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Nov 18, 2009, 04:53AM

Schrödinger's Rapist

There's no way to be perfectly safe, but  women shouldn't have to live with an everyday fear of perfect strangers.

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Every day on the subway and on the street I'm confronted with the ugly reality of life as a woman in Ne w York, which is this: on the subway, on the street, or in any other public space, women are not safe.

In the four months since friends and I moved from our small, suburban college campus to Manhattan, we have all had to adjust to this reality. We've had experiences that caused fear, frustration and, in some cases, sheer rage. We've been followed, we've been catcalled and we've been groped on the subway. One of my friends dealt with the catcall culture shock by blogging about it. Another bought herself a can of pepper spray. The move to New York forced me think more seriously than ever about the lengths to which I'll go to protect my personal safety.

Last Friday night, on the subway platform at Bryant Park, a man was watching me. When the train arrived, he got into the same car as me. I sat down, observing that he chose to stand about six feet away from me, staring all the while. With every subsequent opening and closing of the subway doors, he edged closer until finally he was within arm's reach, standing over me as I sat resolutely staring straight ahead. Too uncomfortable to stay put, I got up and moved to another part of the car, and he continued to watch. When I got out at 145th St., he got out too, walking behind me as I made my way up the stairs to ground level. Reaching the top of the stairs, my heart was pounding with adrenaline and fear, and I made my way straight to the station manager's booth, babbling incoherently about a fictional problem with my Metrocard, watching out of the corner of my eye as the man made his way out of the station.

Was I in any danger? I can't say for sure. Did I overreact? It's possible. Would I do anything differently, given the chance? Absolutely not. The choice between overreacting and appearing paranoid, or under-reacting and risking danger, is--for me, at least--a clear one. But it's one I wish I didn't have to make.

Dealing with sexual harassment in the form of catcalling, groping and more on a daily basis has been one of the more confronting parts of life in New York, and we're not alone. This is a challenge that women all over New York and the world over face every time they step outside. But even more upsetting than the daily reminders that, as a woman, you're always vulnerable, is the effect that this knowledge has on how a woman sees the world and how she relates to the men around her.

Perhaps the man last Friday night was no threat to me. But that's not a chance I can afford to take. Every day women in New York face sexual harassment of varying degrees and those experiences have taught us to be wary. They've taught us that safe is better than sorry. And they've taught us to assume the worst of the men we meet. The pseudonymous blogger Starling, writing at Shapely Prose, put it best when she wrote:

When you approach me in public, you are Schrödinger's Rapist. You may or may not be a man who would commit rape. I won't know for sure unless you start sexually assaulting me. I can't see inside your head, and I don't know your intentions. If you expect me to trust you--to accept you at face value as a nice sort of guy--you are not only failing to respect my reasonable caution, you are being cavalier about my personal safety.

It is entirely possible that the man on the subway was a nice sort of guy who had no intention of intimidating me, let alone harassing me or, God forbid, raping me. Is it fair that he, or any other nice sort of guy, should be viewed with suspicion or fear that they've done nothing to earn? Of course not. Is it fair to make assumptions about a person based solely on their gender? Of course not. But in a city and a culture where women face sexual harassment and the threat of sexual violence every day, fear and suspicion aren't just understandable. It's plain common sense.

My encounter left me shaking and anxious and awfully glad to get home and close my front door firmly behind me. It also left me feeling deeply saddened. Don't get me wrong: I know that no one is ever perfectly safe anywhere, let alone in New York City. But I don't want to have to view every strange man I encounter as Schrödinger's Rapist. I want to feel safe--we all do--but more than that, I want to be able to trust in the kindness and goodness of strangers. I want to exercise a right I believe all women, and all people, should have: the right not to live in fear of our fellow citizens.

Discussion
  • Will you please grow up? I'm sorry to be harsh, but if you don't feel safe in New York, move! And violence is a non-gender issue. You're still cloistered in a college mindset.

  • Man, I never knew real life is just like Panic Room with Jodie Foster.

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  • With all due respect, you need psychiatric help. You clearly have decided that you are a victim. That is your problem, not the problem of your fellow citizens. You see, there are rational fears and there are irrational fears. It is hard to say which type you experienced on the subway but one thing is for sure. As long as you have the victim mentality, you will view most cases of fear as rational whether they truly are or not. Furthermore, you are a sexist. As Applehead correctly points out, violence is a non-gender issue. Women are just as able to defend themselves as men. You may feel that being a woman justifies your mentality but it simply does not. Please seek help, going through life in constant fear is unpleasant and limiting.

