Doesn't sound like the solution of a functional societal environment though (for one, a functional one, wouldn't have that issue or it would be very very rare)
> when looking at data regarding defensive gun use in the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS), there was no evidence that gun use reduced the likelihood of injury during attacks on women.
That's my perspective too. I'm a woman who lives alone, and has no vehicle. Right now, I specifically avoided getting a gun. A friend gave me a knife I have no intention of ever using, maybe carrying it as a "pick a new target" kind of message. Obviously I'd love to feel more safe but I've yet to be convinced more firepower is actually effective at protecting me.
I have heard both of these claims frequently but have never been presented with any evidence. Sounds like it could be a "just so" story for gun control advocates.
A pattern you see is that simply _having_ a gun is a massive massive deterrent. When the victim finds an opportunity to counter ambush, they can very frequently prevail. If they practice even a little they will be more skilled than most criminals, who don't even know how to hold a gun many times.
I'm not talking about brandishing or open carry. The most common deterrent I've seen from the the (literally) thousands of violent encounters I've seen on "Active Self Protection" is that criminals start running and scrambling when the victim counter ambushes with their _concealed_ gun, whether they even put a shot on target. The victim should put a shot on center mass as that puts the criminal in "FIBS" mode, "Fudge I've Been Shot", and their shooting accuracy plummets drastically. To the extent that a victim can close the distance and counter ambush with a knife, that could be effective. Guns are a range weapon which is extremely useful in a gun fight. Brandishing a knife is likely to get you shot if you aren't ready to immediately use it.
This statistic is heavily weighted by suicides and domestic violence. If you don't have cause for concern over those two issues, the numbers are very different.
The problem with these studies is essentially survivorship bias. In the article, a woman places her hand on her hip as to advertise she has a firearm. This causes her attacker to back off and retreat. Does that count as "gun use"? Should we file that under "rape statistic" or "assault statistic"? If she had shot him, there definitely would be a paper trail. But if the firearm intimidates someone enough that they don't commit a crime, where's the paper trail?
That and I suspect a lot of people don't even report this sort of thing because they believe that it's pointless. I think they're wrong in such cases, but I can definitely understand why; when police don't take property and trespassing crimes seriously, people lose faith. Depending on the state one lives in, it can be concerning to report that one used a gun in public even if the trigger was never pulled. I'm a gun owner, and even though I would want to give the police a report of an incident, I would feel hesitation because I live in California; do I really want to tell police in California that I was holding a gun for anything but target practice? Better leave well enough alone and not take a chance.
You're overcomplicating the methodology. Let's map out a few numbers:
A: Number of crime victims armed
B: Number of crime victims unarmed
C: Victims of ones own gun (who don't already fall into category B)
D = B-A+C means D is the number of people who were not the victim of violence and those only difference is that they were armed. This is because D is goes up as A gets smaller than B, provided guns don't simply lead to self-harm. D/(A+B) gives us a handy percentage we can use to contextualize this difference.
It is unaccounted. I know two people total who have ever drawn in self defense, neither reported the incident, they just got the fuck out of the area.
I myself have never actually had to draw but I have had to back up deescalate with a man aggressively demanding I tell him the time from a weak side stance with my hand in my pocket on a concealed handgun, and I doubt he was ignorant of that fact. Why would I report that?
The reason you aren't reporting being the victim of a crime is because, given only what you've told me so far, you weren't. You came close sure, but altering the statistics to reflect the emotions of you and your friends would actually make them less accurate than keeping them strictly objective. As such, I stand by my previous comment.
In general, prevention is the best thing you can do. I am a man, but I am also not an idiot, so I often think of my surroundings.
If I lived in the US, and could legally carry for self defense. I would, not because I think it would be the solution to every situation, but because I am very cautious and like to cover all my bases.
However gun ownership comes with additional responsibilities and if some people see a woman jogging with a gun on her hip, they might just decide that is a quick way to get an untainted gun.
