desire for a man who does not desire her is a figure of mockery. Women are conditioned early to believe that they aren’t worth desiring–another big problem–and so it takes an extraordinarily confident woman to assert her desire for a man without having ample evidence that her desire is acceptable to him.
Obviously, I could write a book about this topic, and in fact I am.
Yeah, Sam, no shock that you took the lazy way out.
Starling
Oh, it probably goes a lot farther than that (at least, in many cases). My common-law fiance claims she makes such statements about me, I have no recollection of ever having heard one. My guess as to why this is that such a statement is just so incompatible with my thinking that I have to dismiss it, as I can’t integrate it into other thoughts. Presumably it’d be possible (at least in principle) to unlearn a large chunk of how I understand things, in practice … I have no idea how one’d do that.
But the bigger point it connects back to is the disconnect between how men experience ourselves and how women experience us. Certain classes of men are exposed to women much more dramatically, directly and in greater quantities than others. Your impression of how men approach women is probably set mostly by those men who do it a lot, aggressively or memorably. My impression is set very much by men who could list off every woman they’ve ever expressed interest in, the circumstances of it, and how it went before you could make a cup of tea. The kind of men who argue about how many times “oh, that day isn’t good for me” needs to be repeated before it should be taken as “I’m not interested”. (For what it’s worth, I settled on “two”, though my roommate insisted it was “three”. I have no idea if either of these are correct, but I’d guess I’m a lot less memorable than the guy who takes “fuck off and die” as “ask two hundred more times”.)
Starling,
“We are considered The Desired, and our social value is pinned to our desirability in more ways than I can count.”
Yes, and I agree that that is problematic in many ways. While I think your description of the public discourse in that respect is largely true, I don’t think the description holds up for the individuals, and thus I don’t necessarily consider being “the desired” as a necessarily subordinate position. It can be a position of power. And I know that because I’ve not had that kind of power for a very long time. Power isn’t one dimensional. And power doesn’t necessarily imply being active. I remember an acting workshop I was once participating in, and we had to improvise “power” - to put ourselves in a position of dominance relative to the person who did that before us. One person after the other put himself or herself in a position of physical dominance, but one very clever girl sat down on a chair, and started to clap. No one could be more dominant than her. The game was over. Her applause was what everyone else was aiming for, desiring. She was the desired, and hers was the position of power over all of us.
“… because she’s shallow… While the ugly woman or the fat woman who desires the handsome man is pathetic and clueless…”
Well, I think I agree with the basic premise that socially awkward men have it easier than physically unattractive women when it comes to being able to doing something about it. We can learn how to behave, but changing physical appearance is something entirely differently.
“A woman who expresses sexual desire for a man who does not desire her is a figure of mockery.”
Well, that, certainly, is the same for both sexes…
“extraordinarily confident woman to assert her desire for a man without having ample evidence that her desire is acceptable to him.”
I’m not sure about that. I think lack of confidence can have the exact same effect. But - and this may possibly be a consequence of the physical differences between women and men - I don’t think expressions of desire are ever not acceptable to men. They may be inappropriate, or have bad timing, be embarrassing, but they will, I think, always be acceptable, and seen, in a way, as a compliment.
“Obviously, I could write a book about this topic, and in fact I am.”
I’m looking forward to reading it :)
Brian–I don’t know how to change or fix that one from the outside. Culturally, we need to change the way we treat both men and women, and there are a thousand fronts to that battle. Mine is necessarily from a woman’s POV; I hope you fight yours from a man’s.
Sam–I think, in this case, you are discounting the incredible social stigma attached to a woman’s sexual desire. These enlightened days, it’s okay to desire the one you’re with, but you still risk being labeled a slut or a whore if you desire indiscriminately or unwisely or as an undesirable. While I do know that men–being human and all, amirite?–are receptive to and grateful for sincere appreciation, women are still socially smacked for offering it.
And, let’s be honest, how often does it occur to us to do so? There’s some enlightenment worth spreading: Men want to be desired as well as loved! I’ll evangelize for you all.
Starling,
“I think, in this case, you are discounting the incredible social stigma attached to a woman’s sexual desire.”
That’s quite possible. Whatever I say is essentially from the perspective of a guy who grew up believing his own desire was the problem, accordingly hid it and only recently learnt how to like it. In my original perspective, female sexual desire was idealised, if anything. That may certainly still influence my current perception.
“… women are still socially smacked for offering it.”
Hmm. I guess I have to think about that.
“Men want to be desired as well as loved! I’ll evangelize for you all.”
Yeah. Please do! :)
My impression is that women, for all their alleged emphatic qualities, really aren’t aware of how much most men lack sexual confidence or how much they would love to hear this kind of compliments. No, they probably aren’t. In most feminist discussions, I find the general point often turns to negative attention of this form, street harassment and the like, womens’ experiences of being desired are very different, and leave different blind spots (and spots of vision).
Women are conditioned early to believe that they aren’t worth desiring and we hit back to a blind spot of men (or at least most men, I’d guess). I can intellectualise that it’s true, but it’s so far removed from my own experiences of whether women are worth desiring …
I don’t know how to change or fix that one from the outside. Ah, I’m probably a lost cause. In the longer run, yes, there’s probably a need to teach young men that it’s okay to see attractiveness in men; I don’t think I could do that, all I can do is not teach them it’s not okay.