  • http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blame_the_victim

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  • I always find it totally baffling that Ms. Angyal writes an article that says (in part) something like "violence against women is bad" or "sex education in the US isn't very good" and people come streaming out of the woodwork to accuse her of insanity, misandry, delusion and supposedly evil feminism. I'm all for debate, but this isn't challenging the author on the issues, it's accusing her of mental illness or moral failing. According to the NYPD website there were 1,300 *reported* rapes in NYC in 2008 - not many for a city with New York's colossal population, but it would certainly make me nervous if I were a young woman abroad alone at night. That's just over three per day.

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  • I don't think that Ms. Angyal needs to grow up, or seek psychological help. Instead, people need to stop perpetrating sexual assault. At the very least, your comment proposes that she treat a recurring symptom of a pandemic rather than search for a cure for the disease itself. That's like saying, "there's no need to work towards finding a cure for HIV/AIDS, or preventing it's spread. All an individual should do is treat his or her opportunistic infection." But guess what? Treating a single opportunistic infection, doesn't prevent one from acquiring another. And guess what? Deciding that you're not going to feel threatened by some men, doesn't stop one from potentially raping you.

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  • The best part about the article is the paragraph she spends defending against possible overreaction, when all she actually did was find an innocuous way to stay in the station for a slightly longer period of time. I lied to the station manager for 15 seconds. Did I overreact? It's possible. Would I do anything differently? Absolutely not.

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  • In our society there are two conflicting messages: that women should refuse to "live in fear" and should reject a "victim mentality", and that women should be responsible for their own safety at all times. Here, Chloe discusses the effort women make on a daily basis to keep themselves safe -- be aware of your surroundings, stay in public, don't be too trusting, ect. -- and is called delusional and sexist and unnecessarily living in fear. Women hear this message every day -- men are hurt if we suspect them of violence, we are told. Don't be paranoid! Be willing to talk to strangers! Why are you such a cold, paranoid, sex profiling bitch? However, when a woman is sexually assaulted people immediately rush to tell her that if she didn't present an "easy target" she wouldn't have been a victim of violence. She shouldn't ever have trusted that person, she should have screamed, she should have run away earlier, she should have had pepper spray, why would she ever talk to a stranger in the park.... I find that the conflicting fears of being paranoid/overreacting/ unnecessarily unfriendly and of being harassed or assaulted adds to the tension of situations like these -- it's very hard to know what to do if you're simultaneously being told that you should stop feeling fear and that if you're raped it will be due to your own irresponsibility.

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  • To say that violence isn't a gender issue because women are as capable of defending themselves as men is a bit misguided there, Texan, but nice try buddy. Chloe's point is that violence perpetrated against women by men is a reality that women have to deal with. You never know when a guy could mess with you, and no one wants to wait to find out. A woman walking alone down an empty street could be the next statistic. This is not a fear that straight, white men have to walk around the city streets with all the time. Have a little empathy, huh dude?

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  • A little experiment: http://elduderino7.livejournal.com/257.html Just when exactly do we judge something as reactionary and prejudice?

  • A sly twist.

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  • zkauf1, permit me to answer your question: We judge something to be reactionary and prejudiced (sorry to change your words a bit, I just prefer good grammar) when it is a negative assessment based on those characteristics with which a person has been endowed by the circumstances of their birth or heritage, like race, ethnicity, religion, sexual identity, or, yes, gender. But you see, Chloe was not fearful of the stranger on the subway because he was male. She was frightened because he behaved in a threatening manner. If someone were to act in a similar manner toward you on the subway, I imagine you would become uncomfortable. You might clutch you messenger bag a little closer and try to remember something from the five karate classes you took when you were 14 - just in case. But, assuming you didn't start hearing strains of "Dueling Banjos," you could pretty safely assume that he was not looking to sexually violate you. And that's not an assumption women in the city can afford to make, because being wrong about it even once has devastating consequences. So, like propercharacter said above, have some empathy, and try to show some understanding instead of being so quick to whip out your snide little pen. Believe me, no one wants to see that, and we're not terribly impressed.

