Interesting Links for 11-03-2012

[andrewducker]

• Women who have just finished ovulating are the best at spotting snakes
  (tags: snakes menstruation hormones women brains )
• Toshiba has a glasses-free 3D TV on sale. I wonder how well it works with multiple viewers.
  (tags: 3D tv technology )
• Scots offer to send water to aid drought-hit England - in exchange for train tracks
  (tags: scotland england water transport trains hs2 )
• A breakthrough in understanding how the brain stores memories
  (tags: memory brain psychology )
• Dozens of Iraqi teenagers stoned to death for ‘emo’ haircuts
  (tags: iraq fashion violence religion )
• Street Harassment #101 - a long page of reasons I'm glad I'm not a woman.
  (tags: harrassment women society )
• When a cat realises that who is controlling the toy it's playing with.
  (tags: cat cute )
• Don't Make Me Steal: The Digital Media Consumption Manifesto
  (tags: copyright piracy media video )
• The NHS Bill does not allow for patients to be charged
  (tags: uk politics nhs )
• Private Practice is the first show on television to have a male military survivor of rape.
  (tags: tv men rape )

Comments

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

Ah, street harrassment. One of the many reasons I'm a stay-indoors person. When you get to the point of wearing clothes that make you look misshapen and unappealing, while also carrying your keyring in your hand as a weapon, you know you do not feel comfortable being out after dark for fear of harrassment turning nasty.

[channelpenguin.livejournal.com]

Street harrassment: bloody hell, no-one shd have to live like that. I feel so, so lucky, never really had any hassle (touch wood). How can people(men) be *like* that??? I mean in themselves - just how? I know all the stock answers but it's still near-impossible to imagine either such a total lack of empathy or, if it's not immunity to women's/other people's feelings, such a desire to explicitly cause pain/fear/humiliation.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately many, many men are exactly like that. Without wanting to in any way compare what I go through to what those women go through, I know just from looking unusual (long beard and overweight) that a large percentage of young men, especially in groups (and especially those wearing football clothing) want nothing more than to cause others pain and distress.
A LOT of people enjoy causing pain to others, and it's just a matter of finding a social situation where they're allowed to. And sadly that kind of behaviour is more or less accepted, or people just don't believe it happens.

[undeadbydawn.livejournal.com]

my ex-wife comments near every time I go anywhere with her that people act *completely differently* when I'm there. It's like the arsehole switch is magically flipped.

Now, I'm aware that I can be very intimidating [it's not in any way deliberate, just buckets of experience], but I cannot help but wonder if people just behave better when there's a non-idiotic man around. It's a sobering thought.

[fub.livejournal.com]

I've once been mistaken for an attacker by a lady who lived in the same flat. It was winter and I took the bus back home from the train station in the evening, so it was already dark. I got out of the bus at the back, and this lady took the exit in the middle of the bus -- so I was walking some 10 meters behind her.
It's a few hundred meters from the bus stop to the flat. I walked at a leisurely pace and kept up with her. I did notice her glancing back, but I didn't make anything of it at that moment. When she walked up to the flat, she hastened her pace. My flat was at the first stairwell, and so I walked up the sidewalk behind her and got my keys out of my pocket -- which was her cue to sprint away.

This baffled me at that moment, but then I replayed all that had happened in my mind, and realised that she must have assumed that I had followed her home from the bus (which I did) to attack her (which I had no intention to). Back then, this amused me, but now I feel bad for giving her such a fright.
I don't know what I could have done differently, though. I could have tried to walk faster and overtake her en route to home, but perhaps that would have been interpreted as an overture to an attack as well. Speaking to her could easily be misinterpreted as well.

[kerrypolka.livejournal.com]

Crossing the road is a good way of communicating that you're not following someone, even if you do have to cross back (that's maybe more useful for longer walks), or looking in a shop window for a minute or two.

[andrewducker]