Now that you’ve had a little time to reflect on the mind-boggling controversy that occurred when Rebecca Watson suggested that propositioning strange women in elevators was creepy, and men – including Richard Dawkins – whined in response and wondered however would poor menz ever get laid again if they couldn’t creep women into giving it up, I want to tell you a couple of things you need to understand.

Rejecting a strange man’s sexual advances is scary. That’s right – scary. Some women will tell you it’s not and that Watson was overreacting, but no one’s experience is universal: the fact is, a small minority of people cope with rejection by lashing out in violence, and when those people are bigger and stronger than you, or have power over you, you can end up getting hurt. It is completely rational and sensible to think defensively when you’re in a situation full of unknowns. A man you don’t know may respond to your rejection with a friendly, “Well, couldn’t hurt to try, right?” or he may turn out to be a rapist who likes showing teh bitchez they can’t reject him, or he may fall into that huge gray area in between.

This should explain two things to you: why women are often unclear in their rejections (“I’m busy/engaged/have a headache” rather than “No, I would never be interested in you”), and why women are creeped out by situations men think women should find flattering.

Does anyone else suspect that when heterosexual men envision these situations, they’re seeing only beautiful women, without judo training, propositioning them to do something they really want to do? Of course. That’s how privilege works [required reading]. So let me present a more fitting version (previously discussed in comments, if it sounds familiar):

You’re a man. A really big, muscly guy gets in the elevator with you. He tells you he’d like to fuck you. You feel keenly aware that if he wanted, he could easily just spin you round, pull down your pants and fuck your anus as hard as he wants. You know it can happen, because this has happened to lots of men you know. You’ve seen it on literally thousands of TV shows and movies ever since you were a kid. And you also know that no one would believe you if you reported it, because he’s well-dressed and looks extremely respectable. And he wants to fuck you, and he can rape you if you refuse. Maybe you should just give him a blow job, to be safe. But then wouldn’t that be the same as being raped, since you don’t want to have sex with this guy? Yes, except, well, you’d retain some small measure of control. As you prepare to get on your knees, you think, “God, I hope he doesn’t ask for my telephone number afterwards.”

Do not read this as an argument that Watson’s situation was this terrifying. From what she’s said, it wasn’t. I’m just showing you an extreme because apparently some of you just don’t have a clue, and an extreme might be required to penetrate the dense fog surrounding your thinking processes.

Maybe a better example is Greg Laden’s wonderful post about encountering a dog, and how he’s not afraid of dogs generally, and he knows how to handle them generally, but sometimes you meet a dog and have no way of knowing if it’s the sweetest creature ever or rabid and vicious, and how, gee, maybe apprehension in that situation is absolutely justified. Ya think?

Whichever example you prefer, that brings me to my second point. Rejecting a strange man can, in the right circumstances, be so scary that some women will simply skip the rejection and do what’s being asked, in hopes that they won’t be brutally raped (because having sex you don’t want in order to avoid a worse fate is rape, too). Remember when we were all being told by public awareness campaigns in the 80s: do not fight with muggers, just give them the money and they’ll leave you alone, but if you fight with them they might kill you? That’s what women have known about men since forever, and so many of us are extremely pro-active in our avoidance of strange men in uncertain situations. And, yes, that’s a pity for you genuinely nice guys – but you if you are nice, you’ll blame rapists, not women, for making things difficult.

And that, folks, is one of the many ways rape culture benefits “nice guys”, or, men who are not legally rapists but are perfectly comfortable with manipulating women into sex rather than looking for mutual sexual experiences. Rape culture provides a ton of ways to frighten women into allowing you to rape them without anything resembling physical violence:

• Creeping women out by targeting them in the way a rapist would. Read Laden’s post. Be aware of the ways male rapists approach adult women: they come up to us in areas where we’re alone, where there are no witnesses, where “nice girls” shouldn’t be, when we’re obviously intoxicated, etc. Your best bet is to meet women in other types of situations. If you strongly feel the need to hit on a woman in a situation where you’d be creeped out if a big burly guy hit on you, the way to do it is: offer her your number instead of asking for hers. Ask her if she’d meet you for coffee in the hotel dining area tomorrow morning rather than right now in your room. Indicate your interest without pressuring her into demonstrating reciprocation. That’s exactly how rapists don’t think. (And honestly? If you think you need rapist tactics to “get laid”, you probably really are just a rapist at heart.)
• Being her boss, and having that long history of bosses retaliating against female employees who don’t submit to rape – and the long history of a society that didn’t understand why this was wrong until the 90s. Again, use a method acting trick to figure it out. You’re a man. Your boss wants a blow job. You know there’s not another job half this good available to you in the tri-state area. No one’s going to believe you if you claim he demanded this from you, because everyone thinks he’s so nice.
• Promoting the idea that your religion states that a woman can never deny her husband “sex”, when your religion is dominant in your culture and, perhaps, government.

These are just a few ways that rape culture enables men to rape without physical duress or fear of consequences. I bet commenters can name some others.

Rape culture works because rape is a history every woman shares. If you haven’t been raped, you know someone who has. Or you’ve been in situations where, in hindsight, you think you narrowly and luckily avoided being raped. You don’t know a strange woman’s history with rape culture. Just as she needs to assume you are a rapist until she has good reason to believe otherwise, you should assume you’re dealing with someone who’s keenly aware you might be a rapist and taking sensible precautions. You are not entitled to resent her for making that impersonal assumption. You are entitled to resent rapists for setting up a culture in which such assumptions are, sadly, quite rational based on the facts she has before her.

And rape is only the beginning of rape culture enforcement. There’s also the fact that women are far more likely than men to be murdered by an intimate partner, or a serial killer with misogynistic issues, or get beaten half to death when they’re rented out by one man to another for sexual purposes. Rape is traumatic as hell on its own, but just in case that’s not enough, we have to keep in mind that some men won’t be happy until we’re dead. And when we meet strange men, we don’t have a magic way of telling the harmless majority from the lethal minority.

This may be the most ironic comment I’ve read in years. It’s from a discussion about Rebecca Watson’s recent takedown of a man’s approach to her in a hotel elevator in the wee hours. This commenter is male, and wants to prove that the rejection men face in asking women out is ever so much worse than anything women deal with from men. The irony is, I was just skimming the comment thread at first, and read his facetious paragraph entirely at face value, nodding along in agreement with what I assumed was a woman trying to make the point I made in Men Are Also Picky About Dating, which is that when you have to wait around to be visually noticed and asked out, you can reasonably interpret every instance of men ignoring you – or stepping on you to get to the hottest hottie at the bar – as “rejection”, so boy-men really need to STFU and stop whining.

But they never do. Here we go:

Women.. imagine a world that you can’t even remember the last time that a guy even so much as smiled at you, for any reason.

I don’t have to. I know that feeling. Who else does? Even attractive women living in extremely isolating urban workaholic hellholes often know this feeling.

Imagine that every time you walk into a room.. no one notices.

Yep, I would guess that every woman who’s significantly far from looking like Angelina Jolie et al knows this feeling. Am I right?

Imagine that no guy checks you out.. EVER.

Actually, it’s more that they check you out then register boredom on their faces and move on to check someone else out. Just going unnoticed would be relatively painless. Having someone check you out and obviously conclude they can do better is fucking hurtful. But it’s a part of life, so grow up.

Imagine if men don’t even know you exist (at least in any kind of sexual/romantic way). Imagine that if any guy ever actually approaches you it’s to ask something benign as “Do you happen to have the time?”, and truely that’s ALL they want from you, and once you tell them, then you go back to being invisible.

Okay, seriously, who at this point is not going, “Yep, I so know that feeling.” He honestly thinks this doesn’t happen to women. Unbelievable ignorance level, there. Unbelievable privilege.

Imagine you lived in a world where men rated 80% of women “below average” when it comes to their looks (like women do men:

I don’t have to imagine. That’s my life experience. Men judge one another’s social status on how hot a chick they’re dating – like women sometimes judge each other on how expensive a handbag they carry (think of girlfriends and wives as fashion accessories for men, and the world begins to make so much more sense). So women who don’t meet a traditional beauty mold are second through 200th choice, and men who have to settle for 200th choice? Tend to be childishly resentful and hateful about it, and absolutely clueless and unconcerned that they were your 600th choice but you’re trying to be graceful about it.