> knife I have no intention of ever using, maybe carrying it as a "pick a new target" kind of message
Dont, you wouldnt know how to use it anyway. Criminals and psychopaths are really good at reading people so you wont intimidate anyone with any experience in exerting violence, you might get stabbed with your own knife instead. Take a self defense class, one that emphasizes awareness of your surroundings. You wont learn how to fight anyway unless you decide to dedicated one evening a week for at least a year, so your best bet is learning to recognize and gauge risks. Thats why a gun is such an alluring proposition, you can actually learn how to defend yourself with a gun in a couple of months without physical exercises. Its point and click.
Choosing to protect oneself and feeling compelled to because of the potential for very real danger are not the same things. Running with a handgun is uncomfortable. The amount of work women feel they need to put in to simply exist in the world and out ability to dismiss it in ways that can only be described as victim blaming, is quite impressive.
I didn't make any truth claim that this was good, just that it isn't what I would call a failed state. What would be worse then either is the city being dangerous and firearms are forbidden.
Thanks… When I was researching it I found both Pom and saber to be well regarded and I went with Pom but couldn’t remember the name of the other one. So yes, Saber is also well reviewed.
tl;dr take an actual training class in self-defense. I did and I highly recommend it.
Please don't use nylon "knives" for self defence. A quick google will show you that they're advertised as "perfect for cakes and won't scratch your cookware" which also means they're not going to scratch an attacker either unless you're being attacked by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
Mace is better than nothing, but people hopped up on drugs aren't going to be immediately feeling that pain. If they're not on drugs, great! But its sort of like when you've tied a few on and go to Taco Bell, it's not immediately a bad idea. People who aren't feeling the pain still can be incapacitated by mace if you get it in their eyes, but otherwise, you need to use it before they close the distance. Once they're on you, everyone gets affected by Spicy Air, and if they're on drugs, you're probably hurting yourself just as much as you're hurting them.
The one time I was mugged i got sucker punched from behind right behind the jaw. I went down like a load of bricks and it was a full 3 to 5 seconds before I even knew what was happening. By the time I had my wits back 4 guys had me pinned, beating me up, and going through my pockets. I could have had pistols in both hands and it wouldn’t have made any difference.
I think there’s a place for concealed carry but I doubt it helps much with the kinds of ambush attacks joggers see.
(I was skateboarding in Deep Ellum (neighborhood in Dallas TX) when I was mugged)
New business idea: Wearable that sends out a shockwave if the user gets attacked. The user could adjust its sensitivity, i.e. if they're attacked from a certain angle or they're hit with a certain amount of force.
I'm mostly kidding, but if you're attacked from an unsuspecting angle then no amount of armaments will protect you from that first punch.
I have been mugged, in dangerous places, as a young adult. I think that being armed in those situations would have greatly increased my chances of being more seriously harmed. Those experiences taught me to be more aware of potentially dangerous situations. Although I'm not against personal firearms in principle, I believe that teaching greater awareness rather than arming is a more productive approach to safety.
More weapons in any conflict only lead to less safety, not more. I've been trying for a lot of years to tell US gun proponents this but I have never managed to have it land.
A lot of US gun owners are too prideful, they simply want the freedom to carry. Telling them there’s risk in that only taunts them because they want to feel they’re protecting their family.
This can be true (and I think it is for certain individuals) and one can still be a proponent of the right to have a choice whether to be a passive victim or take responsibility for one's own physical security. Personally, I'd rather do the latter.
There's also a case to be made that mathematically, you're likely to have a short career as a mugger if one out of every, say, 5 individuals you target is likely to be armed. After all, why don't muggers target police officers?
Yet your conclusion, spoken as if it is a universal truth, is wrong in many instances.
There have been numerous events of a concealed weapon holder killing an individual intent on a mass murder event that's just getting started. They generally get zero media play because they don't fit the narrative of gun -> bad.
Regardless, telling people they can't choose the means with which they can reasonably defend themselves is authoritarian and evil. Nobody can guarantee safety, thus, nobody can rightly deny the right to defend oneself how best it seems to them to do so. Some dangerous circumstances are unfortunately common which do not wait for the police, let alone courts.
Off the top of my head, there was a shooting in a mall food court stopped by a concealed carrier in Indiana a month or two back, and another in a Texas church maybe 2 years ago.
Numerous! Wow. More than one??? That's nifty. Maybe they should be cops.
