Oh, you definitely weren't - but others were, and I was just commenting on how the difference can actually change a mind as opposed to assuming the only thing left to do is to heap abuse upon me.

I'm not sure that all women feel that unsafe, all the time, either. I'm fairly sure that Gini doesn't, and neither does Erin. At the same time, it's not that I don't support ways to make the streets safer. It's not like training my daughter to beware of assholes is my only hope. At the same time, I'm fairly convinced that the assholes aren't going to respond to a puely moral plea, and thus other approaches must be taken.

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You might be surprised if you ask Gini and Erin, at what they think&feel. Personally, I feel quite confident in my ability to defend myself against most any attack, but at the same time, my first reaction in a lot of the situations described by odanu is still concern for my safety. Further, even once I remind myself that I can protect myself, I still have to constantly be on alert for potential danger, because if I miss the danger coming, my ability to protect myself drops hard.

When I've discussed this, the feeling being unsafe, with guys I've been involved with, to explain why, say, I'd rather not take the bus to his place at 11pm, they've been shocked, because they doesn't see it in me, because I do it so automatically. It is my initial, nigh on instinctive, response, my baseline reaction to any situation. And, the same is true for all my female friends (ok, well, the 95% or so I've discussed it with) and for all the female students in the sociology classes I TA for, where it's brought up in the context of social inequality.

It's easy to not see, especially when you haven't done these things yourself, the things women have internalized to try to deal with threats. You might be surprised at how often the women you care about feel unsafe, or feel only the measure of safety they believe they can provide themselves, which isn't really feeling safe, but rather feeling able to defend oneself.

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