On trouble...
Dec. 14th, 2010 09:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
aumentouThis is for information only. I don't want anything from you, except your attention for a little while. You don't need to do anything, it's just that I think your perception of the world (like everyones) is incomplete, and I wish to add a little piece to it.
One of the little political arguments that comes up amongst students is the Womens Minibus. A subsidised bus that takes women (and only women) home at night for a very small fee.
One of the most common arguments against this service is that men are actually more in danger (the stats bear this out) of being attacked at night, though for different reasons. Robbery and basic male dominance bullshit being the main ones.
I don't have anything to say about that. It's just a prelude.
One of the forming experiences of my life was in my second month at university, when a man was kicked to death by a group of drunk students. They were young and bored and started a fight for fun, and he died. It was a forming experience, because I thought "That could have been me.". They picked him because he was black, and that made him a target. But they could have picked me, for being a poof. If I'd been there at that time, and responded the same way, the result would have been the same.
I don't have anything I particularly want to say about that either, it's here for context.
I tend to separate trouble into various categories: covert (eg: rude words that are deliberately loud enough to overhear), insults from safety (eg: from a moving car), insults as a challenge (to your face, but distant), deliberate up close humiliation (close-range confrontations, with physical violence being a possiblity but not the actual aim), provocation to violence (attempts to start a fight, but without just throwing a punch because that would make things too easy for the police), and finally outright violence (no provocation, just hurting).
With the exception of the last category (which stands at 0/0), the last year has seen more trouble in every category than the eleven and a half years of adult male life I lived combined together. It seems I am more of a target than ever before, and lesss of a threat too. I have gone from thinking of Sheffield as a nice safe city with a few rough spots to thinking of it as mostly hostile territory with some safe spots here and there. After dark I deliberately avoid crowded areas and well-lit streets, because the primary threat to me is drunken groups and I'm less likely to find those on back streets.
The walkley cottage is not one of those safe spots, incidentally. That's why I haven't been to the FFS for a while.
My therapist tells me I need to think positively, so happy holidays to those who celebrate them.
One of the little political arguments that comes up amongst students is the Womens Minibus. A subsidised bus that takes women (and only women) home at night for a very small fee.
One of the most common arguments against this service is that men are actually more in danger (the stats bear this out) of being attacked at night, though for different reasons. Robbery and basic male dominance bullshit being the main ones.
I don't have anything to say about that. It's just a prelude.
One of the forming experiences of my life was in my second month at university, when a man was kicked to death by a group of drunk students. They were young and bored and started a fight for fun, and he died. It was a forming experience, because I thought "That could have been me.". They picked him because he was black, and that made him a target. But they could have picked me, for being a poof. If I'd been there at that time, and responded the same way, the result would have been the same.
I don't have anything I particularly want to say about that either, it's here for context.
I tend to separate trouble into various categories: covert (eg: rude words that are deliberately loud enough to overhear), insults from safety (eg: from a moving car), insults as a challenge (to your face, but distant), deliberate up close humiliation (close-range confrontations, with physical violence being a possiblity but not the actual aim), provocation to violence (attempts to start a fight, but without just throwing a punch because that would make things too easy for the police), and finally outright violence (no provocation, just hurting).
With the exception of the last category (which stands at 0/0), the last year has seen more trouble in every category than the eleven and a half years of adult male life I lived combined together. It seems I am more of a target than ever before, and lesss of a threat too. I have gone from thinking of Sheffield as a nice safe city with a few rough spots to thinking of it as mostly hostile territory with some safe spots here and there. After dark I deliberately avoid crowded areas and well-lit streets, because the primary threat to me is drunken groups and I'm less likely to find those on back streets.
The walkley cottage is not one of those safe spots, incidentally. That's why I haven't been to the FFS for a while.
My therapist tells me I need to think positively, so happy holidays to those who celebrate them.
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no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 07:06 pm (UTC)I do find it curious that you're more nervous in public than me. Yeah, I get verbal abuse, and I give it back. It's never turned physical on me and I'm lucky at that, because I'd be running where you'd be fighting back. I've seen some blogging somewhere about women's experiences of different ways of dealing with it. I'll try and dig them out - stuff like holla back, where women talk about how they stood up for someone else. What I took from it is that the more confident you look and act, the less shit you get. For me that works by looking slightly more aggressive, though I'm not saying it's the same for everyone.
it was good to see you today. I'd like to spend more time with you.
x
no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 10:39 pm (UTC)No. Never met him. But it happened on a street I went down regularly. It was just the simple "it could have been me" factor.
"the more confident you look and act, the less shit you get"
There is a limit to that, and it involves people deciding that I'm man enough to punch. Of course, it takes four of them before they're man enough to throw one, but that's hardly the point...
no subject
Date: 2010-12-18 02:03 pm (UTC)