Imagine a world where you can have a dry spell (forget about sex.. just going out on a date) that can last not just days, not just weeks, not just months, but YEARS.

Oh, my word. Women and girls going years without dates happens all the freakin’ time. They don’t advertise it or talk about it with douchebags like the commenter here (which, presumably, is why he assumes it never happens), but if you are non-judgmental and let people know you think sexuality is nothing anyone should ever feel ashamed about (for all the douchebags reading and thinking I just included rape among things no one should be ashamed of, sexuality and rape are as different to each other as taking a swim is to having someone cast concrete around your feet and throw you in a deep river to drown), they open up. I can’t count the number of women I know who haven’t had a date in years. Or never had a date until they were 30 or older. Or are very old and have never had a date, ever. Happens all the time, peeps, get over yourselves.

And when you think about it – think about the fact that men are allowed to charm women in various ways and get protected even when they stalk and pressure women in creepy ways, but women have to somehow get noticed (almost always visually) before they even have a chance with a particular guy – it’s kind of really obvious who’s got problems getting dates, right? I mean, sure, attractive women may have it easy – may – but attractive men also have it easy. Leaving conventionally attractive people aside, women have it worse, and you don’t see us whining all over the internet like a babies denied lollipops.

Imagine a world where you see/meet a guy you are incredibly attracted to, so much so that your heart leaps to your throat.. and you can hardly speek and your only chance to try to get to know them better is to make an awkward, unfortunate pass at them and not only do you get rejected, but you find out that you made the guy incredibly uncomfortable and he saw you as a creep and then in later discussions people see your attempt as a potential sexual assult.

Okay, it’s my understanding that some women – mostly Gen Y – have had good success with asking men out. I so totally have not. Men I’ve asked out found it insulting: either they thought the gender role reversal meant I thought they were effeminate, or maybe they were insulted that someone at my attractiveness level asked someone as hot as themselves out. I don’t think I’ve ever creeped anyone out, but gee whiz, maybe that’s because I made the effort to develop a few fucking social skills. I assure you, they don’t come naturally. But having been raised as a GIRL with a naturally commanding personality, and therefore taught my every natural instinct on interacting with people was wrong and “too bossy” and “bitchy” and so on, I actually learned how to modify my behavior in ways that suit me and not the Gender Police. You boys don’t usually get that training, because every little thing you want to do is just fabulous and society should bend over backwards to accommodate your very important ass. You’ll want to take that up with society instead of whining like toddlers at women. Unless of course you’re just too cowardly to take it to the source, and that’s why you’re really whining at women for all your widdle pwobwems.

Imagine a world where the only way to catch a man’s eye is to win the genetic lottery and be in the top .1 percent of incredibly good looking women, and if you’re not.. your only second chance you have to catch a man’s eye is to be unbelievably confident. And you have to develop this confidence.. considering the world that you live in as described above (not remembering the last time a man ever smiled at you.. and so on).

Yes, he appears to be serious, and I’m not sure where to start on this one. First of all, women do have to be really good looking to get asked out by a nice array of men. Women who could never be mistaken for starlets really have their work cut out for them, because they are perfectly invisible to men and they’re not handed a nice menu of un-creepy ways to convince men to date them. The best option for women who don’t look like starlets is to be uber-confident – sometimes this bluffs men into thinking you’re hot, and then by the time they realize you’re not hot in any traditional sense, they’ve already found the true awesomeness within you. Sometimes.

God, I want to be a woman on Whiny McWhiner’s planet instead of Earth.

Christie Dickason’s 17th century-set historical novel The King’s Daughter is about Princess Elizabeth Stuart, daughter of James I of England/IV of Scotland.  By extention, it’s also the story of her biracial slave, Thalia, given to her by her mother.I found it to be a fascinating look at the issues of ownership of the day, whether it be about women or people of African descent.