  • First, let me apologize for offending your grammatical sensibilities. I had no idea you took internet comment boards so seriously. If it ruined your night, kept you up later than usual, forced you to turn off G.I. Jane before you got to that one part where that one thing happens, etc. please feel free to use the "Contact Us" button below for adequate payment. Now, let me address the larger issue: Chloe's piece makes the claim that women in the city (or, presumably, women anywhere anytime ever) have to assume that all men are potential rapists. It's interesting to me that that assumption is any different than the assumption that any black man (or latino or Muslim or fill in your own blank here _____ ) is out to mug you or attack you (and so on) gets such a "well, that's just plain ol' racist" take on it. Anyone (or anyone who would take Chloe's piece seriously) who read the link I posted would be horribly offended. Rightly so. It's horribly offensive. It's also horribly stupid. If you're living with the mindset that any man is a potential rapist (just as if I'm living with the mindset that any black man is out to mug me) well I don't know how you even get the fuck out of bed in the morning. Should I have to start defending how I'm not going to rape someone just because I'm a man? There's also the issue that Chloe's piece is in no way interesting (fine writing Chloe, but still). Look at what it amounts to: Wow, there was a guy who kind of sort of freaked me out on the subway recently. Yeah, welcome to real fucking life. There were three dudes who kind of sort of almost beat me up (stabbed me? shot me?) on the street two nights ago. I still managed to make it out of the house tonight, and not write an article about it. We all feel threatened at times. It's the reality of living (in the city? Yeah, sort of. But just generally too). I have plenty of empathy in this situation -- but feel free to go ahead and play me the smallest fucking violin in the world if you want me to start buying into how women should feel scared all the time because any guy might just jump out and rape them at any time. Anyway, my pen's running dry, I'm gonna go re-ink it... Get it? It's like uhh... you know, don't worry about it.

  • I am totally horrified by these comments - just further proof that rape culture is alive and well. Look, everyone: Chloe is not saying that she thinks every man is trying actively to sexually assault her. She is not saying that most men are. She is saying that because our society condones, accepts and even encourages sexual violence in males (and thank you, LSG, for pointing out the double standard that women are held to - don't be afraid of sexual assault, but also don't be the type of "victim" who would get assaulted. Chloe's post is about something very basic, and very true: the fact that a minority of men are permitted to see women's bodies as their property - to harass and grope on the street and on the subway, and to attack and rape them. We contribute to that mentality every day by cutting down Chloe's post or saying that it isn't about gender or wondering "how the fuck" she can get out of bed every day, thinking that every man is a rapist. Let me tell you: having to be suspicious of every potential man SUCKS. But instead of dwelling on the "terrible consequences" of the men who might be affected by this (and let me remind you, also, that false reporting for rape and sexual assault is about 2%, the same as any other crime, so don't start babbling about how men are really the victims here), why don't we think about what would happen the one time that Chloe - or another woman - WASN'T careful? Look, there are ways to combat this - but this conversation is just furthering a societal mentality that encourages rape culture. Don't you agree that Chloe and other New York women shouldn't have to fear all men because of this few who think assault is ok? Tired of having to defend yourself as a man who would never do such a thing? Then make it clear that that minority is real - and that they are wrong - and that you are standing out against rape culture too. Nobody thinks that women should feel frightened or threatened when they walk on New York streets or ride the subway - and that's exactly the problem, because whether you like it or not, many of them do.

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  • Sidebar: When starting a comment by criticizing someone for a typographical error, one should refrain from including in the comment phrases like, "clutch you messenger bag." It tends to make one look a bit hypocritical.

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  • I stopped reading at "rape culture." I now hate all women, and I'm going gay. What channel is Bravo? Andrew, you'd know... Ahhhaha, you see what I did there.

  • Zkauf1: If you're indeed a member of the Splice staff, I am embarrassed for you and for the site. I hope your editors see these comments, because they're not just making you look like a prejudiced, misogynistic asshole, Splice is implicated too.

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  • Thank you, Ari, for having the only completely reasonable response here. Claire, I'm sorry for your experience and I hope writing this helped a bit.

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  • http://audio.uberg33k.com/simpsons/simp248.wav

  • Does it matter where I go to school? I love the Simpsons (and have mixed feelings about Princeton) but let's actually talk about Chloe's article.

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  • And Chloe, sorry for calling you Claire. I'm gonna chalk that up to not enough coffee. Whoopsies.

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  • I'm not sure why Chloe decided to make up a story. Could she not have just told the station manager some dude had been freaking her out? Perhaps she only sees the freaks, no wonder NY is such a scary place. She's missing all the good stuff!

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  • I just wanted to let Chloe know that I think most of the commenters here are being horrible. Our society has a long way to go before it becomes truly genderal equal. Boors like Kaufman don't help the cause, but I have the feeling that his shtick is to simply offend as many people as he can.

  • A "schtick"? Please, man. It's a way of life.

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  • http://gawker.com/5408834/new-york-subway-riders-kinda-grope+y

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  • No defense of Kaufmann intended, ianrod, but if you're going to call him a "boor," maybe you spell the guy's name right. And what exactly does "genderal" mean? Are you trying for the "new word" of 2010?