Sam -
There is also the societal trope of women/girls expressing desire for a “popular” male being ridiculed and humiliated, in front of both men and women. When I think of why women wouldn’t express a thought that a man is physically desireable, it goes back to those junior high/high school images of the popular boy humiliating the not popular enough girl by flaunting her expression of interest to all (especially the girls higher up the food chain who will never let her forget it). It is precisely the fear of being ridiculed for the presumption of thinking you’re in so and so’s league.
It amazes me how much of our self-conception is tied to our early teenage selves, and how hard it is to overcome those self-perceptions. I have a friend who was always one of the tallest kids in elementary school and who developed early. She’s 5′ tall. It took her YEARS before she didn’t think of herself as tall. It took her YEARS before she realized that her breasts are small. We have lots of misconceptions based on how we were at 12. It’s our personal journey to get over it and no one else’s job to make it easy.
Emily,
“It is precisely the fear of being ridiculed for the presumption of thinking you’re in so and so’s league.”
Yeah, but how is *that* different for boys/men? I remember that one of the most popular and beautiful and nice girls in school was suddenly interested in me when I was 16. I wasn’t unpopular, but not too popular, US-teenager-categories don’t apply in my case. But I didn’t believe her interest was honest, I couldn’t believe that someone like she may be interested in me. I had so much limiting belief that I wasn’t able to trust her when she tried hard to show me she liked me (she somehow managed to get my number and called me when I was sick for a while). I feared she was trying to set me up as a joke or something. Man was I wrong - she actually was the beautiful, cool and non-shallow girl that we believe only exists in movies. She was Anna Banana, but I didn’t “keep the faith”, to use a movie metaphor. We’re still friends, but she’s happily married now. It was my fear of ridicule and humiliation (and my general sexual shame) and my inability to believe that I am lovable that made me afraid of taking her hand when she wanted to give it to me. And she felt rejected even though she wasn’t.
“We have lots of misconceptions based on how we were at 12.” It’s our personal journey to get over it and no one else’s job to make it easy.”
True, but for guys there’s a double bind: We’re told that fear of rejection and ridicule are no reasons not to do it, to push through. And then those who do tend to cause threads like Starlings. And those whose fear is too big, too paralysing, are labelled as socially awkward and ridiculed for *not* expressing their desire. There is a fine line and for a lot of people, it’s really hard to find and even harder to walk on.
I’m late to the game, but as a woman of color committed to gender equality, both of the essays left something to be desired for me, and I’m still trying to figure it out -
In the male-centric society that we are part of there are some very important issues to address regarding the way that some men seem to think they can control female bodies and behavior (sometimes its as simple as demanding a smile from strange women), or they feel free to approach women and demand time and conversation from them, and these men don’t acknowledge that their behavior is threatening. However, I think it ignores general safety to just assume only men are possible threats and it plays to a dangerous trope in some strands of feminism where men are perpetrators and women are victims.
The purpose of the essay was to explain why some behavior was threatening, but I feel that the behavior describe, WHETHER from male or female could be threatening in the right circumstances (alone on a dark street), and that women need to cultivate general safety rules in which they view the general stranger (including other women) as a possible threat.
Furthermore, to carry around the attitude, where I am constantly making assumptions that
-all strange white people I meet are likely to be racists
- all strange men I meet are likely to hurt me
seems to fundamentally violate something that I can’t put my finger on …. to me it cultivates an attitude of fear and hostility which means that we will never end racism or never end sexism and, in fact, will alienate those non-racist non-rapists in the population. I think it would be better to posit some gender neutral guidelines
- make clear what harassment is (don’t pester someone you don’t know to talk to you when they are clearly ignoring you, this applies to women as well [cause I’ve seen both men and women do this]),
- portray trying to pick up random strangers on the street as the harrassment that it can be, whether men or women try it (romance movies notwithstanding)
- and to make clear that approaching strangers in the dark, whether you are male or female, is a threatening move. I ‘ve gotten scared when random, roughly dressed women have started towards me in the dark because I know that they are just as capable of robbing me or committing assault as men are.
I think that to often essays on how men can be inadvertently threatening also help us, as a culture, and feminism as a movement to ignore female committed violence, because it perpetuates the stereotype that only male behavior is a threat.
Essays like this that try to explain why men are potential threats downplay the very real threats that women can be as well. Women are just as capable of violence like rape, pedophilia, battery, stalking, robbery, harassment as men are. We just haven’t recognized them as capable of that violence or recognized the extent of female committed violence that goes on. There are some very hard pressed women working on getting recognition for things like the battery and rape (stranger and intimate) that takes place in the lesbian community and resources to the victim. Or movements which are trying to get society to realize that female pedophilia exists, and that they cases which are publicized contain predatory women and not just women who happen to fall in love with younger partners.
It’s hard enough to get female on female violence recognized, let alone female on male violence. I think essays like this does itself a disservice by casting only men as possible perpetrators and hinders gender equality when men are dangerous and women are potential victims. Furthermore, it helps to downplay female initiated violence and to perpetuate a culture in which female initiated violence is ignored or denied (or where the general public can’t even conceive of it). The general rules should be “caution with strangers is necessary.”
This is rambling, but I guess I’m getting tired of constantly seeing male as perpetrator female as victim trope which permeates a lot of feminist discourse that I read on the web (feministing comes to mind) and which smacks of female chauvinism (I won’t even go into issues regarding race, which are rarely dealt with well on these public venues.