Schrödinger Rapist, once again.

uncrystal

Nah, misunderstanding, fer realz. In my head that scenario wasn't a deserted dark street, I was seeing a normal busy day time street. Should have made that clear. Re-read it in that context, and see if it makes sense as a Schrodinger Racist analogy. In the deserted dark street scenario, I'd cross the street whatever, if he doesn't. A lot of men do actually.

If you'd like to change the rules fine, but I was following the direction of our conversation closely and I've read all of your replies closely and in context.

what? are you implying I'm lying?

mood2 wrote:uncrystal

Nah, misunderstanding, fer realz. In my head that scenario wasn't a deserted dark street, I was seeing a normal busy day time street. Should have made that clear. Re-read it in that context, and see if it makes sense as a Schrodinger Racist analogy. In the deserted dark street scenario, I'd cross the street whatever, if he doesn't. A lot of men do actually.

If you'd like to change the rules fine, but I was following the direction of our conversation closely and I've read all of your replies closely and in context.

what? are you implying I'm lying?

No. I'm implying that you said something that perhaps didn't paint you in the best light and now you're rewording what you meant. That's fine, but I didn't misunderstand what you were saying or take it out of context.

I wasn't assuming you'd taken it out of context or done something wrong, I thought my tone would have a gotten that across. You'd misunderstood and of course I don't want to be seen as saying something stupid and creepy when it's not what I meant. I'm still not entirely sure what you're saying, but I'm over it now so happy to drop it.

eta - it's just clicked why you don't like me saying you misunderstood. I hadn't been clear enough initially, hence my correction, is a better way of phrasing it.

And as we'd pretty much done SR to death I'll bow out, hopefully with no hard feelings.

Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

Atheist Dude wrote:Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

Except I still don't know what I am supposed to do with this information.

scott1328 wrote:

Atheist Dude wrote:Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

Except I still don't know what I am supposed to do with this information.

I think just being aware of power imbalances and how they may influence interactions with others.

It's a fact of life that whenever two or more people interact there's an unequal distribution of power between those involved. It's patently absurd to think that all people can be equal in all respects. If that were the case we'd all be clones of one another.

Atheist Dude wrote:

scott1328 wrote:

Atheist Dude wrote:Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

Except I still don't know what I am supposed to do with this information.

I think just being aware of power imbalances and how they may influence interactions with others.

It's a fact of life that whenever two or more people interact there's an unequal distribution of power between those involved. It's patently absurd to think that all people can be equal in all respects. If that were the case we'd all be clones of one another.

So all this Sturm & Drang over etiquette advice as obvious as "don't freak out women who are in vulnerable positions".

Okay, done.

scott1328 wrote:

Atheist Dude wrote:

scott1328 wrote:

Atheist Dude wrote:Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

Except I still don't know what I am supposed to do with this information.

I think just being aware of power imbalances and how they may influence interactions with others.

It's a fact of life that whenever two or more people interact there's an unequal distribution of power between those involved. It's patently absurd to think that all people can be equal in all respects. If that were the case we'd all be clones of one another.

So all this Sturm & Drang over etiquette advice as obvious as "don't freak out women who are in vulnerable positions".

Okay, done.

I think it's worth looking at why it's harmful, even if the advice given may be innocuous enough. If you have a male child who you are trying to teach to behave decently, it's a good thing to tell him to treat members of the opposite sex decently and kindly. I don't think it's a good thing to tell him that he's a potential threat and danger to them. It's far better to tell him that he's supposed to be a support and help.

We have a very clear example of teaching young men that they were a threat to women. Young black men in the American South were constantly aware that they were considered a threat to white women. Failure to keep out of the way wasn't just frowned upon. It was punished, often fatally. That wasn't a healthy approach.

mood2 wrote:I wasn't assuming you'd taken it out of context or done something wrong, I thought my tone would have a gotten that across. You'd misunderstood and of course I don't want to be seen as saying something stupid and creepy when it's not what I meant. I'm still not entirely sure what you're saying, but I'm over it now so happy to drop it.

eta - it's just clicked why you don't like me saying you misunderstood. I hadn't been clear enough initially, hence my correction, is a better way of phrasing it.

And as we'd pretty much done SR to death I'll bow out, hopefully with no hard feelings.