Anyway... to the topic at hand. How do you feel about violence toward ladies? It'd be nice for one conversation about self defense and violence against women to not be detailed by stupid arguments about concealed carry or open carry or men get ouchies too.
Can we please talk about how this shouldn't be reality? How women should feel afraid? How one in four women should be the victim of sexual assault by the time they reach adulthood? Because that's what's happening and why these articles get written and what we should be discussing.
Team goal: call out bad behavior by men and boys, in an effort to denormalize the behaviors that lead to violence against women.
Wrong metric: you're assuming the safety of a violent assailant matters. And it does, just not near as much as an innocent. You must weight by justice.
That sucks, sorry that happened. It's just one experience though. Last night our TV news featured a female jogger who was slowly followed by a car for a while, and was terrified until she got to someone's house and got some help. Being armed would have made that less frightening, and if it turned into an attack she would have had decent odds since she was well aware of the threat.
From what I've read about sexual assaults, they often start with intimidation, while the attacker works up the nerve and gauges how his target responds. Robbery by an experienced team isn't the same sort of thing.
One guy wrapped me up from behind with my arms pinned to my sides. He was beyond fat and we fell with his full body weight slamming on top of me.
While he held me I was kicked from both sides of my head repeatedly.
I went out for a few seconds and came to laughing(wheezing), while they were rifling through my pockets. This got me a few more kicks.
I was laughing because had they picked literally any other time I'd walked Tinkerbell they would have gotten my wallet, and if they'd done it earlier that day- the brand new Note 3 I'd just purchased.
I only left my stuff because I hadn't yet purchased a screen protector and my biggest fear was a scratch in the screen (but not getting jumped!).
My dog was huge, but I was glad she'd stayed away. I couldn't imagine coming up on someone walking that big a dog.
Sometimes shit just happens.
I am 1st Dan in Tae Kwon Do, 2nd in Tang Soo Do, was lucky enough to take boxing lessons with some pretty cool people, even Butterbean.
I made sure all my kids got the same and then some, with their primary focus Jiu Jitsu as I believe ground game is of utmost importance in self defense, something I was lacking in for years.
Just because nothing I knew could help me in that one super shitty situation doesn't make the years I spent learning moot.
It's definitely helped me far more times than not.
If these women are potential targets, they should protect themselves however they can.
My issue with guns is a person is more likely to pull a trigger from fear than anger, or it could be taken and used against you.
I used to have a CCP but thought it might get me in more trouble than help.
Nowadays I've been considering getting one again. It's beginning to feel like most people are carrying (here, in California- I know that's not true but that's what it feels like)
We never know what's going to happen, we can only try to be prepared and hope for the best.
First of all, I am in no way blaming women if a man does something bad to them.
What’s interesting to me is that gender dynamics create a sort of predator/prey dynamic. Specifically I’m talking about how men are generally required to do all of the initiating. I think it trains men to push for what they want because that’s the only way romantic and sexual interactions happen.
Sometimes, it’s even expected that the man not ask for consent. I’m talking about men “going for” a kiss at the end of the first date. It’s generally expected that the man go for it without asking. It’s like sexual assault is baked into the dating ritual!
I can’t help but wonder if we’d be better off if we got rid of this dynamic. Like if we expected men and women to both initiate instead of women being taught to wait for men to pursue them.
I'm not sure the word "trained" is that appropriate. The last handful of generations of men have been failed by their male elders in terms of learning how to successfully interact with women, or so much as how to do basic home repair. To say that men adapt to push for what they want makes more sense because either they figure it out or they don't. The need to take initiative with women is not a figment.
> I can’t help but wonder if we’d be better off if we got rid of this dynamic.
The vast majority men don't push, at least not in a way that is predatory. To further disarm men over the small minority of predatory (and possibly more reproductively successful) men would not be helpful even to women.
> Like if we expected men and women to both initiate instead of women being taught to wait for men to pursue them.
Good luck with that. This completely dismisses women as actual physical beings with their own behaviors and interests as opposed to a figment.
