i debated whether or not to share this story

[bcbm]

And then I debated whether or not to put it on Tumblr…but I decided it was important. Because in my own way, I can (unfortunately) point out exactly what is wrong with men when they don’t realize how hard it is to be a woman. How we do not have equal opportunities and freedoms in everyday life. How most men, even good caring men, have no clue what we go through on a daily basis just trying to live our lives.

http://unwinona.tumblr.com/post/30861660109/i-debated-whether-or-not-to-share-this-story

[RedAnarchist]

You should read the blog Everyday Sexism = http://www.everydaysexism.com/. So many stories, and some of them sound unbelievable even though they're true (not surprising, as I'm a biological male).

That story in the OP, though, I just feel so bad for her. The bicycle guy thing - I don't think I myself have experienced anything quite as terrifying as it must have been for her on that train.

[Quail]

Yes there are nasty people in trains.
I think you're massively missing the point here. The story is about some pretty serious harassment from men because they feel entitled to attention from this woman, whether she wants to talk to them or not. Unfortunately harassment is an everyday reality for a lot of women and it's not pleasant. You seem to be flat out dismissing this as something she should just put up with and be quiet about when it's completely unacceptable, and you're not acknowledging the sexist nature of the things these "nasty people" do.

Furthermore, your one-liner contributes nothing to the discussion other than to reveal that you are indifferent to the everyday sexism that most women face so I'm going to give you a verbal warning for spam and dismissing sexism as "nasty people."

[cynicles]

I wonder what impact the public transportation system of Los Angeles has on these types of occurences. Doesn't LA have a really poor urban design? That would carry implications for it's public transport set-up that would lend to increasing this sort of thing. I know it sounds off topic but seeing as how this story centres around a commute I think the topic of commuter safety affects this topic heavily.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

I've had experiences like this. It didn't help matters that the Boston subway, the "T" is among the worst in the US, or even the world. I've sat though epic breakdowns on the Red Line, 40 minutes to an hour with some bozo acting like Bicycle Man did.

Thanks for the OP.

[Os Cangaceiros]

I wonder what impact the public transportation system of Los Angeles has on these types of occurences. Doesn't LA have a really poor urban design? That would carry implications for it's public transport set-up that would lend to increasing this sort of thing. I know it sounds off topic but seeing as how this story centres around a commute I think the topic of commuter safety affects this topic heavily.

Yeah, LA (like many cities in the American West) was designed around the car, not public trans.

[Lynx]

'Bicycle guy' is hopefully not typical of the male population of LA.

[Камо́ Зэд]

I was reading Susan Faludi's article The Naked Citadel (The New Yorker; September 5, 1994; pp.62-81), discussing a military-style university in South Carolina that, at the time, refused to admit female students into their main curricula. Women were welcome to take night classes, though, and, oddly enough, teach and serve food at the the school. For the most part, this meant that the young men attending the Citadel were isolated among their own sex, except in cases where women were expected to play a maternal, romantic, or servile role. The author noted that etiquette classes were taught to the young men with a focus on how to "deal with" women. Faludi noted the habit among students to regale their classmates with tales of degrading or humiliating ex-girlfriends, as well as numerous reported incidents of abuse against dates on campus (including the turning a portable toilet over so as to trap the female occupant inside). She noted that, despite affectations of gentlemanly behavior, when this proved unsuccessful in obtaining what a young man wanted from a woman, he would fall back on aggression to the point of violence. As exemplified in the above anecdote, these young men demonstrate an attitude of being owed something by women.

