andrewducker (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
andrewducker) wrote2008-07-03 06:40 pm
andrewducker) wrote2008-07-03 06:40 pm
Somewhere that was leading
There was much amusement this morning when I checked my email and discovered that some people thought that I was trying to do some kind of scientific research via an LJ poll, or thought that I was trying to make a point about how many people had been raped (which was clearly not data you could extract from the question I asked).
Um.
No.
This was all kicked off by the discussion a few days back about the feminism backlash - and specifically by the discussion of how it must be ok to just _say_ things to women - after all, it's just speech, how could it be dangerous?
To which my response was:
You wouldn't make the kind of statement in a rape survivor's group, after all. But the stats seem to show that if you're around more than 4 women then you _are_ in the middle of a rape survivor's group...
("The Stats" and much more can be found here on liberal conspiracy - a site I very much recommend. I don't intend to discuss them further, you can do your own damn reading.)
But anyway - the point is that pretty much everyone knows someone who was raped. Of the nine people currently asserting otherwise on the poll I personally know that three of them are wrong. Someone else commented saying that at least one other one was wrong. I'd like to think that there was at least one person on my friends list who didn't know any sexual assault victims, but I wouldn't care to place money on it. And this raises fear levels - because it makes it much more real than if you didn't know people who are involved. I don't know anyone who's been stabbed (at least I don't think I do), so the stuff in the papers about knife crime kinda bounces off, but sexual assault is much more personal, because it's happened to people I care about deeply.
And it's a crime more likely to be committed by a person you know. With all of the people I know, for instance, about it was friends, or friends of friends. Which leads to mistrust of _all men_. You can't tell from a distance, and so you lost trust that you can open up to anyone.
I was once hanging out with a woman at a convention - we'd met a few times before and got on well, friended each other, exchanged the odd email, etc. And this time, we arrived at the hotel with bags of chips in our hands and needed somewhere to eat them where the staff wouldn't get upset. So I suggested my room. And she gave me an odd look - and it took me a moment to realise that that look was suspicion of my motives. So I reassured her, and we got the lift up. And when we got out she thanked me for not trying to kiss her. Because a _lot_ of men she'd shared lifts with under similar circumstances with had tried something like that. She's in a relationship. She's never shown any interest in me.
And she thanked me. For not trying to kiss her. And I've never been so astounded in my life.
It's insane. It makes me weep for what many women have to go through every sodding day.
I work very hard to make sure people I know feel comfortable around me. I'm naturally huggy and touchy-feely, and it took me a long time to realise that it made some people feel uncomfortable, because I came from a background that _was_ very safe. But eventually I realised that I had to back off. So you won't see me making the first move when it comes to hugging most people, because I do _not_ want to fall into the category of "sleazy man who hugs people to get close to them." And I only have to worry about that because of complete dick's who do that.
There are, if you're lucky, two categories of men in women's head - ones that are safe to be around, and ones that aren't. And you can, if you like, be blunt about sex, and not worry about people's previous experiences, and whether they jump slightly whenever people make any connection between them and sex, and whether they know you well enough to open up to you at all. But you're very likely to be places into category B.
And no, I'm not telling you what to do, or how to speak. Just saying that the world is _not_ a Safe Space, and that we all need to be aware of the consequences of what we say and how we act around people.
Um.
No.
This was all kicked off by the discussion a few days back about the feminism backlash - and specifically by the discussion of how it must be ok to just _say_ things to women - after all, it's just speech, how could it be dangerous?
To which my response was:
You wouldn't make the kind of statement in a rape survivor's group, after all. But the stats seem to show that if you're around more than 4 women then you _are_ in the middle of a rape survivor's group...
("The Stats" and much more can be found here on liberal conspiracy - a site I very much recommend. I don't intend to discuss them further, you can do your own damn reading.)
But anyway - the point is that pretty much everyone knows someone who was raped. Of the nine people currently asserting otherwise on the poll I personally know that three of them are wrong. Someone else commented saying that at least one other one was wrong. I'd like to think that there was at least one person on my friends list who didn't know any sexual assault victims, but I wouldn't care to place money on it. And this raises fear levels - because it makes it much more real than if you didn't know people who are involved. I don't know anyone who's been stabbed (at least I don't think I do), so the stuff in the papers about knife crime kinda bounces off, but sexual assault is much more personal, because it's happened to people I care about deeply.
And it's a crime more likely to be committed by a person you know. With all of the people I know, for instance, about it was friends, or friends of friends. Which leads to mistrust of _all men_. You can't tell from a distance, and so you lost trust that you can open up to anyone.
I was once hanging out with a woman at a convention - we'd met a few times before and got on well, friended each other, exchanged the odd email, etc. And this time, we arrived at the hotel with bags of chips in our hands and needed somewhere to eat them where the staff wouldn't get upset. So I suggested my room. And she gave me an odd look - and it took me a moment to realise that that look was suspicion of my motives. So I reassured her, and we got the lift up. And when we got out she thanked me for not trying to kiss her. Because a _lot_ of men she'd shared lifts with under similar circumstances with had tried something like that. She's in a relationship. She's never shown any interest in me.