Why exactly would women not wait for men to pursue them? Women only have so many opportunities to bear children, whereas men can theoretically impregnate 100s of women for the 9 months that a single woman is pregnant. What incentive does a woman have to give away her eggs to men who don't go out of their way to show they are willing to commit? What incentive do women have when the sexual encounters are far more available to them than the other way around on average? If a man doesn't have the courage to go up against all odds, including her initial rejection of him, then how likely will he succeed at defending her while she's pregnant and vulnerable?
Not only is there no incentive for women to pursue men, but they've not had this incentive for millions of years. Some part of that dynamic is baked, as is the male propensity for violence.
I somewhat agree with you. My main point is that we should be honest about the game we are playing and the side effects of the game in terms of psychological and social effects.
If men are playing a numbers game, and are expected to pursue women “against all odds” then you really can’t blame men for trying to play and win the game.
You can’t entirely blame men for going for a kiss even if he’s received mixed signals because the reality is that some women suck at giving signals.
You can’t entirely blame men for doing weird, awkward shit because he’s trying a new strategy to win the game.
I think this is something that's getting better with time. Relationships among younger people is often way more focused on consent and women being able to speak their mind. By no means are you wrong but I do think it's on good track.
I think that’s mostly just talk and the reality is that these rituals are largely still in place. The vast majority of women still think men should do all the initiating.
I don't know about you, but I've never had to "push for what I want" for interaction. It's pretty clear on both fronts when someone is interested and when they're not, and pretending that it's unclear gives people an excuse to be more aggressive than is acceptable.
Obviously everyone is different, but I think that's part of why asking for a first kiss is seen as unattractive. If you're so dense as to not be able to tell when someone wants a kiss (which, the first time, is excruciatingly clear most of the time), what other less clear or more important signals are you going to miss, or choose to miss?
Not everybody gives clear signals and not everybody is good at interpreting signals.
And no, a kiss at the end of the night is not just a signal readability test. It’s a masculinity test. If a guy doesn’t kiss a girl at the end of the night her impression is that he’s weak.
No it’s not literally what you said. You completely missed the female side of the equation where some people are shit at giving signals.
That changes the equation significantly because it incentivizes men to ignore signals to a certain extent. They’re more likely to just shoot their shot and see what happens. You might not like it but that’s the reality.
Regarding weakness, I don’t care what word you use but women tend to think less of men when they don’t go for it and leave it to the woman to initiate. This is the lived experience of many, many men.
What I think is interesting is that you’ve done two of the most common things I’ve seen woke people do. Deny female agency and deny reality. Everything is men’s fault and their lived experience doesn’t matter.
I said "giving clear signals is attractive" - if you're not giving clear signals, that's unattractive. Is that not "the female side of the equation?"
I haven't denied anyone's agency or any reality, you just haven't proven what you think reality is. And trust me, if you know anything about me you wouldn't use "woke" as a descriptor. But imagine using "woke" unironically in 2022.
Giving clear signals and picking up on signals are far from equal. Women are given FAR more leeway in their behavior. Let's not pretend that the equation is anywhere close to balanced.
You're still denying reality in the same way that woke people do.
“I feel like I can move in the world and do normal things without fear. I wonder if that’s what a man feels, as he’s lacing up for a run?”
Yeah, pretty much. I'm never as aware of my own privilege as when I'm running alone, in strange places at odd hours with poor light. Even under ideal conditions, there's a definite pattern of male solo runners and women in pairs. This experience has probably opened my eyes more than any other wrt how women experience the world differently.
Kind of baked into the concept of priviliege is the idea that different individuals get different benefits in different situations.
It's always strange to read attacks on "privilege" as a concept that are in themselves arguments for the concept. But I guess that's also a great example of the reason it's a useful concept.
Even your comment that women are more neurotic is a great example of something you believe is out of people's control, but rather than being glad you don't have that specific problem you are attacking people who do as if it was a personal failing they chose to exhibit and you're less neurotic because you just bravely chose not to be a woman, unlike those lazy slackers who didn't bother to make that simple change.
If it's not advantageous or neutral in all situations, it seems wrong to refer to it as "male privilege", i.e. the privilege of being male. Privileges are also something that is granted and which can be revoked, often as punishment and precisely because having it is desired, because it's advantageous.
I think more apt phrases would be "male condition" and "female condition", as subsets of the human condition.