Consider that, in the article, Faludi notes that gender relations at the Citadel really didn't "begin" between men and women, in that women are few in number. Her assertion that the learned habits of gender relation begin between upperclassmen and freshmen, the latter of whom are sometimes called "knobs." They were more frequently referred to as "*****es," "little girls," and "pussies" by their upperclassmen, who were at least as aggressive and violent toward the freshman as they were against women. (Comparable to abusive partners, upperclassmen frequently came home to the dorms drunk and attack freshmen in an inebriated rage.) Freshmen thus played a passive, subordinated role in the university, where upperclassmen were also typically authorities with regards to behavior (as there had only been one officer monitoring their behavior in the dorms at the time of the article). This may be related to a policy against "fraternization" between upperclassmen and freshmen; upperclassmen would "correct" any perceived problems among the freshmen through violent hazing. In fact, before cheerleaders were brought in as "props" (in the word of then-"hostess" Susan Bower), etiquette classes were taught with freshmen dressed up and playing the role of women in this particularly constructed dynamic. This had all been done in the name of creating out of students the "Whole Man," a model of masculinity as conceived by the school. That this was true of an institution as recently as the mid-1990's speaks volumes of where were are as a society in terms of gender relations.

[fug]

Actually the people in question seem more like autists. I mean sexism is rampant but I've never seen anyone being so completely lost, confused and... autistic in front of women. Perhaps that's only in America...

[fug]

For example "in my culture" other men on the train would have stood up and chased away/beaten up those weirdos harassing the woman.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Wow, I actually just read that story and that was pretty messed up. She shoulda punched that guy right in the balls just before she got off at her stop.

But I don't have doubts about that story, as I've encountered a lot of really crazy people on public trans in my lifetime, and I'm male. My friend was a valet who had to take public transportation home every night (late) from work, and he recounted how he was scared for his life on several occassions. I imagine if you're female it's worse.

[L.A.P.]

There is definetely a daily belittling that women deal with that I'm kind of glad I don't have to go through, I've dealt with that in a far less degree and I didn't deal well. Just today, I had to deal with that happening to my sister. Luckily, guys like that are complete wimps so all I had to do was cuss, symbolically take his drink from out of his friend's car, pour it out, and dump some on the car. I always found it bizarre how blatant my peers are about projecting their sexual frustration onto girls.

[Crux]

Actually the people in question seem more like autists. I mean sexism is rampant but I've never seen anyone being so completely lost, confused and... autistic in front of women. Perhaps that's only in America...
Gave fug an infraction for prejudiced language.

[Os Cangaceiros]

For example "in my culture" other men on the train would have stood up and chased away/beaten up those weirdos harassing the woman.

Where are you from?

And I hardly think that sexual harrassment on public transportation is just "an American thing". It's really bad in quite a few countries, Egypt being one in particular that I remember reading about.

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

Where are you from?

And I hardly think that sexual harrassment on public transportation is just "an American thing". It's really bad in quite a few countries, Egypt being one in particular that I remember reading about.

Def not just an american thing, my oldest sister was harassed by a guy on the tube once. Reported him and took it to court, won.
I get scared for any daughter I might have in the future, all the shit she might have to deal with just because she's female. No such worries for my son, and that for me sums up the prevelance of everyday / accepted sexism throughout society.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Whilst it may or may not be that those men were hitting on her, I would still not say it is a normal reaction to tell someone to leave you alone if they ask you a question. If you're an attractive person, then you'll probably have other people come up and chat to you and, as long as they don't start a conversation by pinching your ass or, you know, being all like, "hey baby how u doin", then I don't see why she's so put out. I mean yeah, she owes these guys nothing and the onus is certainly not on her to start a conversation, but her attitude at the start of the conversation seems really bad to me.

I chat to girls at work, I ask them what they're reading, some of them are pretty. It doesn't mean I want to sleep with them or even like them, I just talk to them the same as I talk to workmates who are guys. Just being friendly.

Having said that, the last guy was an absolute asshole and the comments above are really on the article up until the bike guy. She's absolutely warranted to be horrified by his reaction, of course (before anyone moans at me!).

[Ethics Gradient, Traitor For All Ages]

Why is it unreasonable to want to be left alone while reading? Even from a gender neutral point of view not everyone is an extrovert who wants to have conversations with strangers, their physical beauty and the perceived expectations that come along with it should not be more important than their personal wishes or comfort level.