If I offended you, I'm sorry. Tone is a bit difficult to read on the internet and you mix that with my use of sarcasm in the midst of real points and well..

Of course there are no hard feelings.

Atheist Dude wrote:Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

rofl! (why is there no rofl smilie?)

rEvolutionist wrote:

Atheist Dude wrote:Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

rofl! (why is there no rofl smilie?)

Maybe conversations flow better without every third post being "fuck you for disagreeing with me, misogynist? Ha.

mood2 wrote:uncrystal -

uncrystal wrote:

Society shouldn't enact laws or norms of behavior based on the most fearful among us. Imagine what the world would look like in a 100 years if we did.

Suffice it to say I wouldn't want to be a man in 100 years if proper feminist etiquette became the prevailing social norm ha.

The reality of the actual situation now is that many women curb their own freedom by for example, not going out alone at night. What we need is to find a balance between the two extremes which works for everybody. Right now the balance is largely skewed in the way I said, assuming the only alternative is to skew it so far the other way men end up with a similar problem is a slippery slope argument. Maybe we can do better.

The natural state of things is for it to be fucking dangerous for men AND women to go out at night(and for the men to go out anyway because they are biologically expendable). We've killed off the scary beasts, driven off the roving bands of bandits, and created a society where things are way more safe, not just for men, but for everybody. In fact, men are more likely to be assaulted or mugged than women.

So the idea that men need to somehow be even more considerate of women, when women's anxiety isn't rational, it's biological, is IMO nonsensical. If we can expect men to curb their instinctual behaviors and behave in a civil fashion, why can't we expect women to at some point make an effort to overcome their innate phobias? These feelings of apprehension make sense 10000 years ago, when a woman who was raped and got pregnant out of it was screwed. However, in this day and age, the level of fear and apprehension are simply out of touch with the reality of modern, western society, where stranger-rape is very rare and an unwanted pregnancy is no longer an automatic death-sentence.
All this is not to say that violent outdoor rapes never occur, or are less than horrible acts of brutality, but the level of anxiety around this small, small portion of total rapes is, well, disproportionate.

Agreed, but I don't think that's the way most people make decisions about how they live their lives, including me, and there's a reasonable explanation for that. Everybody all the time makes risk/reward assessments as they go about their daily biz, it's so automatic we barely notice it. Your car might get nicked, but locking it takes just a second, it's not worth thinking about. You get on an empty bus, you don't choose the seat next to the bloke shouting football chants with a can of stella in his hand (and you hope he doesn't move next to you), there's a bit more thought there, but it's pretty much a no brainer and no real effort. You might get raped by a friend you invite into your home, but the only way of avoiding that possibility is to never invite friends into your home. The risk/reward ratio for most people is going to come down on the side of not wanting to give up the benefits of having friends round. Where-as not going out alone at night isn't such a huge thing usually to work your way around. The risk/reward ratio is very different.

The problem with the risk assessment here is that people aren't rational about how they assess certain risks and how they respond to them. Few people have an accurate understanding of crime rates/demographics, so their assessment of how prevalent a crime is comes from news reporting and the way other people around them assess the risks.
Furthermore, there's the question of how you assess the harm. It's very hard to evaluate how being raped would affect someone, because most of damage is intangible, not physical. If you're talking about the dangers of traffic, it's pretty easy to figure out that the danger you're talking about is getting run over, I.E. greievous bodily harm/death. With rape, the harm is emotional/mental, so how much of a risk you perceive rape to be is also a matter of how seriously you take the emotional consequences of rape.

mood2 wrote:
There are other factors which play into the fear, not just all the films and media stuff. This thread's gotten me thinking about that, and for me at least it's much more to do with socialisation in my youth.

I don't have a brother for comparison, but as a little girl I wasn't allowed out to play after dark, couldn't go past the end of the street, was told never to speak to strangers, pretty standard stuff I'd think. Then as I got to my teens and started going out at night, there'd be rules about what time to be home, questions about where am I going and who with, how am I getting home, don't walk home alone under any circs, boyfriends who'd walk me home, then go off alone to their own house, etc. I'd babysit for a neighbour around the corner, indoors I was competent to be responsible for children, then the next minute when the parents got back the Dad would walk me home - because now I'm outside at night and have turned into a helpless potential victim. I still remember the name of the girl who was raped in the town park, even though I didn't know her to talk to and I've forgotten half my classmates' names. And on and on.

