‘We don’t have to feel like prey’: the female joggers running with guns
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
I last visited NYC in the mid-late 2000s. The second time I visited, I remember RNC convention was in Madison Square Garden, close to where I was staying, and there were a bunch of angry, but comparatively civil Democrats outside. The NYPD was handling things and it was extremely well managed. The last time I visited was around 2010, things weren't too different then either.
Compared to the scenes I see on TV and in videos these days - those days seem another era altogether. I watch the great Louis Rossman ride around on his bike and do livestreams quite often. The overall climate has become far more angry/violent, and the cities - particularly NYC, seem to have deteriorated extensively. Anecdotally, crime in general seems to have become a massive problem in US cities.
It feels like cities are a victim of their own success. If you had prolonged periods of low crime, any sudden increase is going to look “scary.” For example, jumping from 5 muggings to 10 is 100% increase but holistically how do those numbers fare? Turns out very well, but if you were to listen to the media you’d think NYC was some 80s Kurt Russel film.
I think there’s a place for concealed carry but I doubt it helps much with the kinds of ambush attacks joggers see.
(I was skateboarding in Deep Ellum (neighborhood in Dallas TX) when I was mugged)
There have been numerous events of a concealed weapon holder killing an individual intent on a mass murder event that's just getting started. They generally get zero media play because they don't fit the narrative of gun -> bad.
Regardless, telling people they can't choose the means with which they can reasonably defend themselves is authoritarian and evil. Nobody can guarantee safety, thus, nobody can rightly deny the right to defend oneself how best it seems to them to do so. Some dangerous circumstances are unfortunately common which do not wait for the police, let alone courts.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/201...
Anyway... to the topic at hand. How do you feel about violence toward ladies? It'd be nice for one conversation about self defense and violence against women to not be detailed by stupid arguments about concealed carry or open carry or men get ouchies too.
Can we please talk about how this shouldn't be reality? How women should feel afraid? How one in four women should be the victim of sexual assault by the time they reach adulthood? Because that's what's happening and why these articles get written and what we should be discussing.
Team goal: call out bad behavior by men and boys, in an effort to denormalize the behaviors that lead to violence against women.
Cool?
There's also a case to be made that mathematically, you're likely to have a short career as a mugger if one out of every, say, 5 individuals you target is likely to be armed. After all, why don't muggers target police officers?
One guy wrapped me up from behind with my arms pinned to my sides. He was beyond fat and we fell with his full body weight slamming on top of me.
While he held me I was kicked from both sides of my head repeatedly.
I went out for a few seconds and came to laughing(wheezing), while they were rifling through my pockets. This got me a few more kicks.
I was laughing because had they picked literally any other time I'd walked Tinkerbell they would have gotten my wallet, and if they'd done it earlier that day- the brand new Note 3 I'd just purchased.
I only left my stuff because I hadn't yet purchased a screen protector and my biggest fear was a scratch in the screen (but not getting jumped!).
My dog was huge, but I was glad she'd stayed away. I couldn't imagine coming up on someone walking that big a dog.
Sometimes shit just happens.
I am 1st Dan in Tae Kwon Do, 2nd in Tang Soo Do, was lucky enough to take boxing lessons with some pretty cool people, even Butterbean.
I made sure all my kids got the same and then some, with their primary focus Jiu Jitsu as I believe ground game is of utmost importance in self defense, something I was lacking in for years.
Just because nothing I knew could help me in that one super shitty situation doesn't make the years I spent learning moot.
It's definitely helped me far more times than not.
If these women are potential targets, they should protect themselves however they can.
My issue with guns is a person is more likely to pull a trigger from fear than anger, or it could be taken and used against you.
I used to have a CCP but thought it might get me in more trouble than help.
Nowadays I've been considering getting one again. It's beginning to feel like most people are carrying (here, in California- I know that's not true but that's what it feels like)
We never know what's going to happen, we can only try to be prepared and hope for the best.
I'm mostly kidding, but if you're attacked from an unsuspecting angle then no amount of armaments will protect you from that first punch.
From what I've read about sexual assaults, they often start with intimidation, while the attacker works up the nerve and gauges how his target responds. Robbery by an experienced team isn't the same sort of thing.
That's my perspective too. I'm a woman who lives alone, and has no vehicle. Right now, I specifically avoided getting a gun. A friend gave me a knife I have no intention of ever using, maybe carrying it as a "pick a new target" kind of message. Obviously I'd love to feel more safe but I've yet to be convinced more firepower is actually effective at protecting me.
A: Number of crime victims armed B: Number of crime victims unarmed C: Victims of ones own gun (who don't already fall into category B)
D = B-A+C means D is the number of people who were not the victim of violence and those only difference is that they were armed. This is because D is goes up as A gets smaller than B, provided guns don't simply lead to self-harm. D/(A+B) gives us a handy percentage we can use to contextualize this difference.
I myself have never actually had to draw but I have had to back up deescalate with a man aggressively demanding I tell him the time from a weak side stance with my hand in my pocket on a concealed handgun, and I doubt he was ignorant of that fact. Why would I report that?
Dont, you wouldnt know how to use it anyway. Criminals and psychopaths are really good at reading people so you wont intimidate anyone with any experience in exerting violence, you might get stabbed with your own knife instead. Take a self defense class, one that emphasizes awareness of your surroundings. You wont learn how to fight anyway unless you decide to dedicated one evening a week for at least a year, so your best bet is learning to recognize and gauge risks. Thats why a gun is such an alluring proposition, you can actually learn how to defend yourself with a gun in a couple of months without physical exercises. Its point and click.
