"Guilty until Proven Innocent"

I'm in an academically nostalgic mood this morning.

Many years ago, I sat both frustrated and excited through my first Women's Studies class at Berkeley. I was one of perhaps four men in a class of thirty, and I was (shock of all shocks) among the most vocal. I remember one morning blurting out something like the following:

Why is it that men are always guilty until proven innocent? I know there are some "bad guys" out there, but it is incredibly hurtful to me that women won't smile at me in the hallways or on the street because they have lumped me in with all the others! I get so tired of paying the price -- in terms of women's mistrust -- for other men's failures and betrayals and bad behavior. Why can't women see what a good guy I am?

It was the sort of day where everyone was sharing personal stuff. I was 19 and lonely, but I was also eager to "get" feminism because I believed it was my duty to do so. More importantly, I believed that there was something there for me within feminism -- something I could learn that would make me a happier person. But so far, all I was feeling was guilty and angry.

I am happy to report that no one verbally attacked me for my outburst. But the women in the class, led by the professor, helped me to see several things I wasn't able or willing yet to see.

First of all, the obvious point is that women's intuition, while not entirely the stuff of myth, is not so powerful that it can automatically separate "good guys" from the bad. No woman can walk down the street and as she passes a man, know with certainty that he isn't a threat. Given the high incidence of rape and assault and harassment and other forms of mistreatment, a woman would be a fool to leave herself continually vulnerable. The old adage "Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me" seems to apply here. When a simple smile is so frequently misunderstood and construed as a sexual invitation, American women generally do have to operate on the assumption that men are guilty until proven innocent. (I blogged on that "guilty until innocent" theme once before, in a different context.)

As I heard this, I acknowledged that I couldn't ask women to have radar detectors to sense my harmlessness. So, I asked "What can I do? How can I - as a man -- help this situation?"

The answers I got have been with me for nigh on eighteen years. The most important thing I can do is hold myself and other men accountable. When I'm hanging with the guys, and one of them cat-calls a girl and I say nothing, I am as guilty as he is. When I'm hanging with the guys, and leering at my classmates in miniskirts, I am part of the problem. It's not enough for men to be kind and thoughtful with the women in their lives, they must exemplify that kindness and sympathy for women even when they are in an all-male environment. The acid test of a male pro-feminist is how he interacts with other men when there are no women around. Any man can "talk the talk", and maybe even "walk the walk" in front of his mother, sister, girlfriend, wife. Can he do it with his buddies present? That's the question. And you can't be part of the solution until you do that.

I was floored when I heard that, because like so many young men, I was guilty of that "double life." Sweet and sensitive with women (at least, trying to be sensitive); crass and boorish with my fellow males. I assumed that the closeness with men I desired so much required that I surrender my feminist and egalitarian principles; how else could I bond with guys if we didn't act like pigs? Isn't that just what guys do? (Check out a great story on this subject of confronting guys at the splendid XYONLINE site.)

It is not easy to confront other men. To do so is to violate sacred rules of masculinity in our culture, and indeed, as I posted below, to risk the accusation of effeminacy and homosexuality. Actually, for many years in the early 1990s, I only had male friends who were gay for this very reason. They didn't seem as hung up on masculinity issues as straight guys, and, more importantly, how could a gay man question my masculinity? (That's a tough one to admit, but heck, it's God's truth today.)

I have a number of straight men friends today. I'm having lunch with one in a few minutes, actually. But it's taken years to "match my language and my life" around other heterosexual men. One huge help in doing so was beginning to work with youth groups. I knew that if I were to work with high school boys, I had to be accountable to God and to the principles I embrace as never before. These boys have helped me enormously on my journey to wholeness.

Now that I teach courses on gender, I often run into fellows in my classes who sound a lot like I did when I was 19. They are angry and frustrated at being "guilty until proven innocent." I empathize with them publicly, and then I tell them what I was told. I challenge them to do that hard work with other men. Indeed, I tell them over and over again something I believe down to my core:

The single most important thing a man can do if he wants to be a feminist is to practice feminism with other men. If he can do that, he's well on his way on his journey to justice.

Off to lunch with Steve.

Comments

[mythago]

simply because women red men's smiles as lecherous even when they aren't.

Why do you think women do this?

