scott@hou2g.UUCP (N. Ersha) (07/11/85)
It seems to me there is a huge misunderstanding about this whole issue of "provacative clothing". While I don't necessarily subscribe to the theory (and won't until there is hard evidence to support it), the two sides don't seem to be discussing the same thing. One person says wearing "provacative" clothing can invite rape; another says "What about all the old ladies that get raped?". This misses the point. I think what most are REALLY trying to get across is that, given a person who is GOING TO RAPE ANYWAY, a "provacatively" dressed woman may present a more attractive (sic) target than, say, a bag lady. This doesn't mean that ALL such women are targets, nor that no ugly (to use a simple but overgeneralized term) women will get raped. It's MAYBE equivalent to a mugger choosing to "roll" a Wall-St.-3-piece-suit-wing-tipped-shoes type guy over a drunken street bum. Again, I know of no evidence to support this theory, but it seems the point is that perhaps, GIVEN A CHOICE, many rapists would "prefer" to attack the more "provacatively" dressed woman. Food for thought (This should be good enough for Brunch :-)), Scott Berry
debray@sbcs.UUCP (Saumya Debray) (08/10/85)
Sophie Quigley: > By the way, my opinion (and that of quite a few feminists) is that rape > is not a personal problem of a few individuals with a distorted world > view, but a deep societal problem ... I agree. I remember having read, quite a while ago, of an experiment where a group of rats was subjected to severe overcrowding over a longish stretch of time. These conditions led to behaviour not normally seen in rats, e.g. rape, infanticide, homosexuality (no flames, please - I'm talking about rats only!) etc. (I don't have the reference offhand, but can try to dig it up if people are interested.) > ... of the inequality between the sexes. I assume this refers to the prevalent view of women being "the weaker sex". Rather reluctantly, I have to agree with you. > Society will have to be cured if we want the individuals cured. Yup. -- Saumya Debray SUNY at Stony Brook uucp: {allegra, hocsd, philabs, ogcvax} !sbcs!debray arpa: debray%suny-sb.csnet@csnet-relay.arpa CSNet: debray@sbcs.csnet