Are these really racist and sexist?

[Ladeeda]

Okay. You're right. There's no such thing as modest enough.


Point was that if you don't like the casual glances, maybe you should help with that by covering a bit more with the product.

You contradict yourself.

[Kheldarson]

Not really.

I was agreeing with your statements with the purpose of pointing out the issues with it.

Which you didn't answer, by the way.

If there's no such thing as modest enough and men are to be condemned for simply looking at what attracts them, then how should we deal with them?

If there is no solution that's 100% acceptable to both sides, then compromise must be had. A good one is cover what you don't want seen, guys don't be rude, and you call out or call the cops on the creeps.

[Nekojin]

There's no such thing as modest enough.

You can wear something 3 times your size and be hit on. And if you haven't, consider yourself lucky! I wasn't even old enough to vote when I was followed home by an aggressive guy in a car. Aggressive enough to prompt a neighbor to get in a car and offer me a ride home [safe? who knows? Maybe I got threatened twice in a day]. Covered in baggy wear neck to knees, and scared for my life.

If you think I could have done more to prevent it you are, to be frank, a fucking moron. Because a 12 year old in baggy coverage can't do anything more beyond not exist to stop harassment.

Just because you had an unusual circumstance that falls into the "Get help," category, that doesn't invalidate the idea that what you wear projects a message to the world. Some people ignore these messages; some draw entirely the wrong message.

In the case of your stalker, while you were projecting, "Don't look at me, leave me alone," he was reading, "scared, insecure - good choice for a victim." In that case, it wasn't so much what you were wearing, as how you were carrying yourself, that made him take notice of you.

You can prepare yourself for 99% of the circumstances you put yourself in. The vast majority of society will respect the signals they read from you. But there will always be circumstances where things don't go as you expect or want them to, and people who choose to ignore societal conventions.

There's a concept called risk profiling or threat assessment - figuring out how to minimize the likelihood of being victimized. Where you go, what you wear, whether you go with anyone else, and yes, your gender, race, and appearance all factor into this. But no matter how small you make your risk profile, it's never zero. There are always scary, dangerous people out there.

[Pixilated]

*snip*

Even now, several years on, quite a few people are hesitant to buy Walthers locomotives, and usually refer to that line as "Chinese-made shit." Can't say I blame them. It has nothing to do with race, and everything to do with the products in question simply being low quality. It doesn't matter that the products are now made by another Chinese manufacturer, the damage is already done.

Agreed. At the moment quality control in China is way too lax for my liking, so I do my utmost to avoid anything made in China . I remember reading about plastic-backed bibs, with lead being found in the plastic. Then there were the pet foods that sickened and killed many pets. Then there was the can of pears in which one pear had been carved into the likeness of a human head. Somebody connected with the processing plant said that employee had been let go a couple of years ago. So ... how long were those pears, or that can of pears, sitting in your plant??

*snip*

There's a concept called risk profiling or threat assessment - figuring out how to minimize the likelihood of being victimized. Where you go, what you wear, whether you go with anyone else, and yes, your gender, race, and appearance all factor into this. But no matter how small you make your risk profile, it's never zero. There are always scary, dangerous people out there.

I remember reading a short story, many years ago, in which the narrator says to a young relative something along the lines of, "There are so many horrible things that can happen to you that you can't control ... why would you take chances with the things that you can control?" Does this excuse a person's attackers? No, and they deserve whatever the law can give them. But I also might want to ask the victim, "WTF were you thinking?"