What doesn't seem fair to me is assuming that a) women must respond positively to a man's smile or approach because the man wants it, and b) minimizing and ignoring the very real risks women take in acting "approachable" to strangers.

[Amanda]

Astarte, I don't have a problem being appealing to men or not. Sometimes yes sometimes no, depends on mood, occasion, etc. What I do have a problem with is people who expect that I, as a woman, need to be "on" all the time for men's benefit.

And nice shoes are their own reward. ;)

[Astarte]

Mythago, what doesn't seem fair to me is that your assumption that the act of you smiling at a man is because HE wants it. My 'rambly' comment was to point out that I smile at people in general because it makes *me* feel better, not because they expect me to.

And to address the 'risk' factor... really, can you come up with some statistical evidence that women who smile at men are more likely to be raped than those that glower?

That's what I mean about living in fear. It isn't just men that can live in fear, it's women, too. No, no, don't smile, he might take that the wrong way and rape me in the back alley. No no, don't make eye contact, he might decide that means 'yes'.

On the man's side, it's 'Don't make eye contact with her, she might not like it, and by all means don't smile at her'. I smiled and said 'afternoon' to a man on a secluded trail at Yosemite and I swear, he looked shocked at it.

Is this really how we want men to react to us? Do we want them to universally fear that we're going to interpret their actions down to a smile?

[Aurora]

And hey, it's all about you, right? How dare the frowny majority try to ruin your day!

Mythago, normally you seem pretty level headed in comments, but THAT was totally uncalled for and all the subsequent replies could have had a much nicer tone if you hadn't gotten snippy. I see Astarte said, "I have to disagree with the feminist majority on this one.." and then she explained why.

Please tell us why you had to respond with such an attitude and push a perfectly good conversation too close to the edge of a flamefest. You're usually more well spoken than this.

[Hugo]

Mythago, Amanda, Astarte: First off, know that I don't "lump all feminists" in a box; you take different approaches to gender issues, both in your comments and blogs. But I have to say that I am very surprised that this issue seems to have been the one to create such a rift.

I've got a vaguely related post coming up tomorrow. (To men, women, safety, and smiling, that is...)

[jen lemen]

i can't relate to the comments here (being a chronic smiler/smilee), but i can say i loved this post and think you should be required reading for men everywhere, hugo.

your friend, jen (smiling as she types)

[Amanda]

Hugo, I didn't mean to just hijack your comments. It was a toss-off comment, and one where I think there's mostly just misunderstanding. I think I might have to blog about it, too.

[mythago]

really, can you come up with some statistical evidence that women who smile at men are more likely to be raped than those that glower?

Speaking of putting words in people's mouths. (Though I might point you to a friend of mine who got punched in the face for failing to respond to a man who shouted "Smile!" at her on the street.)

Do we want them to universally fear that we're going to interpret their actions down to a smile?

Do we, as women, want to live in a world where we have to weigh and interpret their actions down to a smile, lest we be accused of "leading him on" or "asking for it" if the reaction is unpleasant?

Gavin de Becker's books really talk about this more articulately than I'm managing here. He points out that in our culture, women are expected to be warm and receptive to men, and that being warm and receptive to strangers prolongs that interaction. So a woman who doesn't really want more contact than a brief civility is now spending her time with somebody who thinks the conversation is "going somewhere," which is not going to lead to anything good.

The short version being that if a strange guy smiles at me, I don't "frown" (betrayer of feminism that I might otherwise be!), but I keep moving. Because I've just had too damn many interactions where the guy thought a smile--either initated by me or by him--meant he had the right to take up as much of my time as he liked, or try and pick me up, and if I didn't continue to his satisfaction it was OK to call me a bitch, or start shouting after me how stuck-up I am, or follow me around, or otherwise behave in a way that I promise you does not encourage me to smile.

And yes, I'm pissy about this topic, I admit it. I feel like I can explain over and over that the risk of being screamed at, loomed over, or just plain bothered is not worth making some random person feel all warm n' fuzzy by smiling back at him, and I'll still get blank looks.

[Astarte]

Mythago, you're going to get blank looks because these things /simply haven't happened/ to a lot of women. Aurora reminded me tonight of the one time when a man wanted me to smile, and it was in a crowded mall, where we think he was doing some sort of social experiment. I had completely forgotten about the incident, and now that I remember it, I gave the guy a look of repulsion and went about my shopping.

