I just wanted to post to give you a “You go gal.” It is just too bad that you got him in the face and not in the offending appendage. I believe that most sexual harassment would disappear if women will not act the victim and confront their harasser.

Just a thought experiment, however useful/useless: What would your reaction be to a man reacting in a violent manner to harassement by a female, a group of females, or an assorted group of individuals? Would he be justified, over-reacting, or something in between if he, I don’t know, hurled rocks in their general direction?

I don’t think that violence is a particularly good response to harassment (hence my writing, “I’m not a big fan of violence, but I do like to see women fighting back”). I don’t think that physical violence is usually a justifiable response to verbal harassment; however, if someone molests you, you certainly have my permission to smack that asshole upside the head, regardless of gender.

Particularly given that in the Maria Goretti school case, the people he was flashing were Lolita-aged schoolgirls. I’m actually not sure what the optimal advice is to the schoolgirls, in that case, but yes, I’d be scared if I were the schoolgirl. An adult man who is willing to use children for sexual gratification is pretty scary.

And schoolgirls, particularly Catholic ones in uniforms, are highly fetishized.

Particularly given that in the Maria Goretti school case, the people he was flashing were Lolita-aged schoolgirls. I’m actually not sure what the optimal advice is to the schoolgirls, in that case, but yes, I’d be scared if I were the schoolgirl. An adult man who is willing to use children for sexual gratification is pretty scary.

In an adult situation, whether I’d be scared or mad at a flasher probably depends on where I am, and what my avenue for escape looks like if he proves to have worse than flashing on his mind.

Why NOT talk back to the asshole who gropes you on the subway? It’s as if they have absorbed this notion of women as being resigned to passivity and victimhood.

Uh, no. The idea is that men who do that want female attention above all else, and it doesn’t matter to them whether that attention is frightened, angry, or anything else; they get off on it just the same whatever form it takes. The point of not reacting is to deny them their reward, to deny them any attention at all. That has nothing to do with passivity, and describing women who use that tactic that way is pretty insulting. They didn’t “absorb” it (hello, embracing female passivity!) If they’re promoting that as the best reaction, they made a decision to. With their brains.

Of course, it may be a wrong decision. I disagree with the decision to use that tactic because I don’t think it’s universally effective – clearly, some men don’t harass for attention, they do it because a woman, a picture of a woman, and the idea of a woman are all the same thing to them: they see themselves as subjective actors and women as objects, as visual entertainment, and finding out that women have their own subjective reactions scares the hell out of them. But for every guy who gropes because he can’t imagine a woman violently objecting, there’s a guy who gropes because he gets a charge out of seeing a woman visibly upset. Since you don’t know which kind of guy you’re dealing with, causing him physical pain is probably going to work out better than just yelling, since he might like that.

(I should note that I can understand why a woman might be hesitant to strike back against a lone man in a secluded place at night. I’m thinking more of very public harassment here, where visibility ensures that the threat of violent conflict is lower.)

Not to post again, but I wouldn’t advocate a violent response to a flasher. What are we supposed to be so afraid of, the sight of a penis?? Take one step towards me and it’s a different story.

I think the fear has to do with the willingness of that person to use you for sexual gratification–he obviously doesn’t have much respect for the women he’s flashing.