So this has been making the rounds, both in manosphere and feminist places: rape-repellant sportswear.
It's been amply pointed out that whoever engineered this getup is absolutely clueless about rape prevention, since he/she thinks that it is merely a matter of preventing a penis from entering a vagina. In the case of stranger rape, what are the chances of this saving your life at the point of a gun?
Still, it made me chuckle a bit as I recalled how I devised my own "anti-rape" outfit while I was traveling solo from Kabul to Istanbul when I was 22 years old. I basically wore a lot of tight layers: underpants, layered with a pair of stout tights, and on top of that a rubber girdle. Over this I wore a slip, a blouse, a sweater, a jumper dress, and a coat.
Boy, it was hot in there. Also, going to the toilet (overflowing squat toilets, mind you, on moving trains) took me about twenty minutes and gave me quite a workout.
However, I did encounter one incident in which my home-made rape prevention outfit was called into action. Going through eastern Turkey, the conductor fetched me out of a "family" compartment where I was happily hanging out with a troupe of friendly Kurdish folks, and forced me into the back of the train, where an empty car had just been added. He then proceeded to (attempt to) rape me.
He didn't have much luck. He was a relatively slight man (probably about 150 pounds) and I was a stout woman (probably about 175 pounds), and I immediately employed a kind of passive-resistance technique, curling up into a ball on the seat, like a very large hedgehog might. He couldn't even cop a good feel; with all my layers of snug, thick clothing, groping my breasts and buttocks was probably as exciting as patting down a well-upholstered couch. Frustrated, he began smacking me on the shoulders (fortunately not in the head, which was the only exposed part of my body), and then finally stomped out of the car, whereupon I immediately made a beeline back to the safety of my Kurdish family.
When I complained to one of the male members of the family, he asked me wearily what I had expected, traveling alone? At least he couldn't blame me for the immodesty of my attire.
There were a few such scary moments to come, however careful I was to avoid being isolated or surrounded exclusively by males. The aggressors and would-be rapists were almost always men in positions of slight authority, i.e., hotel keepers, ticket agents, museum guards. Women, if they were in the vicinity, were usually quick to come to my defense.
I considered trying to pass as a man, but my body type (in those days, distinctly pear-shaped) and childishly round face made that difficult to achieve in western dress. And, as a Turkish friend later pointed out, would hardly have made less of a target of rape in those parts of the world.
The misogyny of Muslim countries is astounding even today. It is often difficult for a woman to walk down a street unaccompanied without facing serious threats of sexual assault. Personally, I do not think it is a coincidence that Roosh comes from a country where it is legal to "marry" a 10 yr old girl and then have her stoned to death for suspicion of adultery (Iran).
ReplyDeleteRegarding your previous post- http://rooshnme.blogspot.com/2013/11/fan-mail-from-squirrel.html
You say that manospherians will go the way of the KKK. However, the KKK may return 100 years from now.
Afghanistan elected a communist party in the late 70s. They were on their way to westernized progress and they wanted to liberalize more. But they ended up with a Taliban and now they cling to virulent misogynistic oppression. Things can change. Things can go from progress to medieval barbarism.
I am a bit more concerned about the anger in the manosphere than you. The existence of the Spearhead is a kernel of so much anger that those men would turn the western world into a Taliban ruled Afghanistan if they rose to prominence. That seems unlikely now, but the blogosphere has only been in wide use for a decade. Civilization has a longer horizon than this. What about 10 decades from now? 100? We can't see what will happen, but we see the anger brewing. Their sites gain in popularity each year, and they may be nothing now still, but this trend can continue.
The old world disgusts me. I wish the communists had won there and eradicated every shred of an indigenous belief system that existed in those lands. For thousands of years men have reduced women to little better than slaves in some parts of the world. Men collectively have been on good behavior for no more than a century now. One century of charitability from them vs. 8000 years of systematic oppression. Now is not the time to let one's guard down. Men, each one a vicious little patriarch yearning for unearned power, hold an anger deep within. The ones on the Spearhead are just those showing evidence of this anger, the tip of the iceberg if you will.
Patriarchs are still there lurking. I do not want to them to ever regain their lost glory at my expense or at the expense of my great great great great grand daughters.
Hey cinzia, on second thought can you not publish my previous comment? Thanks
ReplyDeleteOK. I hope I deleted the right one.
ReplyDelete