[Crux]

Whilst it may or may not be that those men were hitting on her, I would still not say it is a normal reaction to tell someone to leave you alone if they ask you a question. If you're an attractive person, then you'll probably have other people come up and chat to you and, as long as they don't start a conversation by pinching your ass or, you know, being all like, "hey baby how u doin", then I don't see why she's so put out. I mean yeah, she owes these guys nothing and the onus is certainly not on her to start a conversation, but her attitude at the start of the conversation seems really bad to me.

I chat to girls at work, I ask them what they're reading, some of them are pretty. It doesn't mean I want to sleep with them or even like them, I just talk to them the same as I talk to workmates who are guys. Just being friendly.

Having said that, the last guy was an absolute asshole and the comments above are really on the article up until the bike guy. She's absolutely warranted to be horrified by his reaction, of course (before anyone moans at me!).
Well, as a guy, that is not a constant issue of men invading your personal space.

[Lynx]

Some people invade my personal space, but I think they don't really mean to. Other times I know it is deliberate and that they are trying to make me uncomfortable.

[citizen of industry]

In Japan they introduced women only cars. The commuter trains have 12 cars or whatever. During rush hours the first three cars are women only.The trains are packed and nobody talks, but groping is a problem. This was the method of solving the problem.

[Sasha]

Yeah, LA (like many cities in the American West) was designed around the car, not public trans.

Actually they had a pretty good, function public transport system, and then under Reagan it git privatised and the car industry bought it and killed it to end the competition...

[cynicles]

Actually they had a pretty good, function public transport system, and then under Reagan it git privatised and the car industry bought it and killed it to end the competition...
Even still there must be a good deal of limitations on it given the tendency towards suburban sprall in the west.

[Камо́ Зэд]

In Japan they introduced women only cars. The commuter trains have 12 cars or whatever. During rush hours the first three cars are women only.The trains are packed and nobody talks, but groping is a problem. This was the method of solving the problem.

There's a very severe problem, though, if the sexes have to be segregated. That means there's a significant section of the male population that has not learned the fundamentally important rule of keeping one's hands to oneself. Without hyperbole, that's the first thing a person is taught about interacting with other human beings.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Well, as a guy, that is not a constant issue of men invading your personal space.

I wouldn't really count asking someone about their book as invading their personal space.

Let's face it, people are attracted to each other, sexually and just conversationally, and it's better if that manifests itself in its origin in the latter (i.e. making conversation) than the former (leering etc.).

Of course, this is excluding the reaction of the guys in the article after their rejection, that's totally reprehensible, but that's not really the issue i'm getting at, as that's something that we can agree on. Rather, I don't like the intimation that, if one person cannot make conversation with a stranger, merely for want of making conversation, because it might be construed as 'invading personal space'. Personally, i'd rather people were a bit over-friendly than everyone walk around in a personal space bubble created by headphones and a big 'fuck-off' written across their foreheads.

Sure, it's an individual's prerogative to reject conversation with a stranger, that's not in question, but personally I think it's a sad thing when people actually walk around with this sort of negative attitude to everyone who approaches them. I don't think that's healthy and it comes across as pretty unnatural to me.

[#FF0000]

Sure, it's an individual's prerogative to reject conversation with a stranger, that's not in question, but personally I think it's a sad thing when people actually walk around with this sort of negative attitude to everyone who approaches them. I don't think that's healthy and it comes across as pretty unnatural to me.

Yeah I agree. I think we can also agree that the conditions in which people are made to live are to blame and not the individuals.

[Камо́ Зэд]

I don't know that a sense of personal space becomes a problem at any point. I'll concede that politeness is the ideal response to unwanted conversation, but the right to assert space is fundamental. Even if asserted rudely, the accepted response is to cease the effort. In other words, "back off!" may be rude, but it means "back off!"

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Why is it unreasonable to want to be left alone while reading? Even from a gender neutral point of view not everyone is an extrovert who wants to have conversations with strangers, their physical beauty and the perceived expectations that come along with it should not be more important than their personal wishes or comfort level.

I never said it was unreasonable. I leave the rest of my explanation to my post above in reply to Majakovskijj.