A pattern you see is that simply _having_ a gun is a massive massive deterrent. When the victim finds an opportunity to counter ambush, they can very frequently prevail. If they practice even a little they will be more skilled than most criminals, who don't even know how to hold a gun many times.
I think that's true of having any weapon. So a gun specifically is an unnecessary risk in my opinion.
If I lived in the US, and could legally carry for self defense. I would, not because I think it would be the solution to every situation, but because I am very cautious and like to cover all my bases.
However gun ownership comes with additional responsibilities and if some people see a woman jogging with a gun on her hip, they might just decide that is a quick way to get an untainted gun.
Doesn't sound like the solution of a functional societal environment though (for one, a functional one, wouldn't have that issue or it would be very very rare)
Lots of folks on the internet seem to think this is the best pepper spray: https://pompepperspray.com/
Please don't use nylon "knives" for self defence. A quick google will show you that they're advertised as "perfect for cakes and won't scratch your cookware" which also means they're not going to scratch an attacker either unless you're being attacked by the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
Mace is better than nothing, but people hopped up on drugs aren't going to be immediately feeling that pain. If they're not on drugs, great! But its sort of like when you've tied a few on and go to Taco Bell, it's not immediately a bad idea. People who aren't feeling the pain still can be incapacitated by mace if you get it in their eyes, but otherwise, you need to use it before they close the distance. Once they're on you, everyone gets affected by Spicy Air, and if they're on drugs, you're probably hurting yourself just as much as you're hurting them.
Yeah, pretty much. I'm never as aware of my own privilege as when I'm running alone, in strange places at odd hours with poor light. Even under ideal conditions, there's a definite pattern of male solo runners and women in pairs. This experience has probably opened my eyes more than any other wrt how women experience the world differently.
Women, I think, are often not specifically targeted for being women but rather for being small and weak. Like I could be.
I don't argue that women have it worse. I just think it's quantitative difference not qualitative.
Women might be more prone to be victims of sexual violence because there's more straight men than gay men but the rest of their risks comes from sexual dimorphism that makes them smaller, weaker and slower on average.
Also men are on average more accepting towards violence aginst men so this increses danger for potential male victims.
An open carry in addition to the dog would probably keep you safe outside a war zone.
What’s interesting to me is that gender dynamics create a sort of predator/prey dynamic. Specifically I’m talking about how men are generally required to do all of the initiating. I think it trains men to push for what they want because that’s the only way romantic and sexual interactions happen.
Sometimes, it’s even expected that the man not ask for consent. I’m talking about men “going for” a kiss at the end of the first date. It’s generally expected that the man go for it without asking. It’s like sexual assault is baked into the dating ritual!
I can’t help but wonder if we’d be better off if we got rid of this dynamic. Like if we expected men and women to both initiate instead of women being taught to wait for men to pursue them.
> I can’t help but wonder if we’d be better off if we got rid of this dynamic.
The vast majority men don't push, at least not in a way that is predatory. To further disarm men over the small minority of predatory (and possibly more reproductively successful) men would not be helpful even to women.
> Like if we expected men and women to both initiate instead of women being taught to wait for men to pursue them.
Good luck with that. This completely dismisses women as actual physical beings with their own behaviors and interests as opposed to a figment.
Why exactly would women not wait for men to pursue them? Women only have so many opportunities to bear children, whereas men can theoretically impregnate 100s of women for the 9 months that a single woman is pregnant. What incentive does a woman have to give away her eggs to men who don't go out of their way to show they are willing to commit? What incentive do women have when the sexual encounters are far more available to them than the other way around on average? If a man doesn't have the courage to go up against all odds, including her initial rejection of him, then how likely will he succeed at defending her while she's pregnant and vulnerable?
Not only is there no incentive for women to pursue men, but they've not had this incentive for millions of years. Some part of that dynamic is baked, as is the male propensity for violence.
If men are playing a numbers game, and are expected to pursue women “against all odds” then you really can’t blame men for trying to play and win the game.
You can’t entirely blame men for going for a kiss even if he’s received mixed signals because the reality is that some women suck at giving signals.
You can’t entirely blame men for doing weird, awkward shit because he’s trying a new strategy to win the game.
Obviously everyone is different, but I think that's part of why asking for a first kiss is seen as unattractive. If you're so dense as to not be able to tell when someone wants a kiss (which, the first time, is excruciatingly clear most of the time), what other less clear or more important signals are you going to miss, or choose to miss?
And no, a kiss at the end of the night is not just a signal readability test. It’s a masculinity test. If a guy doesn’t kiss a girl at the end of the night her impression is that he’s weak.
This is literally what I said. Being good at interpreting signals is attractive. Giving clear signals is attractive.
> If a guy doesn’t kiss a girl at the end of the night her impression is that he’s weak.
Sorry but this is some redpill bullshit.
That changes the equation significantly because it incentivizes men to ignore signals to a certain extent. They’re more likely to just shoot their shot and see what happens. You might not like it but that’s the reality.
Regarding weakness, I don’t care what word you use but women tend to think less of men when they don’t go for it and leave it to the woman to initiate. This is the lived experience of many, many men.
What I think is interesting is that you’ve done two of the most common things I’ve seen woke people do. Deny female agency and deny reality. Everything is men’s fault and their lived experience doesn’t matter.
I haven't denied anyone's agency or any reality, you just haven't proven what you think reality is. And trust me, if you know anything about me you wouldn't use "woke" as a descriptor. But imagine using "woke" unironically in 2022.
You're still denying reality in the same way that woke people do.