And she thanked me. For not trying to kiss her. And I've never been so astounded in my life.
It's insane. It makes me weep for what many women have to go through every sodding day.
I work very hard to make sure people I know feel comfortable around me. I'm naturally huggy and touchy-feely, and it took me a long time to realise that it made some people feel uncomfortable, because I came from a background that _was_ very safe. But eventually I realised that I had to back off. So you won't see me making the first move when it comes to hugging most people, because I do _not_ want to fall into the category of "sleazy man who hugs people to get close to them." And I only have to worry about that because of complete dick's who do that.
There are, if you're lucky, two categories of men in women's head - ones that are safe to be around, and ones that aren't. And you can, if you like, be blunt about sex, and not worry about people's previous experiences, and whether they jump slightly whenever people make any connection between them and sex, and whether they know you well enough to open up to you at all. But you're very likely to be places into category B.
And no, I'm not telling you what to do, or how to speak. Just saying that the world is _not_ a Safe Space, and that we all need to be aware of the consequences of what we say and how we act around people.
no subject
What percentage of women have been sexually assaulted? is an interesting question. Of those women what percentage have experienced the different types / levels of sexual assault?
A question along the lines of 'What percentage of people know a woman (or perhaps person) who has been sexually assaulted in some way?". Leads to very high numbers without that necessarily meaning something really bad is happening to a lot of people.
For example: I have had a very drunken girl kiss me unexpectedly. I did not want to be kissed by this girl, so it was a type of sexual assault. It was more of an annoyance than something I'd be terribly upset about though. But if you then asked my (let's say) 20 friends if they knew anyone who had been sexually assaulted they'd all have to say yes. If I then said "[very high > 90]% of people surveyed know someone who has been sexually assaulted" you get a very different idea from what (in my case) actually happened (in terms of how bad the assault was, and how rare it was).
The rarity thing is because to get useful information about how many people are sexually assaulted you have to somehow unpack / decompress the answer by plugging in the level of connectedness of people, which intuitively we don't do (and don't have any figures for).
So, I think the whole exercise is probably quite bankrupt and misleading.
no subject
For the previous year (2004/5), the British Crime Survey recorded that 0.2% of female respondents reported having been raped at some point during the year, and if that figure is statistically valid - and the BCS survey is generally considered to be the more reliable measure of actual crime, then with a female population of 15.6 million, the estimated number of rapes using survey data would be around 31,000, a figure that doubles to 62-63,000 when you include attempted rape.
Overall, 2.8% of women reported to that BCS survey that, in the year it covered, they had been subjected to sexual violence of some description (included attempted assaults), which gives an extrapolated ‘raw’ figure of just over 435,000 women.
which strikes me as being about as hard as the data gets for these things.
I'm not sure exactly how you got the idea anyone was trying to go direct from my poll to hard numbers on victims.
no subject
Imagine I began it with "Here's what I think of the who do you know that... questions"
no subject
Aaaah. I found them useful only insofar as the effect they have on people's reactions - clearly you can't go from them to hard figures. For that there's things like the BCS.
no subject
As an awareness raising exercise, it works, as many people, especially men, don't realise how likely it is that such things effect people they know.
Sure, the majority of women aren't effected, but that all of us know someone that has been is something that should effect our thinking and behaviour, which I think is the point Andy's making.
no subject
If you don't know anyone who has been sexually assaulted then the correct answer is no.
That many people know someone who has been assaulted (which is extremely loosely defined as others have commented re: language) is not anything like as useful for affecting our thinking as knowing how many people have been assaulted (and to what degree).
How many of us know Christians? Probably everyone, but that says very little about how many people are Christian (because of the high level of interconnectedness) or how 'christian' they are (do they just write cofe on forms but not believe in God, do they attend church, etc). It's extremely easy to draw the wrong conclusions from the 'How many people know someone who ?' type questions, which [Bad username or site: andrewducker' / @ livejournal.com] wisely commented earlier to say are not all that useful.
no subject
Correct. The point isn't how many know someone. The point is the number of people who weren't aware that they did know someone.
It's very correct to say that it's a leading question designed to inflate the figures, if it's designed to make it look like assault happens all the time.
But that's not the point Andy makes in his post. The poll denotes evidence that many people are unaware that they know people who've been assaulted. Whether that lack of knowledge is good or bad in itself is another debate, which is what I read the substance of this post being about.
no subject
If the question was 'Do you know someone who has been raped?' or (better) "Of your five closest friends do you know if any of them have been raped?" that would be really interesting to see the results. If you define sexual assault so widely (as many do - and fair enough for them to do so) as some drunken person touching your bottom once in a pub or laying their hands on you momentarily in a club (all of which have happened to me) then you do a complete disservice to the more serious types of assault, and make the general question virtually meaningless.
no subject
http://andrewducker.livejournal.com/1477538.html?thread=8521122#t8521122