A few points of conflict with Jackie L's (Eilonnwy) article.

[thesummerqueen]

I can't even begin to respond to half of this. Holy shit.

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1) I would love examples of “chanting rape slogans” outside of dorms. I’m going to have to look that up tonight. I don’t doubt that it has happened, not for a minute. Lord knows this country is missing a few screws. But I don’t think it’s as prevalent as her words are making it sound…otherwise, I’m fairly sure I would have heard of it. Stuff like that is incredible media fodder. Could be wrong – but something like that doesn’t just get buried. Unless of course there is a wide-ranging male media conspiracy.
2) Also would love, just for myself, examples of shops she can’t get service in. You see, the only places I’ve ever walked into where a woman might be treated with some sort of “sugar, you don’t need that…” is a hardware store or a car shop. Again, I hold my point – LET IT ROLL OFF! Maybe I’m more worried about my wallet than my pride, but if I walk in somewhere and I’m not getting the service I want, I turn around and demand it. Have I been treated like an inferior person in the places I named above? Yes. Again – prove you are smarter than they think you are. Insist on the things you want and need. Educate yourself about your car so that you don’t get swindled – there’s a stereotype about girls getting shafted at garages because the grease monkeys assume we don’t know what we’re after. Not true by the way – they respond to ignorance from any sex. These are just examples, maybe she has others that prove her point and would change my mind, but I find this to be sheer ridiculousness.
3) I run every other day, if possible. I have a mile circuit that I make four times. It threads along the cusp where the poor section of town and the rich historic section collide. I do this all year ‘round, all times of day (including after full dark) in all types of clothing, and I’ve been doing it for 2 years. Do you know how many times I’ve been jeered/honked at? Five. I can count it on my hand. It’s jarring – yeah, it makes me jump out of my skin when I’m not expecting it and concentrating on my exercise. Do I take extra pre-cautions when I run after dark? You betcha. I carry a knife. I keep my music lower so that I can hear footsteps behind me. I stay extra alert of shadows and stick to the main path, especially because both streets are not well lit. I have never, not once, had a problem. Maybe I’m lucky. But I think I cannot be the only woman who finds taking a damn run outside, or walking places by myself, to not be an endurance sport. But if you’re going to use that analogy, guess what Eil? There are ways to protect yourself. Get a gun. Carry a knife. Carry pepper spray. Learn self-defense. The people who assault women are not the average men on the street suddenly turned into maniacs. They are CRIMINALS who therefore do not abide by the law, never mind decency standards.
4) Let’s go back to jeering – you know why women don’t yell things out (actually, some do: I live near a fire station and when they run by the things some women in my city yell are obscene)? It’s because we’ve been taught it’s unladylike to express physical attraction out loud. Not because we’re less hormonal. We say things that are just as degrading and objective, but we do it in an “inside voice”. Let’s not have a double standard here. Here I might agree the culture changes the way people act, but don’t let’s pretend that it’s because women are somehow ‘better’ than men because as the “non-norm” we’ve been taught something different.

And just in general, if we’re discussing the differences between men and women, exactly how many double standards do we all hold? I could name MANY ways we “gently” demean each other. Women act like men are idiots and can’t follow directions. Men call us irrational. We could go on and on.

Great, so you want to blame society and culture for the way things are? Women are a part of that equation and you best believe they better step up if they want things to change. All this hooting and hollering gets us no where. Start from the ground up: don’t demoralize your sons – teach them respect for themselves and others. If they respect themselves, they’ll want to be respected by others, including women. They’ll want to be attractive to men or women who are also respectful. Teach your daughters not to fear but to protect themselves and to respect themselves as well. They are not “powerful” because they are man or woman. They are HUMAN. Teach both sexes that they are allowed to do whatever they damn well please – and this is a great lesson that kids should be taught anyway, because I think it would alleviate some of the educational bullshit we go through too – no more of this “you should be this or that” – expose your kids to the true humungous variety of jobs we have out there, and do not by any means tell them they can or can’t do it based on their sex, or race, or religion.

Somewhere in here was mentioned that women are supposedly less likely to be atheist because they identify with spiritual…something to do with being more irrational because they have children to take care of. Do you think somehow that men who have their heads on straight love their children any less? In any case, this is a bullshit excuse as well. If you allow yourself to be put in the position of primary caretaker, then you have all the power in the world to shape your children to be something better and brighter and stronger. You want us to stop thinking just of ourselves? We should! Start by thinking of the future and how you can REALLY change culture. Once people are our ages, it’s hard to convince them to think another way, but if you put aside your pride and this “me, me, me” attitude, you have a chance to filter it out with subsequent generations. THAT is how you eliminate race and gender problems, and I’d say religious ones too, because fuck knows how many “inequalities” sprang from THAT mess.

Things are already changing. We’re further along than our mothers now. Our daughters will be further along than us. I see women in jobs that men traditionally have had, doing them well – dirty jobs too. Are we finished with the transformation into equality? Fuck no. But this is blame placing is no way to go about it. Accept that you were wrong in the past and fucking move forward already.