Re: Guys check this out, especially the women (OCSM's especially): "Schrödinger’s Rap
This article at first scared me.
Then I thought: "New York City" - "New Yorker" - "American" - "two big Dogs in a tiny Apartment" - "practices martial arts" - "probably has pepper spray or a gun" ... practically fulfills all prejudices we Europeans have about Americans: way to paranoid for their own good.
This line of thought scared me even more, am I truly that prejudiced? I've lived on the American side of the big pond, yes I have mixed feelings about that experience. There were some great and awesome people I had to do with - but also a lot of ignorant *****. Also a lot of cool people seem to be here on the Board too. Yet a general paranoia of fear of others is widespread, and can't be denied.
Now the World, is generally not a safe place. It is not for men, children, women or anything in between. But to go through life, fearing of what
could happen should never go as far as to actually limiting one living their life. Americans should, in my opinion, be grateful of the many liberties they have, and should stop worrying about things that will probably never occur to them. In other parts of the world you have to fear that a bomb is dropped on your car from a Drone flying miles above you, perhaps because you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, or because of a mix-up. There are places you have to worry where you place your foot, or a mine will blow up in your face, which had been laid there 30 or 40 years ago, tearing off your limbs. In certain countries you might be a child, living on a garbage dump, and you have to fear that at night someone comes to take you away to harvest your organs.
Whereas people like the person writing that Article (is she truly a woman?) are afraid even of their own shadow, seeing a potential Murderer, Rapist, Terrorist, Fanatic in every person that sits (or stands) in the same Subway car, is at the counter of Starbucks, or looking through the aisles of books at Barnes&Noble. This stereotypical portrayal then of the "potential rapist" is just ridiculous as Harley Spencer pointed out. Uncleanliness to me translate as "not clean-shaven", tattoos, etc. etc.
Well I hate to bring it to you, but the typical rapist - does not look like that. And those that do, won't bother to try to hit you up for a conversation about
Beowulf, that kind of assaulter will come up from behind, in the dark and not bother with niceties.
The article states that - (probably) 1 in 6 american women will be assaulted sexually at least once during their lifetime. Now what constitutes (legally) sexual assault in the US may vary a lot from individual State to individual State (or Union Territory, US Territories, US Military Bases Abroad, etc.). Now the National Center for Victims of Crime defines sexual assault as:
Sexual assault takes many forms including attacks such as rape or attempted rape, as well as any unwanted sexual contact or threats. Usually a sexual assault occurs when someone touches any part of another person's body in a sexual way, even through clothes, without that person's consent. Some types of sexual acts which fall under the category of sexual assault include forced sexual intercourse (rape), sodomy (oral or anal sexual acts), child molestation, incest, fondling and attempted rape. Sexual assault in any form is often a devastating crime. Assailants can be strangers, acquaintances, friends, or family members. Assailants commit sexual assault by way of violence, threats, coercion, manipulation, pressure or tricks. Whatever the circumstances, no one asks or deserves to be sexually assaulted.
[quoted from
http://www.ncvc.org/ncvc/main.aspx?dbName=DocumentViewer&DocumentID=32369#1]
What this article does not cover at all, is that the majority of sexual assault or rape, is not carried out by strangers, but by people known by the victim.
- A 1997 study, by Kathleen C. Basile, - that 13% of married American women had been raped by their husbands. (The dark number will probably be higher)
- A 2000 study, by the UN, - that in the USA a woman is battered, usually by her husband/partner, every 15 seconds.
- Data from 2000, US Department of Justice, - that in the USA a woman is raped every 90 seconds.
Now to show that the World is just as or even more dangerous a place than the US:
- A study showed that "At least one in every three women, or up to one billion women, have been beaten, coerced into sex, or otherwise abused in their lifetimes. Usually, the abuser is a member of her own family or someone known to her" (L Heise, M Ellsberg, M Gottemoeller, 1999).
- Another 1999 study,by the WHO, - in Tajikistan (that's in Central Asia, somewhere between Russia and Afghanistan) - 47% of married women over the age of 14 (yes they got married off young by their families) had been raped by their husbands.
