What Men Need to Consider When Approaching Women

Sorry I haven't posted anything for a while, I was doing some training and am now on vacation. I'll have lots to discuss later but this couldn't wait. I came across this amazing article by Phaedra Starling, something all men MUST read.

Schrödinger’s Rapist: or a guy’s guide to approaching strange women without being maced

No means no was the phrase we used to try to get men to recognize that it's not OK to rape women (how pathetic it is to write that sentence). We need to do better. We need to respect them and recognize the type of RATIONAL fears they have and the power imbalance present in male/female interactions.

And for a little more on no means no, let's read the article below and recognize that we need to respect a women's refusal - she doesn't need to scream NOOOOOOOOOOOO and start running away to indicate her refusal.

Drawing on the conversation analytic literature, and on our own data, we claim that both men and women have a sophisticated ability to convey and to comprehend refusals, including refusals which do not include the word ‘no’, and we suggest that male claims not to have ‘understood’ refusals which conform to culturally normative patterns can only be heard as self-interested justifications for coercive behaviour.

- In other words, a man knows a no when he hears it, but pretending otherwise allows him to keep harassing (or assaulting) a woman until he gets the answer he is willing to accept.

Mythcommunication: It’s Not That They Don’t Understand, They Just Don’t Like The Answer