But, to me, that isn't a response to an expectation to act in a particular way. It's responding to some idiot who thought they could talk to me. It also triggered a memory about a guy who told me off because I wouldn't sit and pliantly listen to him try to sell me fake perfume; but I'm sure he would have done that if I were a guy, and he was selling cologne, too.

The point of the matter, I think, is how you look at it. Call it a glass-half-full, glass-half-empty sort of thing. The glass if half full if you just assume that a few guys might act like assholes, but more often than not you're just going to make some stranger's day (male or female) by smiling. The glass if half empty if you go by the belief that because SOMEONE out there would react adversely, you can not act friendly with other people.

Like I said, I don't know how our situations differ. Maybe I'm more of a hermit, and come into contact with less people. Maybe I've just gotten lucky, but for the life of me, even when I'd dress like a BDSM prostitute to go clubbing at nineteen, in San Francisco, I NEVER had this sort of thing happen to me. Heck, maybe I'm just not attractive to men of this ilk, I don't know what it is, but coming from my point of view, the whole thing is silly.

And how is it putting words in your mouth when I ask for some empirical evidence that you're in more risk if you're a smiler?

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

A couple of points. First, though I'm on mythago's and Amanda's side of the argument here, I want to make it clear that I'm not upset with Astarte for taking the other side. I suspect that part of the reason the thread has deteriorated is that maybe we're imagining different situations here?

Second, I don't frown and grimace, either, if a stranger smiles at me (I save that for groups of men making catcalls), even on the street; depending on where I am and what time of day it is, I might smile back briefly and keep walking, or I might keep a neutral face and keep walking. Or I might be lost in my own thoughts and not notice.

Here's the thing. Three encounters, none of them totally out of the ordinary, when I was walking by myself in my young and single days.

First one: I'm at White Plaza on the Stanford campus, where I'm a student. A guy walks up to me and claims he's recruiting for movies, or modelling, or something, I forget the exact details, and I'd be a good candidate. He's obviously full of it, but hey, I don't mind hearing his nonsense, as long as I'm in the plaza surrounded by other students. Till he walks me to the edge of the plaza and suggests I go off with him in his car, at which point I decline politely (do not get a business card with any legit business, just in case I needed further confirmation that he was lying) and go on my way.

Second case: I've now graduated, work swing shift, and live by myself (no car). As is often the case, I'm out alone after dark. Some drunk in a car (I will kick myself afterwards for not getting his license plate number and calling the cops) yells some sort of pass at me, follows me. I'm scared, so I turn and run straight for the door of the nearest house - at least that way there will be one actual person who will have reason to call the police. He stops following me, and drives on.

Case three: I'm out alone at night, still working swing shift, but now I live right across the street from work. Some stranger seems to be making a movement in my direction. He's likely innocent; he might even be a friend or acquaintance that I don't recognize at this distance in the dark. I can't take the chance. I turn and head, not home, but toward work, where I can stop in at the security guard's shack, and wait for the coast to be clear.

Guy number one gave me reason to mistrust him (and I suppose got more of my time than he deserved), guy number two actually threatened me, and guy number three may very well have been innocent, just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and unaware of how much reason I'd see to be on my guard.

The reason I reacted so strongly on the "safety" side of this issue was that I felt a couple of people were suggesting that I should never treat someone as guilty until proven innocent. No matter what the situation, I should give everyone a fresh slate. That doesn't seem safe to me. I don't think, in most situations, I actually do treat men as guilty until proven innocent. But there are some situations where I have to.

And there are a lot of situations where I just might be minding my own business, happy with my own thoughts, and not feeling particularly extroverted and sociable. Which was another reason why I didn't think Amanda should be advised to smile when she doesn't care to, in order to meet more people she isn't interested in meeting at the moment.

The other problem, more than the smile, was R. Alex's use of the word "approachability." No, Astarte, I don't think that women who smile are more likely to be raped than women who aren't. I do think that women who ignore their instincts on when to be wary, and try to make nice and be approachable anyway, because they feel they should, may be more likely to be raped. And I think that men who are miffed when women aren't more approachable sometimes need to remember just what it's like to have people much bigger and stronger than you routinely misread your friendliness and then act as if you owe them something you never intended to offer.