I'm aware of the concept. I'm saying the word chosen for the concept is bad, and I suspect it was chosen for rhetorical reasons, rather than by accident.
Men are victims of men. Women are victims of men. On a rare occasion, women are the ones doing the violence but they are the exception. See if you can spot the pattern.
Are you implying that since most violence is committed by men, that a man who is victimized by another man is more deserving of it than a woman who is victimized by a man? Because otherwise I don't see how the gender of the aggressor is relevant.
Not at all, just that the "men are victims of violence too" whiney bullshit is not a useful conversation when talking about violence toward women by men. It's stupid and it takes away from the conversation and the only correlation between the two is the gender of the perpetrator.
Women are targets because they're women. Men aren't targeted because of a shared immutable trait. They may have other things about them that someone doesn't like and some of those things may be immutable but the "men hurt men too" line is stupid, takes away from the important conversation we're not having enough and is basically a whataboutism.
The people complaining about violence against men only seem to show up in force when talking about violence against women.
It's "all lives matter" all over again. Yes, all lives do matter, and yes, men are victims of violence too, but neither of those facts was ever in dispute. The pattern of when and how they're brought up, as counterpoints to facts about violence that did need to be reiterated, suggests derailment rather than sincere interest.
>Not at all, just that the "men are victims of violence too" whiney bullshit is not a useful conversation when talking about violence toward women by men.
Is it? I don't know. Surely it depends on the particular conversation. If the topic of the conversation is "since women are victims of violence from men, men who are accused of committing violence against women should be guilty until proven innocent", then I don't think it's irrelevant that men also suffer violence.
I think that depends. When I walk around the city as a man and I'm about to cross paths with larger man or more than one man I'm judging if I might get harrased, think what I'll do if I am and sometimes if I judge risk to be high and I have time to act, I go in another direction to avoid getting close.
Because you're a man or because you're human and doing a threat assessment? It's not the same thing. Women are targeted for being women. You are not single out because you're a man.
I suspect that if I was >6ft man built like a brick my threat assesment migh be less anxious.
Women, I think, are often not specifically targeted for being women but rather for being small and weak. Like I could be.
I don't argue that women have it worse. I just think it's quantitative difference not qualitative.
Women might be more prone to be victims of sexual violence because there's more straight men than gay men but the rest of their risks comes from sexual dimorphism that makes them smaller, weaker and slower on average.
Also men are on average more accepting towards violence aginst men so this increses danger for potential male victims.
Several of my friends from India who immigrated to some of the bigger cities in the USA (New York, Chicago, LA) have had their first real-life encounters with criminals after being alive for 30+ years.
I last visited NYC in the mid-late 2000s. The second time I visited, I remember RNC convention was in Madison Square Garden, close to where I was staying, and there were a bunch of angry, but comparatively civil Democrats outside. The NYPD was handling things and it was extremely well managed. The last time I visited was around 2010, things weren't too different then either.
Compared to the scenes I see on TV and in videos these days - those days seem another era altogether. I watch the great Louis Rossman ride around on his bike and do livestreams quite often. The overall climate has become far more angry/violent, and the cities - particularly NYC, seem to have deteriorated extensively. Anecdotally, crime in general seems to have become a massive problem in US cities.
This feels like fear mongering to me. Current crime levels are no where near to what they were during heights of the 80s.
It feels like cities are a victim of their own success. If you had prolonged periods of low crime, any sudden increase is going to look “scary.” For example, jumping from 5 muggings to 10 is 100% increase but holistically how do those numbers fare? Turns out very well, but if you were to listen to the media you’d think NYC was some 80s Kurt Russel film.
Additionally, suburban and rural crime is rising just as quickly as urban crime. This isn't just an urban problem or an argument that dense cities are bad. It's simply that crime is rising in this time of social and economic uncertainty coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic.
I would say fear mongering is worth it if it helps reduce crime. There is now a large swath of people (many of them politicians and prosecutors) that seem to care and talk more about criminals than the actual victims.
I live in Alberta, and occasionally encounter Rachel Notley, the former leader of the province and current leader of the NDP party while out for a jog. In spite of having received many death threats, she often runs alone, unarmed and without a security detail.
