Can we cut back on the fear-mongering insanity?

Last month, I had the pleasure of reading an article by a solo-female-cyclist traveling from Canada down to my region of origin, the gulf coast of the US of A in BUST Magazine (Feb/March ’08). She chronicled her trek, highlighting all the folks along the way asking her the frustrating question I think women are taught to hear, then repeat, repeat, repeat: “Aren’t you scared?” The moral of the story for her was, everyone thought she was a bit nuts to travel, as a woman, alone in a world where there is so much to fear. Ahhh….this article spoke to me like none other because I love to commute by bike. Alone. At night. As the possessor of a vagina. Baffling, I know.

This article portrays a major fear women are conditioned to keep locked away; if you are alone, something bad will happen to you (and it will be your fault, you were alone). As a young lady, the portfolio of other bullshit victim-blaming tactics women are taught to buy into does not stop there; If you are dressed a certain way, you’re at fault if anything happens to you; If you waver at any moment in your role as the sexual gatekeeper, then you’re at least ‘partly’ to blame for any possible assault; If you are drunk and flirtatious, you are ‘inviting it.’

I digress. My point is, there seems to be a cultural notion that women are supposed to hide out and fear living life in order to avoid being raped/killed/all of the above. The subconscious clues to this way of thinking translates to making a person worry that danger lurks around every corner (geez, maybe I’m looking in the wrong corners?) But this article highlights a very real notion that if thy sex is lady, strange men are to be feared. When in actuality, you’re most likely to be raped by someone you know, within 50 miles of your home. (DOJ stats) I’d like to propose an amendment to the campaign, how about watch out for all the people you know; they could rape you at any moment.

Sarcasm aside, where do these myths come from? I’d urge you to take a look at any horror film, or big media scary abduction story (Natalie Holloway anyone?) being touted as a legitimate danger to women, instead of an anomaly. Not to say these kinds of stories shouldn’t be told, but I believe the way they end of translating into culture is very dangerous for women, creating a situation where we avoid living life instead of tuning into our surroundings, playing it smarter in situations our intuition tells us are not exactly safe.

Not like I can single-handedly stop the Hollywood fetish of hacking up women, but I will stress that stories that should stop being told are the far-fetched emails. You know the type, always involving a woman sitting in her car, balancing her checkbook (come on, how many people even balances their checkbook anymore?) in the mall parking lot or something, and a man gets in the car because she didn’t lock her doors, (or is already in her car and the gas station attendant saves her) and you know how the story ends. I cannot tell you how man of those damn stories I’ve read, ugh. The headline is always something like, “PLEASE CIRCULATE TO EVERY WOMAN YOU KNOW IF YOU DON’T WANT THEM TO DIIIIEEEE!” By immediately deleting these bullshit stories (which you just have to double check on Snopes to uncover), I momentarily feel the pang, oh no, I must not care about my females loved ones! Then reality sets in and I remember no one I know balances their checkbook, so at least my friends/family are safe. Frankly, I find these emails highly annoying (could you tell?) and ultimately dangerous because they waste perfectly good brain space for worry on things completely out of your control. Especially, when more violence and harm done to women is by someone they know, typically a spouse or lover, NOT strangers. What kind of world would we live in if women were taught the signs of domestic abuse and how to get out of it, instead of walking around worrying about strange men? The most frustrating part of this fear-strange-men-culture is that when this notion of danger to women looming in the hands of strangers translates to the police action, civil servants who are supposed to protect us (I know, rarely the truth, but still, lets stick to the definition). But this sometimes leads to real issues being ignored, and ultimately undermines real danger and cases of stalking and domestic abuse.


How rooted are these ideas that women need to be protect themselves from lurking predators? Well, growing up as the female portion of a boy/girl twin set, I can say I was definitely treated differently. Not to say my parents have particularly archaic views on gender roles, but I can see where they bought into the hype. I was much more aware of my body and the need to cover it because of what trouble this female form could bring. Also, I wasn’t allowed to spend the night at certain friends houses, because a fear of a live-in boyfriend of the mother, that could have had a hankering for my girl form. So I was kept away from one friend when in all actuality, another girlfriend, who I slept over with regularly, was being raped for years by her step father (he is now in jail for it). Fortunately, I believe my spending the night was the buffer for her; at least those nights it was the delay of the tragic situation. But it really makes me question who makes the grade? Is the reason I was allowed over due to the fact this friend’s parents were married, passing the not-a-child-rapist test? Or maybe because we went to church with him?

So if the real danger to our precious lady flowers is people we know, why do we send these emails on? Why do we feel the urge to keep retelling false stories, perpetuating and investing energy in the hopes of preventing a tragedy? I blame the media. I think stories such as the Natalie Holloway anomaly are being blown out of proportion because they sell papers and ads, i mean, would you be enticed by an article with the headline “Husband rapes Wife”? Or maybe it’s because these stories of Us vs. Them are the easiest to digest, and so those are the ones we want to hear about.

Either way, a heck of a lot of women asked this female solo cross country cyclist if she was afraid. Partly because they were for her, and partly because, well, how could she not be!?!?!

I think this all ties into my world because I frequently ride by bike home late at night. My coworkers think I’m crazy. My parents bite their nails and try not to think about it. Not because cycling is dangerous in my city (which it is!), but because I’m alone and a woman. I know the danger of a car hitting me (I do wear the perpetually cool helmet) is a lot greater than being kidnapped by a lurking predator. Not to say I didn’t have stalker a while back (good news, he’s gone now, but I did have to call the cops and they were very receptive to my lack of concrete evidence of being stalked, YAY POLICE!), but I wasn’t going to let that dictate what my life was. I wasn’t going to hide out and avoid my regular hangouts because of a creep. That being said, on the scale of stalkers, I did get lucky, he was relatively benign, albeit persistent (9 months is a bit long). I refuse to live in a state of fear, even if I did have a reason to be. Because that’s not living.

So, my final request is ladies, please stop scaring the crap out of us! Men, stop feeling the need to protect us from you! Lets all focus on the realities of predation and spend our energies helping preventing violence against women and rethink these misguided efforts.