[Stacey]

Part of the problem is that I think there is usually a low level of fear in a single woman walking around by herself. This is not to suggest that we aren't able to take care of ourselves, but we are taught at an early age to "protect ourselves" from men and we are used to the feeling of low level fear. We don't realize how negative it really is. We absolutely miss out on meeting some great people and this is a shame. Men haven't been subjected to the same fear for physical safety when relating to the opposite sex as women have. This isn't to say that they can't understand, but it is a different perspective.

[Astarte]

Okay, so this question really applies to all of you. Lynn just described three separate events, only one of which could have potentially had to do with the simple act of smiling. But then, she used some very specific language. She said that men "...routinely misread your friendliness and then act as if you owe them something you never intended to offer."

Based upon my, personal experience and Lynn's anecdotes, I'd hardly think this "routine". By what basis you believe that men routinely do this, and is it fair to the men to believe that?

Secondly, R. Alex said that he would talk to the person who was approachable, and avoid the one that was not approachable. If your desire is to be unapproachable, which it sounds like, then what he said is perfectly reasonable and I don't see any reason to attack him over it.

[La Lubu]

Gotta say, I'm with mythago and Amanda on this (and thank you mythago, for bringing up Gavin DeBecker!! anyone who doesn't understand the not-smiling, really needs to read his books).

I always ignore the barked order to "smile". Someone who says, "smile!" rather than "hi" (which would actually elicit a smile) is not just after "approachability"...most men have been around long enough to know that "smile!" will either get a frown or get him ignored by most women. So....I can't help but think he's not really the kind of guy I want to meet.

But I don't have that level of wariness because I've been brought up to carry that steely-eyed look around with me as a matter of course (I was, but...). I learned very quickly from experience, as a young girl (early developer) that there are (a) a helluva lot of men who will assault you and (b) not a whole helluva lot of people who will assist you if you are assaulted. I might be viewed as unfriendly, but I care more about my personal safety. I'm not obligated to provide total strangers on the street with a smile.

[Amanda]

Astarte, I think the issue isn't one of friendliness leading to rape or whatever. I think more it's that people are using two extreme examples to show that the tensions between men and women cause a "guilty until proven innocent" reaction on ALL levels. At the scariest is the fact that women have to treat all strange men as a rape threat in the sense that we have to be aware at all times not to be all alone with a strange man, etc.

But on a more mundane level, women be might reluctant even to engage with strange men altogether in certain circumstances because there's always an off-chance that said man could be the sort of asshole that rapidly gets hostile if women don't do as he wishes them to. A good example of this is men who tell strange women to "smile", but there are other examples.

How often this happens to you is probably as much a product of geography. I'm not surprised that men and women in San Francisco get along pretty easily. The chance that a man would get hostile with me like this in public reduced dramatically when I moved from West Texas to Austin. In West Texas, being friendly and smiling will attract men to you that you'd really rather not speak to more often than not. In Austin, most guys I meet are pretty laid back and won't get all grabby the second a woman smiles at them, so I feel way more comfortable doing so. Does that make sense?

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

Based upon my, personal experience and Lynn's anecdotes, I'd hardly think this "routine". By what basis you believe that men routinely do this, and is it fair to the men to believe that?

I think it may be confusing because I'm eliding two different things together - the "why I'm on my guard when out alone" business, and the "men misunderstand my friendliness" business. I have had total strangers act as if I owe them, in public settings, because of some minor friendliness on my part, a couple of times, but that's not where "men misunderstand my friendliness" is routine. It's not as if I'm hanging around for it; as Stacey says, there's a chronic low level of fear in that situation. The misunderstanding my friendliness happened more in social settings, where I am, after all, friendly (and is a deterrent to being very friendly in situations where I feel less safe). Here's how it worked, in order from what was common to what was rare:

Really, really common: Men being way over-optimistic about what kind of sexual advances I'd be open to, how likely my smiles or friendliness were to mean that I was receptive, etc. This kind of thing would range from agreeing to dance, in college, with a seemingly nice guy that I'd just met, and suddenly finding his hands groping my butt, to listening to a guy, and then finding out he thought my listening to him meant I was really into him. Most of these times, however over-optimistic, the guy would respond promptly enough to a "no." But it happened really often, and I could rarely guess what I might have done to give the impression I'd be that receptive.

