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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

I remember reading a Reddit thread a while ago asking women what they would do if they became men for a day, and all the top answers were variants of "I'd walk around the neighborhood alone at night" and "I'd get on a crowded bus/train because I wouldn't be scared of getting groped". It was eye opening to see how mundane stuff I take for granted isn't quite so for half of the world.

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This likely depends from the place tho. Because for example where I live, women brave public transport often, frequently and normally. They would look at you as having second head if you suggested they are scared of being in a train.

Some places are more dangerous, others are safe. And also, some families raise girls to be afraid even if the place they live at is actually safe.

Curious what the goal of this comment is?

There is this online idea that all women are constantly afraid of normal things all the time everywhere.

I find it overstated amd to be honest frequently insulting. No I am not afraid to use public transportation in my city, generally around Europe or USA or whatever. Yes, I am aware that some other cities are super dangerous. But still, most women I know are not afraid to use public transport.

People who just assume I am not capable to handle myself or I am scared of safe situations are frequently the ones putting unnecessary obstacles between me and what I need or want.

This comment is definitely a lot more substantive than the previous. Thank you for sharing your perspective!

I agree that the framing is bad and can lead to some people assuming that women are incapable or needlessly fearful, but I’d argue being hyper aware of one’s environment doesn’t necessarily equate to being fearful.

For instance, Japan and Korea, both which are considered pretty safe countries, but have had many issues of women getting groped on public transportation. Japan had to launch an anti-groping campaign (anti-Chikan) it had become such a problem. There’s even a whole porn genre of people groping women on public transportation that’s sprung out of it.

This all doesn’t make women necessarily more fearful of doing everyday things (ie millions of Japanese women use public transportation every day without fear). Some women may have just become apathetic to the danger and some maybe generally more wary of their surroundings (to the point where it has become automatic or an afterthought). In either of these cases, none of these women are afraid of stepping out into public.

Humans are very adaptable. The human brain can only take so much fear before it acclimatizes to the danger. Just like any other person, women can move through life without fear of something even if there is cause to fear it.

I understand your push back of the framing, but I fear your framing also underestimates the unique dangers and challenges that women do face in public, sometimes every single day. Even in countries and cities that are considered very safe.

My point being that we can both acknowledge that women still have an entirely different experience navigating public spaces then men do, but that that ALSO doesn’t mean that women are irrationally fearful of being in public; or any less capable of maneuvering through society safely on their own.

That and it probably also depends on the place where the question is asked, in this case reddit.

Also ask myself if people interpret these finding because they really want to solve a problem or make women more afraid by suggesting they should be.

A lot of it is education. It sounds ridiculous but men aren't born with an innate idea of things like consent and boundaries, they have to be taught it.

It sounds ridiculous as well but neither are women. It's an interesting question to ask why we would see baseline gender differences in the implementation of these concepts. My back of napkin guess is a combination of women being socialized from a young age toward being accommodating to others and similar behaviors while men are less so, combined with the issues of consent and boundaries being a HUGE topic of conversation within women's spheres and again not so much for men. The latter seems to be shifting which may have an effect on the former in time but it's slow and there is significant pushback.

I agree with that. Unfortunately we just kind of forget how much morality is actually learnt. Once it becomes a social norm we act like it's innate.

Are you so sure that was a legitimate and real comment? I'm not a woman so I can't know the truth personally. But people are very performative on Reddit. They also like narratives of victimization and offense.

If you were to straight believe the woman only subreddit of twoxchromosomes being a woman is a constant hell of abortion, rape, random body aches, abusive partners, and general sexism. If you were to straight believe the Judaism subreddit everyone who is Jewish constantly fears for their life and lives with daily radical antisemitism.

Why is that hard for you to believe? They carefully lock and guard the temples where I live; just 2 days ago, Nazis spent 15 minutes reciting antisemitic slurs at the Evanston City Council meeting. I remember watching a C-SPAN call-in show once, I can't remember why, and like every other call was about the untoward influence of the Jewish people. Antisemitism is a big deal.