- A 2000 study by WWHR - in Turkey (a Member of NATO, and applicant for EU-Membership) 35.6% of married women have been raped by their husbands and 16.3% often and repeatedly.
- A 2001 study, by the Pakistani Government in the State of Punjab, - in Pakistan 42% of women accept violence as part of their fate; 33% feel too helpless to stand up to it; 19% protested and 4% took action against it.
- A 2001 study, European Womens Lobby, - in France 25,000 women are raped per year.
- A 2002 study, by the WHO, - that up to 70% of female murder victims are killed by their male partners.
- A 2003 study, by OMCT, - that in the Russian Federation 36,000 women are beaten on a daily basis by their husband or partner.
- According to Joni Seager in 2003 - In Kenya more than one woman a week was reportedly killed by her male partner. In Zambia five women a week were murdered by a male partner or family member. In Bangladesh 50% of all murders are of women by their partners. About two women per week are killed by their partners in the United Kingdom.
Now as wrong as this all is, it shows one major thing, that perhaps women have less to fear from the "stranger" who talks her up somewhere in the City, than from the people she is surrounded by on a daily basis (partners, friends, collegues, family, etc.), but then again, that would make living life even more paranoid and unbearable, wouldn't it?
Getting back to the article, it is also of no help what-so-ever to a normal guy.
We are constantly told that gender roles have changed, but we are not told how to change, and this article does not do more than add to the general confusion.
It has been said that Men were the "hunters" for millenia, and women were the keepers of the "hearth", the great desire man had in his dreams, be it while sleeping in a cave, in a hut, or in a palace.
Recent Anthropological Evidence, shows that this divison of roles, may not have been as rigid as believed in the stereotypes of the cavemen, and that men and women (cave-man and cave-girl) went on the hunt together, as it would take most of the community to take down those Mammoths.
Still men are told that it is our duty to be outgoing and to "conquer the heart" of a woman, yet this article does nothing but set restrictions and basically tells us to "stay away".
So should men then accept that (militant) femminism from the 1970s has so profoundly changed the roles, that Man should now patiently wait at the sidelines until a Woman would graciously descend and address him?
Strangely such a course is not viable, as women hardly ever will take the incentive, and still wait for men to do so, even though some women have developed a profound fear of that, perhaps even of their own femminility.
This article is also offensive in the ways it describes all men and generalizes in its paranoid fashion.
A true Gentleman will always respect the personal sphere and essence of a woman. Most men know that violence and rape are profoundly wrong, and are disgusted that there are lowely members of the male-gender who recur to such means.
But here men are described in the lowliest fashion, and this is just another article in a long line of articles which demonize and castrate men.
One last thing: violence of women over men, are hardly ever evidenced, though they do exist but are much less reported, and result to be just as devastating. Female-on-male violence is rarely of the physical type, but mostly of the psychological, and tends to be just as harmful. This article could even under circumstances be described in that line.
I also remember an Episode of ABC's
"What Would You Do?" where the instance of what would people do if they saw violence of a woman on a man, would they step-in or not, had shown that not a single person stepped-in to defend an abused male, and a lot actually rooted for the abuser. Whenever episodes were shown portraying male-on-female violence, there was always someone ready to step-in. Goes to show how far we really are to achieve gender-equality...
I apologize to any woman who has been (or is still) a victim of assault and/or violence, here on the board (OCSM, Member, FreeOnes Team, or just a Visitor stumbling over the thread), as a man. And may only hope that that horrible experience, which I cannot even dare try to understand a minimum the feelings you have/are gone/going through, has not left you with a lasting hatred against, or fear of, the entirety of the male-gender.
Be it that one is male or female, we are all parts of the Human Species/Race, and are inter-dependent upon each other in so many ways. Even after Millenia of attempting to study women, we men still have not started to understand woman in a minimum part. Women to most of us are still these marvellous, complex, lovely, and some-what supernatural Creatures, who never cease to surprise us and whom we fantasize about, love and adore.
) let me know what you think if you've got the time to read it (it's not that long really). 