Less common, but still not at all rare: Men who would get verbally offended at rejection, or would try to argue with me, or would take repeated, escalating rejections before they would finally get the message.

Only happened to me twice: Men who actually grabbed me after I'd said no. One of these was a stranger, and one a supposed friend. But "only happened to me twice," while not "routine," isn't rare enough. Especially given that I had lots of friends who'd been assaulted. So this last, if not at all "routine" in the sense that most men would do it, is still "routine" in the sense that it seems to happen to most women at one time or another. And it makes the "less common but not at all rare" category of men who merely verbally argue, complain about being led on, etc., scarier than it otherwise would be.

The other problem was that men who got offended would never tell me anything specific that I might have done to mislead them, so after a while I started spending a lot of time and energy trying to guess. Did I need to dress differently? Stand farther away? Not touch men in even a friendly way if I didn't mean it as a come on? Just what was I doing wrong to keep being treated like this?

All of this from my young and single days; it no longer happens to me, but it's still imprinted my behavior.

On another tangent, my husband recently mentioned to me (not apropos this thread) that when he'd been in Croatia, he'd discovered a cultural difference. He'd offer to escort a woman home, based on his American "you mustn't leave your women friends to walk alone at night" training, and she'd wonder why he was doing it. There just wasn't the same expectation there.

[Lynn Gazis-Sax]

I should add that what I think may have looked to young men my age like treating them as guilty until proven innocent - the kind of second guessing that kept me turning off some of my ways of being friendly - from my perspective felt a lot like "what is there wrong with me that I need to fix?"

[NancyP]

It would be interesting to know how the opinions expressed above correlate to location (not just city or country, but neighborhood) and history of being assaulted, mugged, followed by strangers, also race of writer (my guess is that most of the above writers are white, just because the blogosphere is fairly white). To me street smarts just means keeping strangers at a distance. I have been held up at gunpoint twice and followed many times, and eventually I got more street smart. The de Becker book has good sense, I think. I am urban, work in a high-crime neighborhood, live in a more upscale urban island neighborhood at the edge of high-crime neighborhoods, and am white and fairly average in size and appearance.

[Barbara Preuninger]

I've been told to "smile" by both men and women (though when it was a stranger, it was only older men). I got a clear sense that it was a dominating action, though coated in sugar. And it's usually along estabished hierarchies; i.e. men say it to women, old to young, parents to children, etc. I have seen women commanding men to "smile", but in most cases the woman was older or outranked the man in some other manner.

I absolutely can't stand to be told to "smile", but a lot of times I'll do it anyway to appease them for the moment. But this discussion has inspired me. Next time I hear that, I'm going to call the person on it. Say something like "I'm sorry, but I really don't appreciate being told to smile." (In a kind tone, but with no smile.) Fight sugar with sugar, I say!

[Burning]

Just to jump in with another story, I'm a SoCal girl transplanted to Chicago.

In California, I would toss out a nutball grin to just about anyone, and never had any problems with it. So when I got to Chicago I did the same thing. From day to day there was a little bit of randomness - sometimes guys wouldn't grin back, they'd just say "Hey there," and look me up and down like a piece of meat. One asked me, "Where do you live?" - that was fun. But none of them followed me, didn't bug me when I walked away from them, etc.

One Friday evening I was in Blockbuster, renting a movie. Tired from a long day, and just sort of trudging up and down the aisles. I came around a corner, staring dully ahead of me, and realized I'd just looked right at some guy standing outside the Blocbuster window - so I smiled at him then kept on with my dutiful trudge. Got up to the register, and just then he came into the store, walking right up to me. He stuck his hand out - "Hi, I'm Jim," he said. I shook his hand, "Hi Jim," I said, thinking for one random moment that maybe his car had run out of gas and he didn't have a cellphone, or he needed some other thing. Nope.

"Do you like videos?" he said. I'm early twenties but look eighteen. Jim looked late forties, and eager. I turned away from him and looked at the clerk, basically doing all I could to quit signalling any sort of interest, and grunted noncommittally.

"What kind of videos do you like?" he asked, stepping closer. "It varies," I said.

This wasn't the answer he was looking for, so we went through a few iterations of that, then he said, "I have A LOT of videos at my house."

