I recently stumbled across an old article on one of those perennially, confusingly contentious subjects. It’s an article that’s made the rounds of the internets a time or three, so I’m pretty sure this wasn’t the first time I’d read it. But I learned something from it this time around. The something I learned is so completely outside of the focus of the article that I find it absolutely necessary to discuss the whole thing.
The article in question is a blog post called “Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced” and, like I said, it’s made the rounds in the two or so years it’s been around. Seriously, Google “shrodingers rapist” and it pops up in a who’s who of references, at least for the corners of the internet I inhabit. They seem to reference it because, well, it’s good.
Now, as I’ve said, I find the fact that an article like this is necessary completely baffling. There are very few things in the world that are more cut and dry to me than, “Don’t rape anyone.” That should, really, go without saying. And, when it gets right down to it, the only way, “She was asking for it,” should ever count as a defense in court is if the she in question was, in fact, standing there and saying, “Will you please come over here and rape me?” And I’m thinking there should be audio recordings and possibly notarized documentation.
The fact of the matter is that I believe it does go without saying for a majority of men. The problem is that there are men out there for whom this does not go without saying. And those bastards ruin it for the rest of us.[1]
Then, of course, there is the next tier of bastards that ruin it for everyone. These are the unwitting[2] rapist apologists. The unwitting apologists aren’t necessarily douchebros who cheer on their buddies before or cover for them after they’ve gone off and raped someone, either. In a lot of cases they’re intelligent, educated men who just don’t get it. And when I say “intelligent” and “educated,” I am, unfortunately, thinking of Richard Dawkins.
PeeZed took some time yesterday to remind everyone that an internet nontroversy is still ongoing. It’s one of those things that never, ever should have been an issue but has become one because, well, a certain subset of men are dumb as fuck sometimes. In broad strokes, internet famous skeptic Rebecca Watson was propositioned by a man who followed her from a bar where she’d been talking to friends. On an elevator. In the wee hours of the morning. She was, understandably, creeped out by that one. She did a video on it, which got some backlash. So when she was giving an address at CFI later she brought that story up to basically say, “Dudes, don’t do that. It’s creepy as fuck and comes across as really, really rape-y.”
The internet, understandably, blew up over this one. A bunch of people called Watson a passive-aggressive bitch who was using the bully pulpit to beat up on an innocent man who had done nothing but politely suggest she go back to his hotel room for a drink. Wait, did I say “understandably?” I mean, “The internet did what the internet does, which is to prove that people are really fucking stupid when they’re on the internet.” That sounds better.
Anyway, PeeZed took the people attacking Watson to task because, holy shit, a woman suggesting that maybe guys shouldn’t accost women in elevators in the wee hours of the morning really shouldn’t be controversial.[3] Moreover, the possibility that the woman might just take that badly shouldn’t be an issue, either. Because, last I checked, there exist people in this world who have bad intentions and enclosed spaces are good places to take advantage of their bad intentions. It’s not rocket science.
Richard Dawkins then showed up on Pharyngula to weigh in with a thoughtful, compelling argument. It boiled down to, “Why are we talking about this when Muslim women are killed all the time.” No. I’m not shitting you about that. Richard fucking Dawkins pulled the same exact card that fundamentalist Christian dickshitters in America pull when they’re trying to misdirect people who are saying things like, “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t de-fund Planned Parenthood because they do good things for womens’ health,” or, “No, she did not, in fact, ‘ask for it,’ asshole.” That did, however, bring us this cartoon. So it's got that goin' for it. There’s way more to the whole thing than that, especially if you do some Googling and find yourself through the looking glass and lost amongst the MRA websites that weighed in on the topic.[4] But that’s the broad story.
The problem here is one of empathy. While there are men in the world who are raped, the attacker-to-victim ratio is strongly unbalanced on the side of the menfolk. This basically means one thing: I, as a man, will probably never come close to being raped in an elevator or hotel room in the wee hours of the morning. I will never have to think about the possibility of being raped in an elevator or hotel room in the wee hours of the morning. If some drunken bastard strikes up a conversation with me in an elevator at 4 AM I can ignore or engage him in whatever way I choose because I have the luxury of assuming he’s just making harmless small talk and I also have the luxury of knowing that if he decides to try anything cute I can meet his violence on equal (or superior, depending on relative levels of inebriation) terms.
