NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/soc/feminism/3001

Internet Message Format | 1992-12-22 | 2.9 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!agate!remarque.berkeley.edu!muffy
From: [e-mail] (Vareck Bostrom)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Women's and men's safety
Date: 22 Dec 1992 16:22:04 GMT
Organization: College of Engineering, Oregon State University
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In article <[e-mail]> julie (Julie Wright) writes:
>[e-mail] (Heiner Biesel) writes:
>
>>[e-mail] (Karen van Hoek) writes:
>
>As you point out above, the risk is _dependent on behavior_.  If men are
>much more likely than women to venture out alone, or at night, or in high-
>crime areas, and the statistics indicate that in spite of their lower-risk
>behavior women are _still_ about as likely to be crime victims, it seems
>obvious to me that women are at higher risk than men for equivalent
>behavior.  In other words, your statement that "the probability that you
>will experience violence can be estimated from the general incidence of
>violence toward women in the area" _assumes_ that she will _behave_ like
>the average woman in the area; yet you compare the crime statistics as
>if the average man and woman in the area behaved identically, an idea
>which I find laughable, and say that this demonstrates she should behave
>like the average man, since she won't be at any greater risk than he is.
>

As a personal and therefore skewed example, my sister jogs late at night
all the time (if you would call 11 to 12 pm late at night) , sometime
alone and unarmed and has never been attacked for three and a half years of
jogging. When I go out late at night I always go with a friend or armed, and
even armed I feel that tightness in my stomach - that fear that the large,
scruffy looking man approaching the stoplight I am waiting to cross the
street will attack me. I fear enough to break out in a sweat, and I have feared
enough to want to pull my gun (the one time I actually thought I needed it
I had left it at home..turned out all the guy wanted was the time, even though
 he followed me for ten minutes). Point is,
even in a nice safe city like corvallis, even men can be fearfull of walking
alone at night. Judging by my sister's conversation, she is just about as
fearfull..somewhat, but not so much that we have stopped going out at night.

- bostrov
"The Fearless One"


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