At this point I've been signalling for the last few minutes that I don't want to talk to him. And, part of this is my fault - I should have just explicitly asked him to leave me alone. But I was exhausted, and made the mistake of thinking he'd realize that a woman who wasn't looking at him, facing him, replying in more than a monosyllable, and was completely expressionless, probably didn't want to be talking to him.

He was also seriously into my personal space.

I'd just paid for the video and was trying to figure out what to do if he followed me out of the store, when one of the clerks (thank God for her) said, "Hey Jim, c'mere a sec!" She was standing on the other side of the counter, with a stand of snacks between her and him. He made his way past me, over to her, and the path to the door was clear. I headed out, and speed-walked all the way home.

I called the Blockbuster when I got home to thank the clerk who'd helped me. She said, "Oh thank god you called - he noticed you'd left about a second after you were out the door, and ran out of the store after you, cursing. We didn't know if you'd made it home safe."

Smiling at strangers happens at that split-second when you glance into their face as you walk by. I didn't even think before I smiled at that guy - it was instinctive. So, this incident. Rare? Yes. Sticking with me? Oh hell yes. It's a risk game - I could smile at someone and they'll smile back, and
we'll have a nice little moment of human contact (30%). Or, I'll get no response (50%). Or a random sexual come on, hey baby, you wanna come out with me? (15%) Or he'll come after me into a damn Blockbuster and I will have to spend fifteen minutes doing safety calculations and trying to figure out if there's a rock or something I can grab, and glancing behind me as I walk home in the dark (5%). But you know what? That 5% does a whole lot to negate the 30% tiny happy feelings, and the 15% of random crap isn't much fun either.

And when I walk staring straight ahead, expressionless? No one bugs me. No one follows me, and no one thinks I might be their lay for the night. And I get to think about my grocery list, and what I have to do that day, and the books I'm reading, and who I'm going out to lunch with, and there's very little in the way wondering if I'm going to get followed all the way back to my door, and what somebody might do if they're a little nutty AND know where I live.

[Jennifer]

I'm still trying to figure out a way to not "lead men on" by acting like a normal person in the way that I would to any girl- i.e. speak politely to a stranger in a social situation. I cannot figure out how I am always giving them the impression that yes, I'd really like to date them when all we discussed was the weather for 2 minutes. My friend was making a comment to me the other day about how Jackie Kennedy was so famed for being a conversationalist because she just paid attention to them, and she thought that just the act of paying attention to them for that 2 minutes was winning them over. ARGH!!!!

I suspect there is a certain class of guy that really wants to think you are interested, will take any non-negative sign (i.e. you didn't cuss them out upon meeting them) as a sign that you are interested, and just plain won't take hints or listen to no, because they are so convinced of what they want to see and hear from you. And there are a lot of guys like this. I have a reputation for being a creep magnet because these fellows flock around me. God forbid I go somewhere new and speak to a stranger with a penis sometimes, because you wouldn't believe some of the stuff I've had happen.

I hate to be a rude bitch who won't speak to strangers, and it does make your life awkward to live it like that, but being friendly on a minor can bite you in the butt just as hard sometimes. I cannot think of a solution to this problem for the life of me.

You DON'T want to smile at these people. Or acknowledge they are on the planet, because it gives them hope. Problem is, how can you tell them apart from the non-stalker-creepy guys? You usually can't tell just on sight. So yes, you do have to judge every guy as "guilty until proven innocent." The consequences of giving them all a chance can just be too high.

[Jennifer]

Er...that was "being friendly on a minor level," not that I'm being overly friendly to minors or something.

And I've had those lovely moments such as Burning had. *shudder* Though I can't say that ignoring the guys and being blank has worked 100% either. Hell, I got physically pawed on the street by panhandlers one day who had evidently had enough of me walking by them on the street with my iPod in, trying to look preoccupied and ignoring their calls to me every time I had to pass them on the street.

I'm just sick of being a girl and having most people around me seem to think that I'm something they can do whatever they want with because I have boobs and a vagina. Really, really tired of it.

[Kameron Hurley]

I'd agree that, as a woman, you're likely going to measure your smiling/friendliness level depending on how comfortable you feel in a given location (and likely how old you are). I'd also agree that, as a woman, you learn very quickly to gauge your behavior based on the level of threat you feel. Is that right? Does it suck? Sure. But we do it. Because that's how you survive.

