From: turpin@cs.utexas.EDU (Russell Turpin)
Subject: Women's and men's views of risk
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
Date: 6 Jan 93 20:06:50 GMT

-*----
In article <1993Jan3.114505.15032@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au> pol253b@monu1.cc.monash.edu.au (Ms D Alexander) writes:
>>> I'm not sure that making a comparison between the fear of injury
>>> from sporting activities, and the fear of injury which results
>>> from acts of violence is legitimate.  The two are conceptually
>>> miles apart.  ...

In <1iafu6INNiq3@agate.berkeley.edu> turpin@cs.utexas.edu (Russell Turpin) writes:
>> I would have said they were only feet apart.  That is, the
>> two risks have significant commonalities in my mind.  But
>> this may be a male thing.  In which case the dialogue moves
>> back one level of abstraction, where we wonder about the
>> importance of men seeing this coupling as close and women
>> seeing it as distant.

In article <2B492E61.24357@ics.uci.edu> tittle@alexandre-dumas.ics.uci.edu (Cindy Tittle Moore) writes:
> You don't see a huge difference between choice and coercion?

Of course I see a difference.  But how much?  It is very
difficult to measure conceptual distance with a yardstick.  I
hope Cindy Moore and other respondents will be a little patient
with me, while I explain where I also see similarities,
exagerrating these so that if there is any difference in our
measure of the first difference, we can get some grasp of how
much.  (I promise: no more jokes about Derrida.)

In both cases, I choose activities that carry both rewards and
risks, in the hopes that I can enjoy the rewards and navigate
unscathed through the risks.  Never do I actually choose to be
harmed, only to risk it.  So, in the first case, when I make a
mistake on my skates, I would be perfectly happy to have gravity
suspend itself until I am ready again.  One might say that mother
Earth and her son gravity are acting against my will when they
take advantage of my accidental behavior on their turf.  Phrased
this way, the analogy to being mugged when in a dangerous part of
town becomes clear.  A sprain or break or other injury does not
hurt the less because nature rather than man caused it.  Of
course, I think differently of the man who would do this, since
unlike nature, he is a volitional being.  But how much does that
change how one thinks of the activity that bears the risk or (in
retrospect) of the damage one has suffered?

As a man, I tend to think of interpersonal risks in terms of
muggers, robbers, or mob scenes, where the violent action tends
to be depersonalized.  It may be that women will think more in
terms of violent family members and friends, and more of rape,
i.e., of very personal violence.  This may reflect my gender, or
my choice in friends or luck in family.  But I think whether one
views likely violence from others as personal or depersonalized
will partly determine the strength of the foregoing analogy.

Be careful about drawing conclusions from this.  I intensely
dislike the degree of real violence in our society, and I give
the smallest shrift to those who cause it.  But I think its risk
is viewed differently by and affects differentially various
people, and above, I am merely speculating as to why that might
be.

Russell

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