From: robin@ntmtv.UUCP (Robin Coutellier)
Subject: AMC: TAN: Crimes Against Women and Children
Originator: robin@volans
Reply-To: robin@ntmtv.UUCP (Robin Coutellier)
Organization: Northern Telecom Inc, Mountain View, CA
Distribution: na
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 02:54:13 GMT


Maybe this is not the right group for this, but the subject is being
discussed, so I'll join in.  This is a subject that has been on my mind 
for a long time.  I have a theory that by the time a woman reaches the 
age of 20, she has probably been the victim of some form of sexual activity 
without her consent or has been followed in a threatening manner.  She has 
been:

	- Fondled
	- Followed
	- Made the target audience of a male exposing himself and/or
	  masterbating
	- Watched while in a state of undress
	- Raped
	- Beaten or killed
	
	I say this based on my own experiences and from talking to others.  
	Just about every woman I've ever talked to and the subject came
	up has had similar experiences.  In my own case:

	o At 13, I was walking home from school and a man (mid-30s) 
	  pulled into a driveway, blocking my way, and asked for 
	  directions somewhere.  I told him I didn't know.  He then 
	  said, "The way you wear that dress, I'd like to put my 
	  tongue up it!"

	o At 14, one of our neighbors in the 4-plex we lived in was seen
	  peering in our windows at night.

	o On 2 or 3 occasions when I was a teenager, men made a series of
	  obscene phone calls to us.  They preferred it if my sister or I
	  answered the phone.

	o At 16 a man followed by out of a store and offered to put me
	  "under contract" for $200 a week (this was in 1971 or 72).

	o At 16 the boyfriend of a friend of hers was at our house and
	  was too drunk to drive home, so he slept on our couch.  In the
	  morning, as I was getting dressed for school, he walked into
	  my room.  He said he was looking for the bathroom.  The bathroom 
	  was the 1st door in the hallway and my bedroom was the last one, 
	  and he wasn't in any hurry to leave, I don't THINK so.

	o At 17, as I was bicycling thru a parking lot, a man steered his
	  car in such a way as to force me to the side.  When I turned to
	  look at him, as he intended, he was masterbating.

	o At 18, I was waiting for a bus at 7am, and noticed a man hiding
	  behind some trees watching me.  I even saw him zip to another 
	  tree and hide again, peering out at me occasionally.  Fortunately, 
	  the bus came, but I was terrified.  Thinking back, with the 
	  timing and location, it could even have been Ted Bundy!

	o I've been followed home from work by a co-worker.

	o I was a victim of date rape in my 20's.  I didn't think of it
	  as such until about a year ago, but that's what it was.

	o About a year ago and man went to elaborate lengths to make sure
	  I'd see him masterbate -- this was in a grocery store parking lot.
	  This man followed me in his car, watched me go into the store and 
	  repositioned his car so that I would have an unobstructed view
	  when I returned to my car.  

Regarding people I know:
		   ----

	o A man broke into my mother's apartment in the middle of the night 
	  and beat her.

	o My sister has had similar experiences to mine, including a man
	  coming up from behind, bending her over backwards and kissing
	  her.  He said he thought she was someone else.

	o My cousin says her father raped her repeatedly from the time she
	  was 13.  She escaped from home by marrying a man who beat her
	  senseless on a regular basis.  She's been institutionalized on
	  more than one occasion now.

	o My friend and I were at the movies and the man next to her kept
	  putting his hand on her leg.

	o A woman we babysat for was followed home from the PX at the
	  naval base and beaten in front of her 3 small children.  He tore 
	  her ear off.

	o One of my co-workers was raped at knife-point when she was in
	  college.

	o Another co-worker came into her apartment as a man tried to
	  break in thru the window (upstairs).  When he was foiled by her 
	  coming home and quickly closing the window, he went into the
	  entryway and started pushing all the security buzzers hoping
	  someone else would get annoyed and buzz him in.  There was a
	  rope and a ladder outside her window.

	o A woman next door to where I was a live-in babysitter, someone
	  I knew on a friendly "wave and hello" basis, was watched over 
	  a period of time.  The man knew she went to the curb each morning 
	  to kiss her husband goodbye.  He slipped into her apartment 
	  one day while she was doing that, and stabbed her to death.

	o My doctor's wife was stabbed to death in her home.

And people wonder why I'm afraid to leave any of my 3 "safety zones", my
home, my workplace or my car.  None of THESE places are even safe any more.  
What's frustrating is that many people, some women included, don't
understand how violated and frightened a woman feels when these things 
happen.  I told my mother about the guy who made the tongue statement, 
and she told me that that kind of thing was going to happen to me all my
life because I had "bedroom eyes".  That was when I was _13_!  I told her 
about the guy at the grocery store last year, and she didn't understand 
why I was so angry.  She said I should have laughed and said something 
about how small it was and just forgotten about it.  It didn't seem to 
sink in to her that this was a sexual act that I was forced to participate 
in without my consent.  If I want to watch a guy jack off, I call one up 
and ask him.  

My ex-boyfriend said these things just happened because I lived in "bad"
neighborhoods.  His definition of bad is anything less than upper middle
class.  I could never get thru to him that it doesn't matter where you
live or hang out - it happens EVERYWHERE.  The only reason he doesn't
realize or believe it happens so much is because he's a guy and he doesn't 
have to worry about it and I was only his 2nd girlfriend, so he didn't
hear other women talking about it.

Didn't mean to carry on so much, but this is a subject that really gets
me riled up.

Which of you women has never had anything like this happen to her?


Robin Coutellier                   
Northern Telecom, Mountain View, CA
ntmtv!robin@ames.arc.nasa.gov    
ames!ntmtv!robin