When I lived in the NW and later, Alaska, I didn't pay much attention to the "smile" comments (I get these a lot - I'm not a naturally friendly person, and I'm stuck in serious thought more often than not). Most of the "hi"s and "smile"s from Fairbanksans were friendly: men (and women) said hello and passed on by, without demanding any more conversation if I didn't start one; no one followed me, or men sexual invitations. After a time, I became much more relaxed and laid back, to the point where I'd actually take rides with strangers and fine-tuned my "radar" so that I'd take the occasional chance going somewhere alone with a pseudo-stranger. I just didn't find men all that scary. And I had complete trust in my neighbors. If the shit went down, I knew I could count on the vast majority of friendly strangers for help.

Then I moved to a big city. It started while I was overseas, in Durban, South Africa, and I was suddenly being cat-called at, followed, and grabbed at by random passersby. I stopped making eye contact, stopped smiling at strangers, and managed to get these male intrusions on my personal space down to 2-3 a week.

If you think that's just a foreign country thing, wait: then I moved to Chicago. I spend 15 hours a week on the train. The great equalizer. Now I'll get the drunken, "You're very beautiful. Did you HEAR ME? DID YOU HEAR ME??" "Nice peice of ass!" and "Smile!" only once or twice a week. And I do better than most - I'm not little and blond. Not being the cultural ideal of "attractive" you'd think I'd not get harrassed at all, right?

Ha. It's about power.

Age likely has something to do with it as well. I'm still youngish (24). What happens in big cities more often than not (and I can tell you this from experience) is that saying "hello" back to random strange men on the street who say hello will get you 1) followed 2) yelled at, as they attempt to prolong the conversation as they follow you.

Strange men who follow you are scary. Why? Do you watch the news? Do you see the spray of mangled, mutilated female bodies thrust in front of us? Lori Peterson? All the women Manson killed? What about television? What's the proportion of female murder victims to male murder victims on our tv shows and on the news?

My roommate is 5'2, 120lbs. She's from California, and spent her first couple years here in Chicago living in Evanston. When I got here, we moved closer to downtown. She was walking around the corner to pick up videos around this time last year, and passed by a guy coming out of the store. She raised her head as she passed, and smiled, merely acknowledging another person passing her. *HE TURNED AROUND* and *FOLLOWED HER BACK INTO THE VIDEO STORE*. He proceeded to try and make conversation with her. She kept blowing him off. He kept trying to talk. Increasingly agitated, she bundled up her rentals and sped to the exit. *The guy continued to follow her.* As he approached the exit, the woman at the counter called him back (bless her heart), and insisted there were several things she needed to speak with him about regarding his account.

When my buddy got home, she called the woman at the counter to thank her. "Thank goodness you called," the woman said. "I stalled him as long as I could, but when he looked up and saw you were gone, he started swearing and ran out the door. I was seriously hoping you were all right."

My buddy got lucky. It's the only time I've ever encountered anyone in Chicago who stood up for a stranger being harrassed.

That's the worst of the Chicago stories (there are many, many more), but I have a lot of Durban stories too (including an incident at a busstop when two men came up to the thin blond girl next to me and started threatening her with all of the sexual things they were going to do to her, and I turned around and started cussing and screaming at them and telling them they were violating our right to stand there in peace. They were so shocked they just stood there silently for a few moments and then wandered away. "Thanks," the girl told me afterward, "I'm always afraid of standing up for myself because I'm afraid I'm going to get knifed." I was afraid of getting knifed, too), and let me tell you - after that incident at the rental store, my buddy is a lot more careful about who she's friendly with while walking down the street alone.

These are survival tactics. Anybody who says otherwise hasn't lived as a woman in a big city, walking around alone (and in Durban, one *never* walked around at night without a male escort. You just didn't, unless you had a BIG group of women. The rape rate there is 1 in 3).

Is this every woman's experience?

No (obviously, as this little sample has illustrated), likely because of age or geography, women will have different experiences, just as men will have different experiences of interacting with women on the street. What I resent is men's assumption that they have some sort of right to be treated better than anyone else. I don't smile much at women, either.

Is it sexism, to not be friendly to a guy? Do I violate his civil rights by not smiling when he asks it of me? Do I physically abuse him by not saying "hello"? Would anyone ask a *guy* this?

