From: gds@FICUS.CS.UCLA.EDU (Greg Skinner)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: men crossing the street at night to avoid women
Date: 13 Jan 1993 01:13:21 GMT
Organization: in your face!
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <3g23tBj027n@khantazi.welly.gen.nz> banks_p@kosmos.wcc.govt.nz writes:
>   I think Janis here has neatly and nicely summed up the reaction of
>some of the readers out there. Namely that simply showing some civic
>concern is somehow 'infringing' on your rights. It is interesting to
>note that it is nearly always Americans who go on about rights and I
>sometimes wonder if these ardent rights supporters have lost sight of
>the concept of limits to personal freedom which are needed to make
>society work. But that is a by-way not relavent to this topic.

I rearranged your article to follow with this paragraph:

>   And to give an example what I find usually works for me is to
>simply smile to the other person, say 'Good evening' and then continue
>on my way. Terribly difficult and requiring a grand total of around 5
>seconds to implement. What is so hard about doing something like this
>that it must be resisted at all costs?

For my part, when I approach most people (male and female) late at
night, if I'm not in too much of a hurry, I give them a casual nod and
then continue on my business.  I try to leave a few feet of distance
between us, sidewalk/street width permitting.  The times I haven't
done that are when I'm in a hurry or preoccupied with something else.

I consider this to be the same level of civic concern as you show.
However, this would not be sufficient for those individuals who still
feel that men should move to a more respectable distance (such as
across the street).  My feelings on this matter are that as a
law-abiding citizen, the amount of civic concern I show should be
sufficient.

>   Nowhere has it ever been suggested that men should stay off the
>streets, *have* to cross the street or in fact do any *specific*
>action.

Neither has it been suggested that the amount of civic concern you
show above is sufficient for women not be afraid of men who show the
same civic concern.

>What has been suggested is that by merely spending a small
>amount of time doing anyone of a spectrum of actions that indicate
>your intentions clearly to another person on the street you can avoid
>making them uneasy and generally promote a feeling of safety on the
>streets.

Suppose my mere presence on the street were to make them uneasy, then
what should I do?  (As a black man walking the streets of LA, I know
that I am more likely to make someone uneasy than a non-black man or a
woman, because here in LA people are more likely to associate the
perpetration of violent crimes with blacks.)  If showing what I
consider to be civic concern is not enough, what should I do?

>(slightly idealistic I know, but then I am young and prone to
>fits of idealism.) Now could someone please explain to me exactly how
>this infringes on anyones *rights*? You are not being prevented from
>using the street, about the only thing it might limit is your ability
>to move down the street in a threatening manner - which is limited
>anyway by other laws as it is.

But if I'm not moving down the street in a threatening manner, then
there's no reason for me to do anything else, is there?  If my showing
what I (and you) consider to be civic concern is not enough, that is
denying me my rights to the extent that others are able to enjoy
those rights without coming under suspicion or fear. (The implication
here is that I must do "more" than the other people who aren't feared,
even though there may be reason to fear them.)

>[about people who object to their rights being denied]
>Surely these people must be aware that this is a highly antisocial
>attitude? Society has always been, and always will be, a 
>balance between the rights of the individual and those of the society
>as a collective whole.

On the other hand, the people who argue that some individuals should
observe rules in excess of what is generally accepted as civic minded
must be aware that this is a highly prejudiced attitude towards those
individuals.


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