From: rhb@world.std.com (Robert H Brueckner)
Newsgroups: soc.feminism
Subject: Re: Women's and men's safety
Date: 15 Dec 1992 15:58:17 GMT
Organization: The World Public Access UNIX, Brookline, MA
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: remarque.berkeley.edu
Originator: muffy@remarque.berkeley.edu

In article <1gidosINNprq@agate.berkeley.edu> vanhoek@bend.UCSD.EDU (Karen van Hoek) writes:

                                     [SOME DELETED] ... I live in
   Arbor, a very nice town; my male friends all feel safe walking
   in many parts of it at almost all hours.  I don't.  In fact,
   given a recent rape in broad daylight in one of the woods, I'm
   afraid to go walking alone in the woods.  Recently I asked
   myself whether there was someplace within reasonable driving
   distance that I could go to to go for a nighttime walk.  A 
   man wouldn't have to drive anywhere to get to a safe place;
   not if he lived in Ann Arbor.  If he lived in a tougher area, he
   might be able to drive to a suburb like Ann Arbor and be safe
   (if he's not black and so likely to get hassled by the cops).
   But for me -- no.  I couldn't think of any really safe place.


Well, I do think this is awful. It's obvious that women are easy
targets in this society -- I just watched a segment of 48 hours
recently in which professional burglars and robbers confessed that,
when breaking into a hotel room, if they know a man is in there they
walk away. They call first and if a woman answers they go ahead. Women
are the easier prey, and no wonder they're afraid. I agree that women
are imprisoned by this fear (though, having come only recently to this
group, I hadn't been aware of the extent of the imprisonment).

I hate to say it, but this question leaves me completely stumped. The
obvious answers (stiffer sentences for rapists, depo provera (sp?) or
whatever for convicted rapists) don't seem to prevent the rape, only
punish the perp (which in itself is not a bad thing). A real solution
would be to prevent rape from happening, and short of police cars
circling every block I don't know how that could be done. I'm not
saying it couldn't or shouldn't, mind you -- but I'd like to hear what
sorts of things reasonable people are proposing as solutions. I've
heard a lot about Take Back the Night, but frankly I have been put off
by the shrillness emanating from that segment of the women's movement,
and so haven't listened to what they've been saying. You see, I am not
a rapist and have never done any harm to women, so I don't think
people should be shouting at *me* about this. But if they want to talk
to me, enlist my help, that's something different. I think (and hope)
most men would feel the same way. And that might be a good start, if
only a start.

RB

-- 
|"The truth is cruel, but it can be loved, and it makes free those who  |
| have loved it." -- George Santayana  // Opinions expressed here, when |
| clear and persuasive, are my own. --Rob Brueckner (rhb@world.std.com) |



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