Is this accumulated Dark/Alone/Strangers = Danger message so thoroughly indoctrinated into your average boy? I'm guessing not.

My parents weren't trying to act as Forces of the Patriarchy to turn me into a fearful victim who knows her place, and that place is only in the public space alone at certain times or I'd better be careful. They were being good, caring parents looking out for me. But gender was, and is an issue, and there are consequences.

When parents do this, they might be acting with the best intentions, but they are reinforcing memes that are outdated and dangerous to society. There are dangers out there, but most of those dangers don't care what gender you are. By emphasising the risks girls face, they are enforcing a victim complex in girls and marginalising those very same risks for boys.
Teaching everyone, boy or girl, common sense ways to not get mugged/raped, is a good thing. Acting like a girl can't be out after dark without getting raped is waaaaaay disproportionate to the risks.

Having been a kid in europe and in the US, I can say with confidence that the level of anxiety parents have regarding their kids' safety in the US is absolutely ridiculous. Furthermore, there is (at least in white, middle class suburbia) a huge societal pressure on parents to conform to these socially accepted norms of paranoia. If parents were to let their teenage girl walk home unaccompanied without seeming too concerned, the neighbours and teachers would flip out at such irresponsible behaviour.

Atheist Dude wrote:

scott1328 wrote:

Atheist Dude wrote:Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

Except I still don't know what I am supposed to do with this information.

I think just being aware of power imbalances and how they may influence interactions with others.

It's a fact of life that whenever two or more people interact there's an unequal distribution of power between those involved. It's patently absurd to think that all people can be equal in all respects. If that were the case we'd all be clones of one another.

difference and diversity =/= inequality

AliRadicali wrote:

mood2 wrote:uncrystal -

uncrystal wrote:

Society shouldn't enact laws or norms of behavior based on the most fearful among us. Imagine what the world would look like in a 100 years if we did.

Suffice it to say I wouldn't want to be a man in 100 years if proper feminist etiquette became the prevailing social norm ha.

The reality of the actual situation now is that many women curb their own freedom by for example, not going out alone at night. What we need is to find a balance between the two extremes which works for everybody. Right now the balance is largely skewed in the way I said, assuming the only alternative is to skew it so far the other way men end up with a similar problem is a slippery slope argument. Maybe we can do better.

The natural state of things is for it to be fucking dangerous for men AND women to go out at night(and for the men to go out anyway because they are biologically expendable). We've killed off the scary beasts, driven off the roving bands of bandits, and created a society where things are way more safe, not just for men, but for everybody. In fact, men are more likely to be assaulted or mugged than women.

So the idea that men need to somehow be even more considerate of women, when women's anxiety isn't rational, it's biological, is IMO nonsensical. If we can expect men to curb their instinctual behaviors and behave in a civil fashion, why can't we expect women to at some point make an effort to overcome their innate phobias? These feelings of apprehension make sense 10000 years ago, when a woman who was raped and got pregnant out of it was screwed. However, in this day and age, the level of fear and apprehension are simply out of touch with the reality of modern, western society, where stranger-rape is very rare and an unwanted pregnancy is no longer an automatic death-sentence.
All this is not to say that violent outdoor rapes never occur, or are less than horrible acts of brutality, but the level of anxiety around this small, small portion of total rapes is, well, disproportionate.

Agreed, but I don't think that's the way most people make decisions about how they live their lives, including me, and there's a reasonable explanation for that. Everybody all the time makes risk/reward assessments as they go about their daily biz, it's so automatic we barely notice it. Your car might get nicked, but locking it takes just a second, it's not worth thinking about. You get on an empty bus, you don't choose the seat next to the bloke shouting football chants with a can of stella in his hand (and you hope he doesn't move next to you), there's a bit more thought there, but it's pretty much a no brainer and no real effort. You might get raped by a friend you invite into your home, but the only way of avoiding that possibility is to never invite friends into your home. The risk/reward ratio for most people is going to come down on the side of not wanting to give up the benefits of having friends round. Where-as not going out alone at night isn't such a huge thing usually to work your way around. The risk/reward ratio is very different.