You ask why it is hard to believe that "everyone who is Jewish constantly fears for their life and lives with daily radical antisemitism." I can't speak for the poster you're responding to, but I can speak from multiplication of anecdote: neither I nor any American Jew that I am related to (born after, say, 1950) has ever in their life experienced any threat of violence or loss of opportunity due to being Jewish. I want to extend that further to any Jew I know, but I know a lot, and I'm afraid I might forget some edge case. To be clear, I'm talking about the US. That isn't to say it doesn't happen -- I'm well aware of the Pittsburgh shooting, and other acts. But there is no significant history of antisemitic violence in the US (roughly four anti-semitic lynchings during a period that saw 3,500 anti-black lynchings), so if this is arising here, it is arising as a new historical formation. Not---as various billboards or Philip Roth novels would have you believe---as the return of a barely repressed, long-simmering animus.

There is a sense among many that the overall vibe has changed. I can buy that---the nativist and anti-globalist vibe in America, and on this message board, has changed, and Jews may well become the totems for that, as they often have. But numbers are harder to come by. The ADL, which does much of the counting, has been open about the fact that it considers Jewish anti-zionist groups like JVP to be hate groups, and their demonstrations (made up largely of Jews) to be anti-semitic acts.[1]

My point is just that if we're talking about vibes and sense of the discourse, there are many Jews (myself included) who also are deeply suspicious that, as the parent said, "everyone who is Jewish constantly fears for their life and lives with daily radical antisemitism." You asked why they find it hard to believe. As an n of 1, closely connected to an n of many more, I find it impossible to believe.

[1] https://twitter.com/JGreenblattADL/status/171479177486948797...

I live in an extraordinarily liberal, extraordinarily inclusive, extraordinarily communitarian enclave of Chicagoland, and I just watched a school board meeting (I am in the kind of community where everyone watches the school board meeting) where 6 households back to back got up to the public comment podium and talked about the specific, materially important physical safety issues they are currently, personally, experiencing as Jewish Americans.

I am not sticking up for ADL, which I agree has tilted way too far towards the defense of the Israeli government and surrendered some credibility in the process. JVP is controversial for good reason, and it is not reasonable for people to cite JVP as evidence that mainstream Jewish Americans broadly agree with a maximalist anti-Israel position. But they are not a hate group.

Right now I look at ADL the same way I look at RationalWiki. I don't trust editorialisms from RationalWiki at all. Who would? But when RationalWiki presents receipts, I look at the receipts. ADL's "editorial" voice is not very useful right now, but their specific reporting often is.

At any rate, my major point here is: Jewish Americans face unique, widespread, material safety issues. If you're operating under the impression that it's easy to be Jewish in America as it is to be Irish Catholic, do some reading and revise that opinion. From what I can see, that would be a very difficult claim to defend.

I admit to bristling a bit at your suggestion that I "do some reading" on the Jewish experience in America. I like to think that I'm fairly well read on the topic. But if it wasn't clear from the previous post, I am also a (secular) Jew, married to a Jew, and come from a large, geographically spread out (and politically spread out) Jewish family. Most of my relatives are married to Jews. I've been to more family bar and bar mitzvahs than I can count, including my own. My name (and, to some extent, phenotype) leave little doubt of my background to those who might care to know. Like you, the places and I have lived and the professional environments I have worked in have brought me in contact with many more. Perhaps unlike you, shared cultural background also offers the possibility of pretty frank discussion on matters related to Jewish experience.

So while I certainly don't presume to speak for all American Jews, or most American Jews, I am operating under much more than "impressions" or "opinions." Like your neighbors, I am describing what I, and many, many besides me, are, as you say, "currently, personally, experiencing as Jewish Americans."

The point you were supporting claimed that this was an experience that "everyone who is Jewish" faced. This is a gross overstatement, and one that is without doubt being mobilized currently for political purposes. If you want to speak about a rise in antisemitic acts in the US, we could do that, provided we are operating under a shared definition. If you want to talk about the experience of suburban Jews in the Northern Midwest, I'd be happy to hear more, and compare it to what I've heard from friends and family who live there. But I was responding to your post about why anyone would question a universalizing claim about the experience of Jews in America. Please don't tell me I need to do more reading to do that.

I appreciate your perspective on this. Thank you and well said.

Fair enough. I regret the word choice.

What more do you want to hear about what's going on in Chicagoland? I'm happy to go into more detail.

Here in today's Atlantic is an example of what I'm talking about, though it's been nowhere nearly that bad here (for instance, thus far, there haven't been whole-classroom walkouts at OPRF --- though we do have teachers signing off on student groups making t-shirts celebrating October 7).

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2024/04/us-anti...

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