A woman in that situation quite simply does not have that luxury. Unless the woman in question is trained in martial arts or has a weapon at her disposal, she’ll be at a disadvantage most of the time due to that pesky size and strength advantage most men have over most women. It is, perhaps, defensible for a man to not realize this particular privilege in human interaction when considering a woman’s behavior when she is taking appropriate steps that he doesn’t have to think about. It is not, however, defensible for a man to be made aware of that difference and then not consider that, maybe, it would be common courtesy to not put women in positions where they’re creeped out and worried about danger.
Enter, then, Shrodinger’s Rapist, an article that I don’t really need but that apparently Richard Dawkins does. Go read it. It’s good. I think it’s a bit hyperbolic in places, but the hyperbole is more rhetorical flourish than, “ZOMG, RAPISTS EVERYWHERE!” It is, in fact, the rather rational discussion of interpersonal conduct that gave me the lesson I pulled out of the article. To wit:
If you speak, and she responds in a monosyllabic way without looking at you, she’s saying, “I don’t want to be rude, but please leave me alone.” You don’t know why. It could be “Please leave me alone because I am trying to memorize Beowulf.” It could be “Please leave me alone because you are a scary, scary man with breath like a water buffalo.” It could be “Please leave me alone because I am planning my assassination of a major geopolitical figure and I will have to kill you if you are able to recognize me and blow my cover.”
On the other hand, if she is turned towards you, making eye contact, and she responds in a friendly and talkative manner when you speak to her, you are getting a green light. You can continue the conversation until you start getting signals to back off.
That second paragraph was what got me.
See, I assume that women never want to be approached in public. This is partially because of the whole, “ZOMG, RAPISTS!” thing. I spend what you might consider an inordinate amount of time worried that I’m coming off as the creepy guy. So my approach to any public interaction with a strange woman is to go with a fairly standard, “Acknowledge her existence if necessary, then go on about your business,” approach. This mostly involves small amounts of eye contact, brief nods, and then being overly interested in the patterns of water damage on those bricks over there.
I literally had no fucking clue that sometimes there are situations in which strange women actually would possibly want to talk to me in public. The very oddness of this thought leads me to an interesting question. My whole, “Don’t be a rapist,” thing is premised on what I think of as a pretty obvious concept that I shorthand as, “Women are people.” They’re not merely mobile penis receptacles.
However, when I miss the bit where they might actually want to talk to strangers in public am I putting them in some special class of “not people?” Is that just a different form of categorization that’s just as dehumanizing? Or am I overthinking it?
Of course it’s possible that the entire driving force behind that is a form of projection. See, I’d usually rather not have to talk to random strangers in public. I don’t talk to people on elevators because I don’t want them to talk to me. I put on headphones when I go for walks because that’s a pretty good, “I’m busy here, leave me alone,” signal. I read or write on the train and do my best to forget that other people are around.
So maybe I just assume that women don’t want to talk to me because I’d rather not talk to them.
It’s just a thought.
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[1]Of course, I could say that about pretty much anything humanity related.
[2]Hopefully.
[3]Now, then, the problem is that the anti-Watson people seemed to think that she was pushing a false, “All men are rapists and to be avoided,” position and suggested elevator fella was really completely innocent and just attempting to make small talk. The fact is, he might have been. However, from what I understand, he started with small talk, then jumped immediately to, “Want to go to my hotel room for a drink?” That’s where the problem comes in. If he hadn’t immediately made that suggestion I’d probably be more sympathetic to Team Overreaction. But he did, so I’m not.
[4]For the uninitiated, MRA means “Men’s Rights Activist.” MRAs are basically giant fucking douchebag rape apologists who seem to think that men are at a disadvantage because the “feminazis” have convinced everyone that women are “people” and not “things to get fucked then left in a gutter.” I’m not sure which group I despise more: MRAs, the KKK, Westboro Baptist Church, or people who speak during theater.
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