The problem with the risk assessment here is that people aren't rational about how they assess certain risks and how they respond to them. Few people have an accurate understanding of crime rates/demographics, so their assessment of how prevalent a crime is comes from news reporting and the way other people around them assess the risks.
Furthermore, there's the question of how you assess the harm. It's very hard to evaluate how being raped would affect someone, because most of damage is intangible, not physical. If you're talking about the dangers of traffic, it's pretty easy to figure out that the danger you're talking about is getting run over, I.E. greievous bodily harm/death. With rape, the harm is emotional/mental, so how much of a risk you perceive rape to be is also a matter of how seriously you take the emotional consequences of rape.

mood2 wrote:
There are other factors which play into the fear, not just all the films and media stuff. This thread's gotten me thinking about that, and for me at least it's much more to do with socialisation in my youth.

I don't have a brother for comparison, but as a little girl I wasn't allowed out to play after dark, couldn't go past the end of the street, was told never to speak to strangers, pretty standard stuff I'd think. Then as I got to my teens and started going out at night, there'd be rules about what time to be home, questions about where am I going and who with, how am I getting home, don't walk home alone under any circs, boyfriends who'd walk me home, then go off alone to their own house, etc. I'd babysit for a neighbour around the corner, indoors I was competent to be responsible for children, then the next minute when the parents got back the Dad would walk me home - because now I'm outside at night and have turned into a helpless potential victim. I still remember the name of the girl who was raped in the town park, even though I didn't know her to talk to and I've forgotten half my classmates' names. And on and on.

Is this accumulated Dark/Alone/Strangers = Danger message so thoroughly indoctrinated into your average boy? I'm guessing not.

My parents weren't trying to act as Forces of the Patriarchy to turn me into a fearful victim who knows her place, and that place is only in the public space alone at certain times or I'd better be careful. They were being good, caring parents looking out for me. But gender was, and is an issue, and there are consequences.

When parents do this, they might be acting with the best intentions, but they are reinforcing memes that are outdated and dangerous to society. There are dangers out there, but most of those dangers don't care what gender you are. By emphasising the risks girls face, they are enforcing a victim complex in girls and marginalising those very same risks for boys.
Teaching everyone, boy or girl, common sense ways to not get mugged/raped, is a good thing. Acting like a girl can't be out after dark without getting raped is waaaaaay disproportionate to the risks.

Having been a kid in europe and in the US, I can say with confidence that the level of anxiety parents have regarding their kids' safety in the US is absolutely ridiculous. Furthermore, there is (at least in white, middle class suburbia) a huge societal pressure on parents to conform to these socially accepted norms of paranoia. If parents were to let their teenage girl walk home unaccompanied without seeming too concerned, the neighbours and teachers would flip out at such irresponsible behaviour.

I agree with a lot of that, I think the main disagreement is about how do we respond in the here and now to the situation as it currently is. A response which says these women (including me) are being silly and irrational and are trying to curb men's freedom in order to enable their unfounded fears/use victim status as a weapon/promote Teh Feminist Agendaz/whatever strikes me as pointless and hyperbolic. Like-wise the 'all men are potential rapists and be treated accordingly' type rhetoric. I just read both as different ways of posturing.

Long term there needs to be a strategy for how to get people better at balancing risk/reward scenarios, but that will take time. Generations type time. I don't think shouting statistics louder and louder is going to be enough. Even if it is, we still have a problem now.

Framing the issue in terms of human behaviour and associated courtesy/mores and the role they play is also relevant, and a useful way to approach where we're at now imo. Lets try to understand it before we decide the best way to fix it.


It's believed that shaking hands originated as a way of two strange men establishing to each other that they're not a threat by demonstrating their weapons hand is empty, and getting into each other's space in a non-threatening way. Was there ever a fifty/fifty chance of each new man being a threat, I doubt it. Overall there might have been a one in a hundred/thousand/ten thousand/who knows chance, but that wasn't the point. It was a social signal used between two people in a particular situation to send a message. Was it silly and irrational based on statistics? Yes. Was it still a useful thing to do? Imo yes. Now times have changed, the courtesy role has morphed into a different more subtle message and we don't give it a second thought.