[officer nugz]

this is a clear case of mental illness rather than a portrait of a regular occurrence in the lives of all women. and I am not saying that to be dismissive of the hardships which women face but rather as something which is very obvious.

[officer nugz]

Actually the people in question seem more like autists. I mean sexism is rampant but I've never seen anyone being so completely lost, confused and... autistic in front of women. Perhaps that's only in America...first off, I completely agree that people should not be called "autists". it's extremely disrespectful. secondly, this specific situation sounds like it definitely could be the needle that broke the camels back of someone who is very upset about being socially rejected, likely frequently, due to the social difficulties faced by people with autism.

[Ele'ill]

this is a clear case of mental illness rather than a portrait of a regular occurrence in the lives of all women. and I am not saying that to be dismissive of the hardships which women face but rather as something which is very obvious.

Perhaps groups of people are alienated to the point that they can't live normal lives. Call it mental illness of some sort if you want, anxiety, PTSD, depression, whatever- I don't think it makes a difference. I'm not sure I even like the term mental illness as if there's something wrong with the person and it's their problem as it of course isn't- society is ill and people respond. Large groups of people, lots and maybe even most.

[Beeth]

This perhaps has more to do with the hardships of being an introvert in an extroverted world.

[Камо́ Зэд]

This perhaps has more to do with the hardships of being an introvert in an extroverted world.

This analysis would ignore the role sex plays in society and how the predicament of women affects their world in tangible ways.

[#FF0000]

This perhaps has more to do with the hardships of being an introvert in an extroverted world.

Er, how so?

I dunno guys. From listening to a lot of the stories my friends have I'm lead to believe that this shit happens a whooooole lot more often than you guys want to admit (for whatever reason).

Maybe not to this ridiculous extreme but, uh, "FUCK YOU *****" is something some women hear pretty often. I'm not saying every woman experiences this kind of harassment but, uh, it is actually quite a lot, dudes.

[Beeth]

Er, how so?

I dunno guys. From listening to a lot of the stories my friends have I'm lead to believe that this shit happens a whooooole lot more often than you guys want to admit (for whatever reason).

Maybe not to this ridiculous extreme but, uh, "FUCK YOU *****" is something some women hear pretty often. I'm not saying every woman experiences this kind of harassment but, uh, it is actually quite a lot, dudes.

It definitely translated into a case of sexism, since the person in question turned out to be a woman. But suppose the person was a man ... I am a man and times without number extroverts behave as if I owe them a nice conversation. So as an introvert, I am trying to see this angle as well.

[#FF0000]

It definitely translated into a case of sexism, since the person in question turned out to be a woman. But suppose the person was a man ... I am a man and times without number extroverts behave as if I owe them a nice conversation. So as an introvert, I am trying to see this angle as well.

Ohhhhhh I see what you mean. Yeah, I dunno, but the fact of the matter is that this dude exploded into specific, gendered verbal assault. And like I said, it's not like it's exactly rare for women to hear terrible shit from creepers on the street.

EDIT: I also wanna say I'm pretty introverted and I have been rude as fuck to people who tried to talk to me when I didn't want to talk, flagrantly ignoring them, blank looks, etc. I've never seen a reaction even in the same galaxy as this one. People just leave me alone.

[Камо́ Зэд]

It definitely translated into a case of sexism, since the person in question turned out to be a woman. But suppose the person was a man ... I am a man and times without number extroverts behave as if I owe them a nice conversation. So as an introvert, I am trying to see this angle as well.

I think the unique position of women in our society has primacy over whether someone is extroverted and introverted. This wasn't a case of introversion and extroversion manifesting as sexism so much as it is a case of sexism manifesting as introversion and extroversion, if even that is applicable, which I'm not so sure it is.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I was reading Susan Faludi's article The Naked Citadel (The New Yorker; September 5, 1994; pp.62-81), discussing a military-style university in South Carolina that, at the time, refused to admit female students into their main curricula. Women were welcome to take night classes, though, and, oddly enough, teach and serve food at the the school. For the most part, this meant that the young men attending the Citadel were isolated among their own sex, except in cases where women were expected to play a maternal, romantic, or servile role. The author noted that etiquette classes were taught to the young men with a focus on how to "deal with" women. Faludi noted the habit among students to regale their classmates with tales of degrading or humiliating ex-girlfriends, as well as numerous reported incidents of abuse against dates on campus (including the turning a portable toilet over so as to trap the female occupant inside). She noted that, despite affectations of gentlemanly behavior, when this proved unsuccessful in obtaining what a young man wanted from a woman, he would fall back on aggression to the point of violence. As exemplified in the above anecdote, these young men demonstrate an attitude of being owed something by women.