Elizabeth and Thalia’s relationship is awkward at first, with Elizabeth demanding truth from Thalia and, like a true monarch of the time, being furious when she didn’t like it. But eventually she begins to see the value in a companion who she can rely on for the absolute truth, and there’s several references to the fact that they are both slaves to men – Elizabeth’s price is just higher. Elizabeth and Thalia become very close and Elizabeth eventually frees Thalia and encourages her to seek her fortune in the more tolerant, democratic New Colonies of Virginia. (Sorry, my American history is a little rusty; remind me how that worked out for black women again?) It’s one of those relationships that doesn’t exactly pass the Bechdel test because so much of their conversations are based around the ownership of women by men, but I loved Thalia’s insights and the two women’s eventual support one one another.

Elizabeth’s father, King James, is decadent and temperamental and expects absolute obedience from her and her older brother Henry. When she objects to being married off to whever he sees fit based on his whims that day – weather he be old, sickly, of an objectionable religion,  James doesn’t care for his daughter’s happiness, only whatever spoils an advantageous marriage will bring him. It’s heartbreaking to read of Elizabeth being bandied about between the princes and monarchs of Europe with little or no care between the men of Elizabeth’s happiness.

Ironically, he settles on Frederick, Elector Palaine, which is a love match. (Of course, James didn’t plan this, it just happened that the German prince and Elizabeth were highly compatible.) But when Henry dies – bumping Elizabeth up to second-in-line after sickly younger brother Charles – he decides that her stock has gone up and a mere German prince is no longer good enough for a potential future Queen of England. He eventually decides the marriage is in his/England’s best interest after all, but that doesn’t stop him from considering Elizabeth his property even after the weddding. He goes so far as to barge in after the wedding night to check that the marriage has been consummated and tells them that they had better give him a Stuart heir soon. He insist that Elizabeth will be tended to by a midwife of his choosing; Frederick interjects and tells him that in childbearing matters, the choice will lie with Elizabeth. I liked that Frederick stood up for his wife’s wishes, although it would have been nice if there had been some mention of the fact that, while Frederick was more considerate to her choice, her ‘choice’ was still at the whim of the man who controlled her; the man-as-husband just happened to be more benevolent than the man-as-father.

That’s the main story. There’s also an small but pivotal exchange between Elizabeth and her mother, Anne of Denmark. James took her children away when they were babies and broke her heart; as a result she is distant towards Elizabeth and advises her against falling in love with her children. Elizabeth is hurt by her mother’s rejection and shocked by her cynicism; it provides the foundation for her desire to marry for love to a man who gives her a say in their marriage – at least when it comes to their children. Again, it would have been nice to see the addendum Elizabeth’s equality in her marriage was entirely dependant on Frederick’s magnamity and not any legal rights she had, but I liked how it illustrated how much power James had. He could take Anne’s children away, he could use them as pawns in his political games, he could banish her from her residence and take mistresses, and she could do nothing. No wonder she was bitter and cynical.

There’s also a small section after Henry dies and Charles becomes first-in-line; from the dependant younger brother, he becomes a little tyrant. He demands Elizabeth’s pet dog Belle, saying ‘she’s prettier than any of my bitches’; when Elizabeth refuses, Charles has Belle stolen – telling her she should have given him Belle when he had asked – and when she appeals to James, he informed her that Charles has every right, as his heir. Basically, that Charles has every right to take his sister’s favorite possessions because he’s a boy and she’s a girl, and first-in-line to the throne to boot. Of course, when Elizabeth leaves for Germany, Charles is all ‘what am I going to do without you’; Elizabeth is tempted to reply ‘very much what you have always done – exactly as you like’. What, so Charles just expected her to forget that he took her beloved pet when he decided he needed her again? Even though she didn’t say it out loud, I liked that Elizabeth was happy to let Charles stew in his own juices and realised that she had lost her brother to his own sense of entitlement and there was no point in trying to appeal to him. And I really liked this early illustration of Charles; someone who took what he wanted from whoever he liked with a deep sense of divine right-inspired entitlement. It was this entitlement that caused him to be ousted in the English revolution a few years later.

From a feminist perspective, as much as I was disappointed by Verona Bennet’s The People’s Queen, that’s how much I loved The King’s Daughter. If you like English historical fiction, then go read this book.