fall-on-demand:

morlock-holmes:

How Scrupulosity Works In Social Justice Circles A: “When you ask a woman out what you’re most afraid of is being rejected. What she’s most afraid of is being raped or murdered.” B: “Well, rejection used to be my biggest fear. But now my biggest fear is that I’ll ask a woman out and make her afraid that she’s about to be raped and murdered.” A: “Oh my gosh, that’s so crazy! Why on Earth would you ever think that?! Have you considered seeing a therapist about these intrusive thoughts? I mean, that’s such a weird thing to be afraid of and I have no idea where a fear like that would come from!”

Okay, I’ll bite. Yes, that’s pretty weird and here’s why:

If I get in a car with a friend, I’m subconsciously aware that there is a chance that they might space out while driving, crash the car, and kill us both. There’s also a much smaller chance that my friend is secretly a deranged psychopath who will crash the car on purpose. I’m not petrified with terror or anything, but I am subconsciously aware that getting in the car puts me in a certain amount of danger.

Does this mean my friends should never offer to give me rides? Are they inflicting horrible psychological harm on me by saying “Do you want a lift”?



Like, we all do this. We’re all aware of various potential threats in our lives, and we all subconsciously do math in our heads to gauge what the current Threat Level is and which people/things/situations we should avoid because their Threat Potential is too high. Humans do this with everything. It’s automatic.

When you ask a woman on a date, you’re not “making her afraid of rape” any more than my friend offering me a lift is “making me afraid of death.” Simply asking a person to join you in an activity that carries a certain amount of risk (aka: literally all activities) isn’t a bad thing, and it doesn’t make you a bad person.

The whole point of “women’s greatest fear on a date is being raped/murdered” is that for women, the Threat Level of heterosexual dating is higher than it needs to be, and that we as a society can work to lower it, mostly by a) holding rapists accountable and b) dismantling certain male gender norms (namely, the ones that go “if you don’t sexually dominate women, you’re not a Real Man™”) (like there are some situations where society punishes men for being decent to women and we should change that).



The point is not “you should never talk to women” because that’s a totally impractical solution to the problem, and doesn’t actually help anyone. And it’s such an extreme conclusion to come to, that yeah a lot of people are gonna go “so do you have some sort of anxiety disorder?”