Consider that, in the article, Faludi notes that gender relations at the Citadel really didn't "begin" between men and women, in that women are few in number. Her assertion that the learned habits of gender relation begin between upperclassmen and freshmen, the latter of whom are sometimes called "knobs." They were more frequently referred to as "*****es," "little girls," and "pussies" by their upperclassmen, who were at least as aggressive and violent toward the freshman as they were against women. (Comparable to abusive partners, upperclassmen frequently came home to the dorms drunk and attack freshmen in an inebriated rage.) Freshmen thus played a passive, subordinated role in the university, where upperclassmen were also typically authorities with regards to behavior (as there had only been one officer monitoring their behavior in the dorms at the time of the article). This may be related to a policy against "fraternization" between upperclassmen and freshmen; upperclassmen would "correct" any perceived problems among the freshmen through violent hazing. In fact, before cheerleaders were brought in as "props" (in the word of then-"hostess" Susan Bower), etiquette classes were taught with freshmen dressed up and playing the role of women in this particularly constructed dynamic. This had all been done in the name of creating out of students the "Whole Man," a model of masculinity as conceived by the school. That this was true of an institution as recently as the mid-1990's speaks volumes of where were are as a society in terms of gender relations.

Interesting you write that, because my opinion is that there are material reasons to this feeling. In 1946 90% of men worked while 29% of women worked. In 2010 72% of men work while 60% of women work. I think this is the reason why sexism has decreased significantly in the last decades, although sexism still obviously exists, but definitely not as socially widespread, systemic and brutal as was in the last century.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Interesting you write that, because my opinion is that there are material reasons to this feeling. In 1946 90% of men worked while 29% of women worked. In 2010 72% of men work while 60% of women work. I think this is the reason why sexism has decreased significantly in the last decades, although sexism still obviously exists, but definitely not as socially widespread, systemic and brutal as was in the last century.

I think the material causes of this attitude are more complicated than recent employment rates. Women have historically played a role in keeping the home, but, in primitive communistic societies, before "property" ever emerged, the homestead was society. Women were a supreme force in primitive communism. The closest thing to "property" a man had at the time was his "marriage" to the women of his community, in this context meaning the availability of women with whom to breed. The Consanguine family emerged as a taboo prohibiting such marriage between generations. This meant that a father could no longer breed with his daughter or a mother with her son; siblings, on the other hand, could breed freely. This taboo means that the efforts of marriage partners to procure sustenance and raise children is redirected outward from the parent-offspring relationship, enhancing survival behaviors. "Brothers" and "sisters" at this point include all members of one generation, and every "brother" is the husband of all of his "sisters" and vice versa. The Punaluan family saw a taboo emerge against breeding between siblings of a common parent (particularly the mother, who would retain custody of the children should the individual marriage have been dissolved by either involved party) and the offspring of those siblings. This focused efforts on a productive survival relationship between gentes, lines descending from a single parent (again, particularly the mother). Eventually, the Pairing family arose, under which marriage within a tribe was almost an impossibility. This served to solidify productive-survival relations among the entire tribe, concurrently with the advent of agriculture and pastoralism, the rise of property. Man's advantage over woman at this point was his ownership of the means of production, and lineage became largely paternal in that the father became the individual from whom to inherit property. The taboo on female polygamy resulted from the difficulty in tracing paternal lineage; a monogamous woman was not liable to present a threat to the wealth of men not legally married to her. It feels like the attitude of being "owed" something by women comes from the historical vantage point of "owning" their availability to breed coupled with scarcity imposed by the various taboos that developed over the course of human evolution. But "ownership" is no reality for the proletarian man. That is why it is possible now to radically transform how women are perceived.