If you had to bring one thing on a jog for protection it should be a well trained dog. It can deter, warn, and respond to an attack. A concealed carry only does the last thing, increase your ability to respond to an attack. Also, the dog is arguable a more enjoyable companion on the run. Counter argument would be that the dog is a lot of maintenance.
An open carry in addition to the dog would probably keep you safe outside a war zone.
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[ 4.8 ms ] story [ 138 ms ] threadDoesn't sound like the solution of a functional societal environment though (for one, a functional one, wouldn't have that issue or it would be very very rare)
That's my perspective too. I'm a woman who lives alone, and has no vehicle. Right now, I specifically avoided getting a gun. A friend gave me a knife I have no intention of ever using, maybe carrying it as a "pick a new target" kind of message. Obviously I'd love to feel more safe but I've yet to be convinced more firepower is actually effective at protecting me.
A pattern you see is that simply _having_ a gun is a massive massive deterrent. When the victim finds an opportunity to counter ambush, they can very frequently prevail. If they practice even a little they will be more skilled than most criminals, who don't even know how to hold a gun many times.
I think that's true of having any weapon. So a gun specifically is an unnecessary risk in my opinion.
A: Number of crime victims armed B: Number of crime victims unarmed C: Victims of ones own gun (who don't already fall into category B)
D = B-A+C means D is the number of people who were not the victim of violence and those only difference is that they were armed. This is because D is goes up as A gets smaller than B, provided guns don't simply lead to self-harm. D/(A+B) gives us a handy percentage we can use to contextualize this difference.
I myself have never actually had to draw but I have had to back up deescalate with a man aggressively demanding I tell him the time from a weak side stance with my hand in my pocket on a concealed handgun, and I doubt he was ignorant of that fact. Why would I report that?
If I lived in the US, and could legally carry for self defense. I would, not because I think it would be the solution to every situation, but because I am very cautious and like to cover all my bases.
However gun ownership comes with additional responsibilities and if some people see a woman jogging with a gun on her hip, they might just decide that is a quick way to get an untainted gun.
Dont, you wouldnt know how to use it anyway. Criminals and psychopaths are really good at reading people so you wont intimidate anyone with any experience in exerting violence, you might get stabbed with your own knife instead. Take a self defense class, one that emphasizes awareness of your surroundings. You wont learn how to fight anyway unless you decide to dedicated one evening a week for at least a year, so your best bet is learning to recognize and gauge risks. Thats why a gun is such an alluring proposition, you can actually learn how to defend yourself with a gun in a couple of months without physical exercises. Its point and click.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32950845
Lots of folks on the internet seem to think this is the best pepper spray: https://pompepperspray.com/
Please don't use nylon "knives" for self defence. A quick google will show you that they're advertised as "perfect for cakes and won't scratch your cookware" which also means they're not going to scratch an attacker either unless you're being attacked by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
Mace is better than nothing, but people hopped up on drugs aren't going to be immediately feeling that pain. If they're not on drugs, great! But its sort of like when you've tied a few on and go to Taco Bell, it's not immediately a bad idea. People who aren't feeling the pain still can be incapacitated by mace if you get it in their eyes, but otherwise, you need to use it before they close the distance. Once they're on you, everyone gets affected by Spicy Air, and if they're on drugs, you're probably hurting yourself just as much as you're hurting them.
I think there’s a place for concealed carry but I doubt it helps much with the kinds of ambush attacks joggers see.
(I was skateboarding in Deep Ellum (neighborhood in Dallas TX) when I was mugged)
I'm mostly kidding, but if you're attacked from an unsuspecting angle then no amount of armaments will protect you from that first punch.
There's also a case to be made that mathematically, you're likely to have a short career as a mugger if one out of every, say, 5 individuals you target is likely to be armed. After all, why don't muggers target police officers?
There have been numerous events of a concealed weapon holder killing an individual intent on a mass murder event that's just getting started. They generally get zero media play because they don't fit the narrative of gun -> bad.
Regardless, telling people they can't choose the means with which they can reasonably defend themselves is authoritarian and evil. Nobody can guarantee safety, thus, nobody can rightly deny the right to defend oneself how best it seems to them to do so. Some dangerous circumstances are unfortunately common which do not wait for the police, let alone courts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
Anyway... to the topic at hand. How do you feel about violence toward ladies? It'd be nice for one conversation about self defense and violence against women to not be detailed by stupid arguments about concealed carry or open carry or men get ouchies too.
