City Streets Don't Teach You How to Climb Mountains: A Note About Rape Culture

Two days ago, I wrote a note asking for advice for a friend’s daughter. She’s looking for accommodation in Amsterdam and has found a room in a man’s house. In that post, I wrote:

She has a bad gut feeling about this.

A male Fetlifian was offended by the very idea of a woman having a gut feeling about a potential predator. He wrote me a long essay explaining that he doesn’t have to fear violence, so women are overreacting. In the same breath, he was offended by the implication that men don’t face this kind of risk as well. In short, Jack says:

• Women shouldn’t behave as though their lives are dangerous since there isn’t really any violence to fear.

• Women should respect men for behaving as though their lives are dangerous since there is violence to fear.

Welcome to The Logic of the Dudebro (throws glitter everywhere). Women’s fear is wrong, but men’s fear is right, even if that man’s fear is made up for the sake of argument. The mere existence of a vagina renders us irrational. Jack explained, at length, what life was like for him as a straight cis man. He intended this as a lesson to all womankind to calm our tits.

Jack is upset because he saw a sentence in a post about Amsterdam.
He is offended that women get upset about the prospect of assault.
Maybe if assault was as traumatic as reading sentences on the internet, Jack would classify us as rational human beings.

I’ve hiked Elsie’s peak for years. Towards the bottom of the trail, there are loose rocks everywhere. I once met a man up there who was disabled because he tripped on one of those rocks and fell all the way down the mountain. I thus advise hikers to be careful of loose rocks at the bottom of the trail.

Jack has walked the streets of Cape Town. There are no loose rocks and barely any inclines. If you fall, you will land right where you are. Jack has never done Elsie’s, but his experience on tarred streets has told him everything he needs to know about mountains. There are no loose rocks, he says. He’s walked the city for years, so he knows exactly how to climb Elsie’s Peak.

Now, men sometimes experience assault and abuse. I’m not suggesting otherwise, but the vast majority of abused men have one or two traumatic experiences. Rape culture is a constant, cloying experience for women. If we forget about it, someone will turn up to grope us in short order. If you’ve not lived in a woman’s body, you’ve never climbed the peak. You’ve never experienced the relentless daily gropings, assaults, revenge porn, and “flashing” that women do. You’ve just walked a few city blocks. Stop telling us we’re wrong if you’ve never tripped on a loose rock in your life. I know you got assaulted by a sentence on the internet, but women face trauma, too.