[officer nugz]

Er, how so?

I dunno guys. From listening to a lot of the stories my friends have I'm lead to believe that this shit happens a whooooole lot more often than you guys want to admit (for whatever reason).

Maybe not to this ridiculous extreme but, uh, "FUCK YOU *****" is something some women hear pretty often. I'm not saying every woman experiences this kind of harassment but, uh, it is actually quite a lot, dudes.the ridiculous extreme is pretty much what characterizes this story though. the ridiculous extreme is why we're talking about mental health.


Perhaps groups of people are alienated to the point that they can't live normal lives. Call it mental illness of some sort if you want, anxiety, PTSD, depression, whatever- I don't think it makes a difference. I'm not sure I even like the term mental illness as if there's something wrong with the person and it's their problem as it of course isn't- society is ill and people respond. Large groups of people, lots and maybe even most.well yeah. the post I made right under the one you responded to is kind of along those lines, I think.

[Lynx]

It definitely translated into a case of sexism, since the person in question turned out to be a woman. But suppose the person was a man ... I am a man and times without number extroverts behave as if I owe them a nice conversation. So as an introvert, I am trying to see this angle as well.
Socially inept could describe 'bicycle guy' if his intent was to strike up a conversation with someone of the opposite sex. For all we know, he could be extroverted in other situations.

For all we know, the motivation for this behavior could be intimidation. This is how you intimidate females and make them feel threatened. No expectations of a relationship, they are just looking for someone to torment. If they hate women, or cannot intimidate men, then they will only target women.

[cynicles]

I think it's pretty clear the first group of males that struck the conversation with her were not being friendly and sociable and she had no obligation to engage. She makes a clear distinction at the beginning of the story between genuine conversation, the other man she meets in the first part of the story, and this intrusion of personal space for the purpose fo being hit on, the first group of males and the bike guy. She has every right to tell these uys who hit on her to back off, it's one thing if you're in a highly social environment where people go specifically to be hit-on(the bar, a party, etc), it's another thing during a commute to be preassured into believing you have some social obligation to find this kind of behaviour acceptable and being forced to deal with it.

[LiquidBryan]

Even that story at the top of the blog was horrible. Not to mollify the anguish women go through, but it's terrible how they stopped just to take a picture of her chest. For a blog like that, it was kinda shocking to read such a graphic story.

My female friends always report similar things and it makes me sick how thoughtless men can me. I've got one friend who can't even go to the coffeeshop to study, because men are always bother her, asking if she'd like to go out with them some time. When she goes out to study, the last thing she wants is to constantly be badgered like that.

Due to the persistent annoyance she gets, she's began to avoid studying at coffeeshops.

Worse is that heartless men call women "*****es" for sticking up for themselves. On another forum, someone posted a video by skepchick in which she describes how unsafe she felt when some strange guy asked her out on a date in the elevator after midnight. She also mentioned that after giving a speech on how women often get marginalized in the Atheist community by lustful men who aren't interested in hearing what they have to say. Instead, they're just trying to hook up with them. Anywho, some insensitive liberal called her the B word. It took everything inside me to desist from flaming the hell out of him. Ugh....

Nowadays people are such ignoramuses when it comes to Feminism too. They'll read some Radical Feminists blogs and then label every other brand of Feminism as anti-male, despite all the evidence countering that frivolous notion. People like that know nothing about Feminism. It's painfully obvious, so I don't know what gives them the gall to spread lies about it. This blog, and the other stories us leftists share is just more proof that Feminism is badly needed.

Last year, I remember on the way to eat for my birthday we had gone to pick up my sister's boyfriend and as we were driving up the street, I heard some guy in a car shouting nastyy things to a woman walking on the sidewalk. I was so miffed after that, almost ruined my entire day, and throughout the rest of the day I kept fantasizing about pummeling that asshole.