Can we please talk about how this shouldn't be reality? How women should feel afraid? How one in four women should be the victim of sexual assault by the time they reach adulthood? Because that's what's happening and why these articles get written and what we should be discussing.
Team goal: call out bad behavior by men and boys, in an effort to denormalize the behaviors that lead to violence against women.
Cool?
From what I've read about sexual assaults, they often start with intimidation, while the attacker works up the nerve and gauges how his target responds. Robbery by an experienced team isn't the same sort of thing.
One guy wrapped me up from behind with my arms pinned to my sides. He was beyond fat and we fell with his full body weight slamming on top of me.
While he held me I was kicked from both sides of my head repeatedly.
I went out for a few seconds and came to laughing(wheezing), while they were rifling through my pockets. This got me a few more kicks.
I was laughing because had they picked literally any other time I'd walked Tinkerbell they would have gotten my wallet, and if they'd done it earlier that day- the brand new Note 3 I'd just purchased.
I only left my stuff because I hadn't yet purchased a screen protector and my biggest fear was a scratch in the screen (but not getting jumped!).
My dog was huge, but I was glad she'd stayed away. I couldn't imagine coming up on someone walking that big a dog.
Sometimes shit just happens.
I am 1st Dan in Tae Kwon Do, 2nd in Tang Soo Do, was lucky enough to take boxing lessons with some pretty cool people, even Butterbean.
I made sure all my kids got the same and then some, with their primary focus Jiu Jitsu as I believe ground game is of utmost importance in self defense, something I was lacking in for years.
Just because nothing I knew could help me in that one super shitty situation doesn't make the years I spent learning moot.
It's definitely helped me far more times than not.
If these women are potential targets, they should protect themselves however they can.
My issue with guns is a person is more likely to pull a trigger from fear than anger, or it could be taken and used against you.
I used to have a CCP but thought it might get me in more trouble than help.
Nowadays I've been considering getting one again. It's beginning to feel like most people are carrying (here, in California- I know that's not true but that's what it feels like)
We never know what's going to happen, we can only try to be prepared and hope for the best.
What’s interesting to me is that gender dynamics create a sort of predator/prey dynamic. Specifically I’m talking about how men are generally required to do all of the initiating. I think it trains men to push for what they want because that’s the only way romantic and sexual interactions happen.
Sometimes, it’s even expected that the man not ask for consent. I’m talking about men “going for” a kiss at the end of the first date. It’s generally expected that the man go for it without asking. It’s like sexual assault is baked into the dating ritual!
I can’t help but wonder if we’d be better off if we got rid of this dynamic. Like if we expected men and women to both initiate instead of women being taught to wait for men to pursue them.
> I can’t help but wonder if we’d be better off if we got rid of this dynamic.
The vast majority men don't push, at least not in a way that is predatory. To further disarm men over the small minority of predatory (and possibly more reproductively successful) men would not be helpful even to women.
> Like if we expected men and women to both initiate instead of women being taught to wait for men to pursue them.
Good luck with that. This completely dismisses women as actual physical beings with their own behaviors and interests as opposed to a figment.
Why exactly would women not wait for men to pursue them? Women only have so many opportunities to bear children, whereas men can theoretically impregnate 100s of women for the 9 months that a single woman is pregnant. What incentive does a woman have to give away her eggs to men who don't go out of their way to show they are willing to commit? What incentive do women have when the sexual encounters are far more available to them than the other way around on average? If a man doesn't have the courage to go up against all odds, including her initial rejection of him, then how likely will he succeed at defending her while she's pregnant and vulnerable?
Not only is there no incentive for women to pursue men, but they've not had this incentive for millions of years. Some part of that dynamic is baked, as is the male propensity for violence.
If men are playing a numbers game, and are expected to pursue women “against all odds” then you really can’t blame men for trying to play and win the game.
You can’t entirely blame men for going for a kiss even if he’s received mixed signals because the reality is that some women suck at giving signals.