When asked what they fear most about the opposite sex, women will say, "Being raped and/or beaten or killed." Men will say, "Being laughed at."

It says a lot about the rift between most male and female experience, to see those two reactions next to each other. You can sort of see them colliding here as well.

Do men (or women) violate my right to privacy by demanding that I interact with them? I'd argue that yes, they do. You can't force me to interact with you. That's assumption of privilege: believing that the world owes you something.

Women have a right to protect themselves. Scarily enough, that often means being very, very picky about who you're friendly with when you're alone. The legal system is against you.

Should it be that way? Should I be "allowed" to be friendly with whomever I want, without fear of being followed home by some psycho? Sure. That would be great. It would be great to walk down Lawrence in a skimpy skirt at 1am, all by myself, and not worry 1) that I'll be attacked 2) that if I survive said attack and am raped/beaten/mutilated, that the judge won't blame *me* because I was in a skirt at 1am on Lawrence.

There have been a lot of studies done about how many people will "help" you if you're assaulted or verbally abused in a big city. 99% of the time, NO ONE WILL HELP YOU. Or, they'll wait until you're being beaten or raped, and then maybe somebody might slow down and consider what they should do. Maybe.

Why was I so nice in Alaska? Why did I feel so safe?

I opened up the local paper one day to find that a woman who'd flown into Fairbanks for business had been grabbed and pulled into the woods along the road.

THREE CARS STOPPED IMMEDIATELY. One woman grabbed a rifle from the gunrack of her truck, and two men chased down the jogger's attacker before he even managed to wrestle the jogger to the ground. He fled into the woods, and within 20 minutes, there were helicopters searching the area for the attacker.

No offense to Durban or Chicago, but I just don't trust the people here to react in that kind of way. I'm on my own.

I think that if men want to live in a friendlier society, they should take more steps toward eliminating the harrassment of women (Hugo's points here are very valid) in their own peer groups, standing up when someone is verbally or physically harrassed, and refraining from such harrassment themselves.

It's not sexist to not smile at men any more than it's sexist to not smile at women. It's my right.

That said, I think you'll find that everyone is a lot more laid back when they feel safer. And I think a lot of men would be really surprised to realize just how many women walk around hyper-aware of their surroundings and assessing how dangerous the people around them are (particularly the men - we're working on statistics and personal experiences).

If guys want to help change that, go for it - teach other guys how not to be assholes. Evaluate your own behavior. Talk to your female friends about it. Don't get stuck here being pissed off because you feel like it's tougher to get laid because random female strangers won't smile at you. Get over it. Try looking over the fence. You'll find a whole other set of experiences over there. Some of them might actually freak you out.

[Kameron Hurley]

Oh, hilarious. "Burning" is my roomie - that's the movie rental story, bite for bite. Ha!

Damn, woman, you beat me to the punch!

[Burning]

Ah, the joy of the midmorning posting flurry at work. Hello, my roommate.

[Sheelzebub]

I've had men tell me to smile more times than I can count--and I live in a region of non-smilers, for heaven's sake. It's boorish and rude to demand that a stranger perform for you on command.

I am not a smiler on good days--I smile in acknowledgement if someone stops their car and lets me pass, or as I say thank you to someone. I smile in greeting to people I know, I smile when I hear good news or a good joke, and I smile, or laugh, when I hear or see something I think is funny. I do not smile on command, although I will tell someone who tries to order me to do so to get lost.

I am not going to smile for someone's comfort or convenience. I do not grin like an idiot when I go to the restroom. I don't smile when I wait for biopsy results, cope with the death of a friend or relative, make contingency plans for impending layoffs at work, or hear about an immediate family member being hospitalized from a car accident or illness. Yet in all of these situations, complete strangers (men) have commanded me to smile. And yeah, I could have told them why I didn't want to, but why the hell should I? What business was it of theirs anyway? And how on earth is some stranger putting me on the defensive inspiring me to smile?

I guess this means I'm not approachable (or datable, though my boyfriend would be surprised by that). Neither is eighty percent of the people in my city. So what? We don't talk to random strangers. I have see you on the same train, or on my walk to work, or in the same place for a while before we start nodding to each other in greeting, then exchanging pleasantries, etc. It takes a while to crack the nut, that's the way things are here. I'm not about to pretend I'm from Disneyland for someone else's comfort.