Jackson Katz describes an activity where he draws a line down the middle of a chalkboard. He asks the men in the room to tell him what they do on a daily basis to avoid sexual violence. Invariably, none of them have any responses, there is some nervous giggling, and then someone finally says, “Nothing. I don’t even think about it.”
Then, he asks all the women to do the same thing. The women’s side of the board begins filling up instantly, as all the men sit there slackjawed.
Amazingly, even though he lives with me, Joe said he had never thought about this before reading about the exercise — how prevalent the threat of violence is in a woman’s life, and how much she plans her daily existence around it. Some of the more obvious answers that I suspect almost all of us do on a daily basis include not going out alone at night, walking with our keys in hand, not leaving drinks unattended, etc.
Sorry, guys, women have it much worse than you do.
Touche.
For sure. I was discussing this with a friend a while back. I was talking about the little “just in case” things I do, even in the relatively safe place where I live.