Bowing in the east can be a way of showing trust as well as deference or respect, saying I'm putting myself in a vulnerable position to show you I'm not a threat. Nowadays men sometimes use words which carry a similar meaning to 'friend' like 'mate' and 'dude' as a way of establishing friendly rapport with other men who are strangers, as a 'friend not foe' signifier which is more appropriate to the way our culture is now. I'm sure there are lots of other ways too which I wouldn't even notice, and many may not even be a conscious thing. Women have their own subtextual signalling system. And there's yet another set of social signals/protocols when strange men and women interact (which is what SR is addressing, tho not that well I agree). But we're all doing this stuff all the time. It's not a silly irrational women phenomenon, and what we're really discussing is how we adapt to women's changing role in the public space. A far more nuanced thing than a statistical risk assessment.

We're not calculating machines, we're sophisticated social apes who jump at loud noises. And who've developed instincts like empathy and practises like courtesy as a way of productively getting along together. Whether we're male or female. We've also developed rationality as a tool for assessing situations and how best to navigate them. All of this is part of who we are, all of these aspects of our humanity are valuable. The trick is knowing which tools are best for which job. Long term a rationality-based approach will be valuable in the case we're discussing here, or at least can play a useful part. Meanwhile lets also try to understand it at a human behavioural level, and acknowledge that human behaviour and statistics will never perfectly correlate. And often for good reason.

Learning to understand each other's fears and work out strategies that work best for everyone is just a sensible thing to do. Understanding the part gender dynamics play is a sensible thing to do. Likewise understanding how the subtextual signals we send operate and the adaptive role of courtesies and social mores.

And I really want to shut up now cos I'm just going over the same stuff but getting more long winded lol

uncrystal wrote:

mood2 wrote:I wasn't assuming you'd taken it out of context or done something wrong, I thought my tone would have a gotten that across. You'd misunderstood and of course I don't want to be seen as saying something stupid and creepy when it's not what I meant. I'm still not entirely sure what you're saying, but I'm over it now so happy to drop it.

eta - it's just clicked why you don't like me saying you misunderstood. I hadn't been clear enough initially, hence my correction, is a better way of phrasing it.

And as we'd pretty much done SR to death I'll bow out, hopefully with no hard feelings.

If I offended you, I'm sorry. Tone is a bit difficult to read on the internet and you mix that with my use of sarcasm in the midst of real points and well..

Of course there are no hard feelings.

Glad we're sorted

mood2 wrote:I agree with a lot of that, I think the main disagreement is about how do we respond in the here and now to the situation as it currently is. A response which says these women (including me) are being silly and irrational and are trying to curb men's freedom in order to enable their unfounded fears/use victim status as a weapon/promote Teh Feminist Agendaz/whatever strikes me as pointless and hyperbolic. Like-wise the 'all men are potential rapists and be treated accordingly' type rhetoric. I just read both as different ways of posturing.

Long term there needs to be a strategy for how to get people better at balancing risk/reward scenarios, but that will take time. Generations type time. I don't think shouting statistics louder and louder is going to be enough. Even if it is, we still have a problem now.

I really don't think such changes would have to take as long as you suggest. In this day and age, society's norms and values have shown to change rather abruptly, and I think the increased connectivity of people through various media, through the internet, helps speed this up.
As I pointed out before, this phenomenon of "rape culture" is IMO mostly endemic to the US. Rape exists in other western societies, but people don't seem to make as big a fuss about it. It's tragic when it happens and the media make a big fuss about it, police investigate and usually catch the bad guy, but people do not live their lives entrenched in their fears.
I think corporate media, capitalism in general and even the US political system have tremendously helped boost US citizens' level of latent fear, and I don't have a direct solution for that other than education and awareness, but I do believe in treating the problem at its source, rather than softening the symptoms.

AliRadicali wrote:

mood2 wrote:I agree with a lot of that, I think the main disagreement is about how do we respond in the here and now to the situation as it currently is. A response which says these women (including me) are being silly and irrational and are trying to curb men's freedom in order to enable their unfounded fears/use victim status as a weapon/promote Teh Feminist Agendaz/whatever strikes me as pointless and hyperbolic. Like-wise the 'all men are potential rapists and be treated accordingly' type rhetoric. I just read both as different ways of posturing.