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  • Here's an experiment for those who believe that Chloe is overreacting or that violence is a non-gender issue: ride the subway late at night and take a quick census. I just took the 7 train home at about 1:30 a.m. and counted 26 people in my subway car: there were 2 heterosexual couples, 19 men traveling alone, and only 3 women traveling alone. This split is not a coincidence--you'll find it in almost any city on late-night public transport. The cause? Women don't feel safe and are forced to chose safer (and usually more expensive) forms of transport, or opt-out of late-night life altogether because of concerns for their own safety. Chloe isn't the only one who has felt fear, and she's not paranoid or delusional. Check for the missing women the next time you're on the late-night subway and you'll see for yourself the affects of a society in which violence against women is common and is frequently condoned. Women shouldn't have to fear men and they should have the same level of freedom to travel the city as men do. But currently they don't, and punishing women via vile attacks when they stand up and speak about the problem will only leave the women AND men of our society worse off....

  • No doubt that women are more vulnerable late at night on public transportation. But I live in Manhattan, am a healthy man, and never take the subway after 11, fearing violence. And when I walk home at night, when it's dark, often on dimly-lit streets, walk in the road to avoid trouble. I like Chloe's articles, and she's mostly right in this one, but random violence isn't as one-sided, gender-wise, as Chloe and her defenders, claim.

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  • I'm a woman and I was beaten by two strange men on the A train and taken to Harlem Hospital. The men looked for something to steal from me only after the beating-so I know theft was not their primary motivation. I get the whole subway fear thing for women.

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  • Alison, what is the point of that comment? Clearly it was a typo - was it so difficult to understand that "genderal" was intended to be "gender?" Thank you for such insightful criticism.

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  • http://www.moviesoundscentral.com/sounds/big_lebowski/calm.wav

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  • Yeah, sexual harassment are non-gender issues. I see that everyday with all the women oggling at men and standing uncomfortably close to them, rubbing ''acidentally'' against them, and dowright groping them, and I'm sure every man out there walks the streets at night looking out for any man or woman who might rape him, poor thing.

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  • The comments on this article abt how ''violence is a non-gender issue'' just show how many men are completely unaware to the prevalence of sexual harassment perpetracted by men against women. I'm sick and tired of having to deal with male friends telling me things like ''Oh, I go there all the time, it's not that dangerous'' and me having to remind them of the obvious: ''Well, the worst that can happen to YOU is getting mugged!'' Do me a favor, would you? Live everyday with men talking to you and oggling at you and even touching you in unapropriate ways, walk the streets everyday with complete strangers making coments about your personal appearance, as someone very accurately put it, ''demanding that you smile and calling you an ugly bitch if you don't'', go to clubs and deal with men who think they can FORCE you to kiss them, be afraid for your sexual freedom and physical integrity when some man stares you non-stop and them follow you, and then tell me violence is a non-gender issue.

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  • You hit the nail right in the head. Women are paranoid men-hating bitchs when they care for their personal safety and dimwits or sluts who were asking for it when they get raped. And don't forget that when a woman gets raped in an university/store/hotel, etc and then sues the place for not providing adequate safety measures, the place's lawyers will say she ''failed to take measures to provide for her safety'' or something along those lines.

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  • Thank you, AppleHead. I am a born-and-raised New Yorker. I am also a young female. The difference between myself and the author? I don't allow myself to live in constant fear. I mean seriously...Shrodinger's rapist?! So every man is a possible rapist. I'm *sure* that's a VERY healthy mentality. Listen, I've had to put up with the same catcalls and stares as any other woman. But I don't have such little self worth that I let a few "hey baby"s or "nice ass!"s make me feel completely powerless. I am not a victim and I refuse to act like one. "But I don't want to have to view every strange man I encounter as Schrödinger's Rapist." SO DON'T. It's really not that difficult, and it makes for a much nicer subway ride. You want to scream equality, then go around with the "oh goodness I'm a woman so every man is out to get me" attitude. Spare me. Like AppleHead said, if the big bad city is SO scary, leave.

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  • I mostly agree with the author. Many years ago when I was a teen and working downtown, I rode the bus after work to my dad's office. One day on the bus the man beside me gropped me under my skirt. I was horrified and couldn't speak. At first I thought there must be a mistake but when I realized that it was not an accidental touch, I glared at him. He stared ahead. I mustered all my courage, went up and told the bus driver, and HE put me off the bus. I was ashamed and told no one except my boyfriend. Now, 30 years later, I recently told my mom. To my surprise, even now my voice quivered. She was hurt that I didn't tell her and my dad when it occurred. I couldn't help but think it was somehow my fault. Double whammy, the response of the bus driver. So, all of you can laugh and say I was an innocent or a prima donna, but trust me--it has stayed with me although it didn't mark me for life. I have seen grown up and become vocal and am able to speak up. Pity the poor, shy child who is accosted and can't react.

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  • before anyone mentions it, I do see my typos above. Mea culpa.

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  • A sad story, certainly. But not exclusive to women: as a boy, I was "touched" by our priest, didn't tell my parents, but did tell my older sister, who was 17. She gave me the strength to leave the church, and I haven't been back since.

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