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Being the threat
Mar. 27th, 2012 07:07 pmI only ever got into one fistfight growing up, at summer camp to a bully who'd invaded my dorm room with his entourage, and I lost. Badly. Decisively. Back then, I was a scrawny little guy.
In short: I was never a physical threat to anyone, growing up.
But I didn't look around at people and automatically categorize them as threats, either.
The more I read, the more I learn, the more I realize that I'm luckier than half the human race in that last regard; looking at the statistics of women who've suffered assaults - one in four, was it? - I come to the conclusion that a passerby on the street, or someone getting into an elevator with me, would have to be crazy not to categorize me as a potential threat. Especially since I'm no longer the scrawny near-midget I was growing up.
People I know will laugh with me, joke with me, feel safe around me - but that's because they're people who know me, know my attitudes, know how I act and how I carry myself. They know from experience that I don't act as an aggressor.
A stranger can't know that.
A woman in an elevator, with no knowledge, would see ... what? A man, taller, heavier, physically capable of doing harm. No way of knowing what's going on behind those eyes.
And that one-in-four chance of violence.
The whole issue is worse here, I think - not here at the office, where the women outnumber the men by something like five-to-one, but in the nation, which still has a misogynist streak a mile wide, colored by old-world values and a sort of entrenched patriarchal system.
How to change it? How does one person change a world?
First step is acknowledging the problem, right? Look in the mirror, and remind oneself:
I am a potential threat to anyone - and in particular any woman.
I figure Step Two is basically: Don't act as a threat. You'll be a threat anyway, just by standing there, but don't do anything active to threaten anyone.
Step Three is ... uh ...
...er...
...yeah, this is going to take some thinking.
In short: I was never a physical threat to anyone, growing up.
But I didn't look around at people and automatically categorize them as threats, either.
The more I read, the more I learn, the more I realize that I'm luckier than half the human race in that last regard; looking at the statistics of women who've suffered assaults - one in four, was it? - I come to the conclusion that a passerby on the street, or someone getting into an elevator with me, would have to be crazy not to categorize me as a potential threat. Especially since I'm no longer the scrawny near-midget I was growing up.
People I know will laugh with me, joke with me, feel safe around me - but that's because they're people who know me, know my attitudes, know how I act and how I carry myself. They know from experience that I don't act as an aggressor.
A stranger can't know that.
A woman in an elevator, with no knowledge, would see ... what? A man, taller, heavier, physically capable of doing harm. No way of knowing what's going on behind those eyes.
And that one-in-four chance of violence.
The whole issue is worse here, I think - not here at the office, where the women outnumber the men by something like five-to-one, but in the nation, which still has a misogynist streak a mile wide, colored by old-world values and a sort of entrenched patriarchal system.
How to change it? How does one person change a world?
First step is acknowledging the problem, right? Look in the mirror, and remind oneself:
I am a potential threat to anyone - and in particular any woman.
I figure Step Two is basically: Don't act as a threat. You'll be a threat anyway, just by standing there, but don't do anything active to threaten anyone.
Step Three is ... uh ...
...er...
...yeah, this is going to take some thinking.