Long term there needs to be a strategy for how to get people better at balancing risk/reward scenarios, but that will take time. Generations type time. I don't think shouting statistics louder and louder is going to be enough. Even if it is, we still have a problem now.

I really don't think such changes would have to take as long as you suggest. In this day and age, society's norms and values have shown to change rather abruptly, and I think the increased connectivity of people through various media, through the internet, helps speed this up.
As I pointed out before, this phenomenon of "rape culture" is IMO mostly endemic to the US. Rape exists in other western societies, but people don't seem to make as big a fuss about it. It's tragic when it happens and the media make a big fuss about it, police investigate and usually catch the bad guy, but people do not live their lives entrenched in their fears.
I think corporate media, capitalism in general and even the US political system have tremendously helped boost US citizens' level of latent fear, and I don't have a direct solution for that other than education and awareness, but I do believe in treating the problem at its source, rather than softening the symptoms.

It seems to me that this is a problem created in the minds of 20-30 year olds. It sure wasn't being debated much 20 years ago. Don't forget every new generation has to go through the process of figuring out how the world should work just as their parents did, and their kids will have to in the future.

Westprog wrote:

scott1328 wrote:

Atheist Dude wrote:

scott1328 wrote:

Atheist Dude wrote:Wow, a debate about SR and the world didn't end, nobody died, lost any teeth or got banned!

And not a moderator in site, how the fuck did that happen?

Maybe intent is magic!

Except I still don't know what I am supposed to do with this information.

I think just being aware of power imbalances and how they may influence interactions with others.

It's a fact of life that whenever two or more people interact there's an unequal distribution of power between those involved. It's patently absurd to think that all people can be equal in all respects. If that were the case we'd all be clones of one another.

So all this Sturm & Drang over etiquette advice as obvious as "don't freak out women who are in vulnerable positions".

Okay, done.

I think it's worth looking at why it's harmful, even if the advice given may be innocuous enough. If you have a male child who you are trying to teach to behave decently, it's a good thing to tell him to treat members of the opposite sex decently and kindly. I don't think it's a good thing to tell him that he's a potential threat and danger to them. It's far better to tell him that he's supposed to be a support and help.

We have a very clear example of teaching young men that they were a threat to women. Young black men in the American South were constantly aware that they were considered a threat to white women. Failure to keep out of the way wasn't just frowned upon. It was punished, often fatally. That wasn't a healthy approach.

Wasn't just Blacks. The idea that people of color were sexual perverts was quite common, and was also aimed at women of color, though it manifested differently from men. Or should I say still manifests.......

dancer_rnb wrote:

Westprog wrote:
I think it's worth looking at why it's harmful, even if the advice given may be innocuous enough. If you have a male child who you are trying to teach to behave decently, it's a good thing to tell him to treat members of the opposite sex decently and kindly. I don't think it's a good thing to tell him that he's a potential threat and danger to them. It's far better to tell him that he's supposed to be a support and help.

We have a very clear example of teaching young men that they were a threat to women. Young black men in the American South were constantly aware that they were considered a threat to white women. Failure to keep out of the way wasn't just frowned upon. It was punished, often fatally. That wasn't a healthy approach.

Wasn't just Blacks. The idea that people of color were sexual perverts was quite common, and was also aimed at women of color, though it manifested differently from men. Or should I say still manifests.......

I certainly agree with that. However, the way that racism and sexism intersected was not equivalent. Male black sexuality was viewed as sufficient threat that any manifestation in the white world was met with lethal violence. Black women were viewed with a combination of horror and desire. A white woman who had any kind of relationship with a black man was regarded as entirely soiled and degraded. A racist leader like Strom Thromund could have a black daughter, kept quiet.

Westprog wrote:

dancer_rnb wrote:

Westprog wrote:
I think it's worth looking at why it's harmful, even if the advice given may be innocuous enough. If you have a male child who you are trying to teach to behave decently, it's a good thing to tell him to treat members of the opposite sex decently and kindly. I don't think it's a good thing to tell him that he's a potential threat and danger to them. It's far better to tell him that he's supposed to be a support and help.

We have a very clear example of teaching young men that they were a threat to women. Young black men in the American South were constantly aware that they were considered a threat to white women. Failure to keep out of the way wasn't just frowned upon. It was punished, often fatally. That wasn't a healthy approach.

