Cav...
Thomas wrote:Speaking for myself, one of the benefits of getting older is that you learn how to make people treat you the way you want them to by subtly adjusting your own behavior. There were many instances ten years ago when I felt mistreated by groups of other people. Your mileage may vary, but in my case, I found out that the problem was mostly my own ignorance of social customs, and I now know how I could have avoided the more unpleasant situations without great cost to my individuality.
I really wish dlowan hadn't sworn off this topic, as she could reply to this much better than I could.
The behavior in this case is much, much harder to control for than you seem to think. When I was in Paris, NOBODY thought I was American -- they thought I was probably European,
maybe Parisian (not once I opened my mouth, of course) -- and I knew all the tricks. Planned my route in detail ahead of time, no maps, confident, purposeful gait, fashionable but not attention-getting clothes (no white tennies for me.) I still had a lot of problems -- some nice attention (again,
not all attention is bad), some oppressive/aggressive attention, especially from men in groups. A few rather dicey situations.
But it's not like I only experienced this in Europe, by a long shot, though there was plenty of it there. (I punched a guy who goosed me in some Eastern European train station -- Prague? He didn't like that much, but walked away.) But by far the greatest number of individual instances of this kind of ogling happened when I relied upon public transportation in Minneapolis, where I grew up. Strange guys staring at me on the bus, getting off after me at my stop, following me (would go to a male friend's house instead of home). The orthodontist thing I already talked about. Going to a "bad" part of town, where my friend lived. My own neighborhood was becoming rather "bad" when I was in high school -- I didn't have the autonomy to move somewhere else at the time.
I learned all of the coping mechanisms I could -- how to walk, when to make eye contact and when not to, where to sit on the bus, how to stand while waiting for the bus, which routes were the worst (I would sometimes add an hour or two to my journey so as to avoid the worst routes), etc. -- but while that
helped, it didn't
eliminate the problem. I wore baggier, frumpier clothes and was mad about it, but STILL had problems. And got even madder.
The implication that the responsibility lies with the woman -- that if she is ogled, it's her own fault, if she is stalked, it's her own fault -- is a dangerous one, as dlowan went into quite eloquently on the thread that gave rise to this one. (Linked to in the original post.)
(You're not the only with that moniker, btw)
Anyway, when a guy does check me out, now, it is unusual enough that it doesn't contribute to the feeling of oppression and danger, and is easier to react to in and of itself.