You can’t entirely blame men for doing weird, awkward shit because he’s trying a new strategy to win the game.
Obviously everyone is different, but I think that's part of why asking for a first kiss is seen as unattractive. If you're so dense as to not be able to tell when someone wants a kiss (which, the first time, is excruciatingly clear most of the time), what other less clear or more important signals are you going to miss, or choose to miss?
And no, a kiss at the end of the night is not just a signal readability test. It’s a masculinity test. If a guy doesn’t kiss a girl at the end of the night her impression is that he’s weak.
This is literally what I said. Being good at interpreting signals is attractive. Giving clear signals is attractive.
> If a guy doesn’t kiss a girl at the end of the night her impression is that he’s weak.
Sorry but this is some redpill bullshit.
That changes the equation significantly because it incentivizes men to ignore signals to a certain extent. They’re more likely to just shoot their shot and see what happens. You might not like it but that’s the reality.
Regarding weakness, I don’t care what word you use but women tend to think less of men when they don’t go for it and leave it to the woman to initiate. This is the lived experience of many, many men.
What I think is interesting is that you’ve done two of the most common things I’ve seen woke people do. Deny female agency and deny reality. Everything is men’s fault and their lived experience doesn’t matter.
I haven't denied anyone's agency or any reality, you just haven't proven what you think reality is. And trust me, if you know anything about me you wouldn't use "woke" as a descriptor. But imagine using "woke" unironically in 2022.
You're still denying reality in the same way that woke people do.
Yeah, pretty much. I'm never as aware of my own privilege as when I'm running alone, in strange places at odd hours with poor light. Even under ideal conditions, there's a definite pattern of male solo runners and women in pairs. This experience has probably opened my eyes more than any other wrt how women experience the world differently.
It's always strange to read attacks on "privilege" as a concept that are in themselves arguments for the concept. But I guess that's also a great example of the reason it's a useful concept.
Even your comment that women are more neurotic is a great example of something you believe is out of people's control, but rather than being glad you don't have that specific problem you are attacking people who do as if it was a personal failing they chose to exhibit and you're less neurotic because you just bravely chose not to be a woman, unlike those lazy slackers who didn't bother to make that simple change.
I think more apt phrases would be "male condition" and "female condition", as subsets of the human condition.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_privilege
Women are targets because they're women. Men aren't targeted because of a shared immutable trait. They may have other things about them that someone doesn't like and some of those things may be immutable but the "men hurt men too" line is stupid, takes away from the important conversation we're not having enough and is basically a whataboutism.
The people complaining about violence against men only seem to show up in force when talking about violence against women.
Is it? I don't know. Surely it depends on the particular conversation. If the topic of the conversation is "since women are victims of violence from men, men who are accused of committing violence against women should be guilty until proven innocent", then I don't think it's irrelevant that men also suffer violence.
Women, I think, are often not specifically targeted for being women but rather for being small and weak. Like I could be.
I don't argue that women have it worse. I just think it's quantitative difference not qualitative.
Women might be more prone to be victims of sexual violence because there's more straight men than gay men but the rest of their risks comes from sexual dimorphism that makes them smaller, weaker and slower on average.
Also men are on average more accepting towards violence aginst men so this increses danger for potential male victims.
I last visited NYC in the mid-late 2000s. The second time I visited, I remember RNC convention was in Madison Square Garden, close to where I was staying, and there were a bunch of angry, but comparatively civil Democrats outside. The NYPD was handling things and it was extremely well managed. The last time I visited was around 2010, things weren't too different then either.
Compared to the scenes I see on TV and in videos these days - those days seem another era altogether. I watch the great Louis Rossman ride around on his bike and do livestreams quite often. The overall climate has become far more angry/violent, and the cities - particularly NYC, seem to have deteriorated extensively. Anecdotally, crime in general seems to have become a massive problem in US cities.
It feels like cities are a victim of their own success. If you had prolonged periods of low crime, any sudden increase is going to look “scary.” For example, jumping from 5 muggings to 10 is 100% increase but holistically how do those numbers fare? Turns out very well, but if you were to listen to the media you’d think NYC was some 80s Kurt Russel film.
An open carry in addition to the dog would probably keep you safe outside a war zone.