Wasn't just Blacks. The idea that people of color were sexual perverts was quite common, and was also aimed at women of color, though it manifested differently from men. Or should I say still manifests.......

I certainly agree with that. However, the way that racism and sexism intersected was not equivalent. Male black sexuality was viewed as sufficient threat that any manifestation in the white world was met with lethal violence. Black women were viewed with a combination of horror and desire. A white woman who had any kind of relationship with a black man was regarded as entirely soiled and degraded. A racist leader like Strom Thromund could have a black daughter, kept quiet.

I did say they manifested differently. Thurmond's black daughter would still have to worry about being viewed as a prostitute by nature by whites, and all that goes along with that.

dancer_rnb wrote:
I did say they manifested differently. Thurmond's black daughter would still have to worry about being viewed as a prostitute by nature by whites, and that all goes along with that.

Indeed, though one can hope that progress has been made, to some extent - even with the likes of Thurmond.

However, my main point relates to the way that viewing people as potential rapists (or indeed, potential prostitutes) has enormous social consequences. The ordinary decent folk of Georgia and Alabama probably thought that regarding every black male as just waiting to rape every white woman they could get their hands on was a reasonable precaution. In practice, it distorted and damaged every aspect of relations between the races and between the sexes.

Westprog wrote:

dancer_rnb wrote:
I did say they manifested differently. Thurmond's black daughter would still have to worry about being viewed as a prostitute by nature by whites, and that all goes along with that.

Indeed, though one can hope that progress has been made, to some extent - even with the likes of Thurmond.

However, my main point relates to the way that viewing people as potential rapists (or indeed, potential prostitutes) has enormous social consequences. The ordinary decent folk of Georgia and Alabama probably thought that regarding every black male as just waiting to rape every white woman they could get their hands on was a reasonable precaution. In practice, it distorted and damaged every aspect of relations between the races and between the sexes.

In practice it was horrible. And I worry about the tendency to take an idea way beyond the original limited use. I see the same thing happening with the idea that white men enjoy benefits of both racism and sexism. That doesn't mean white men are any worse racist than white women, as I have reason to know from my childhood.

dancer_rnb wrote:
In practice it was horrible. And I worry about the tendency to take an idea way beyond the original limited use.

I think there's a certain amount of sense in the SR idea. Women are going to be nervous in situations where they are vulnerable, and are entitled to take reasonable precautions. What people, in general, cannot reasonably do, is to assume that other people are criminals, with evil intent. It's not hard to come up with many examples of how that's been abused. Think Ashley Wilkes riding out to murder a camp full of war refugees.

I see the same thing happening with the idea that white men enjoy benefits of both racism and sexism. That doesn't mean white men are any worse racist than white women, as I have reason to know from my childhood.

A deepity (popularised by Dan Dennett) is a statement that has a trivial true meaning and a different meaning which would be astonishing if true but is in fact false.

So with Shrodinger's Rapist, it's trivial but true that we all assess the possible threat a stranger poses by their demographic group, and it's sensible to be aware of this in stranger interactions.

And it would be astonishing if it were true, that men should primarily think of themselves as potential rapists in all situations involving strangers until proven otherwise, though this is in fact false.

Hence a deepity.

The problem I have with SR is that the proponents of this idea think that it's a representation of all women everywhere, which isn't the case. Of course some women will identify with it, but I imagine they'll be plenty of men who will also relate to it.

My real world circle of friends have no real interest in the atheist/sceptic movement, on-line or as activists, most would identify as atheist/agnostic, but their interest in the subject goes no further. I informed women, who are friends, and girlfriends of friends about SR and gave them a link to starling's original post about it. None of them said it related to their lives, they had all been frightened while being alone in certain situation(as we all have) but the thought that they changed their daily routine over the threat that some guys out there might be rapists was comical to them.

What I found interesting, and the reason that I subjected you to such a long winded story about my friends is, several of them came back to me and said that after reading sterling's post, they'd been in an isolated situation with a man and had thought of SR which had made them feel very uneasy in the presence of a strange man. It had turned into a (kind of) self fulfilling prophecy for them.

Again, I don't think a group of 7 or 8 women is enough to claim that their experiences is the norm for women everywhere, but, i'm not the one claiming to talk for women.