Acquiescence

SQ - because the process for getting a badge is really stringent. And because black cab drivers are vulnerable to being complained about if they step out of line, so if too many people complain about them they can lose their bade (they're regulated by the carriage office).

But also police officers, I'd trust a policeman probably - you expect them to be disproportionately more law abiding than the average person I guess.

It's an interesting thing.

Reading this I was thinking the same as Sakura - chances are that worboys offered lots of women drinks - I doubt he singled ones out based on some kind of signal they were giving off. He had no need to - anyone who accepted the drink would conk out.

I also agree that many men would accept a free drink from a stranger as well. The line there as to whether someone accepts it is probably to do with personality and situation as much as anything else. Unless it is the case that JW wheedled to get people to take the drink - in which case he will have been playing on the idea that many people have raised, that women are conditioned to go along with what others want even if it goes against their instincts. Certainly women and girls need to be taught to follow their instincts even if it does mean that they will be perceived as rude - of course there is also the problem that when some men are rejected they becaome aggressive or violent but I don't know where to go with that. Certianly I always told men in teh pub to go away if I didn't want to talk to them - I was always surprised by how my friends would rarely do that - and teh reactions of the men were often unpleasant. Or they just completely ignore you

Anyway this is a bit of a stream of consciousness.

Grace it sounds as if you reported warboys after the police knew what was happening - you understand that the response you got from them was how they were acting once they figured out this awful thing was happening and they had royally cocked up. Many of the women who went to Sapphire before they had put 2+2 together were treated abysmally.

And for everyone - why this trust for black cab drivers? I have never felt a large amount of trust for black cab drivers - neither have I felt a large amount of distrust for illegal cab drivers. I don't really get that. Why did people think a black cab driver wouldn't do something like that? It's not like they're policemen or something - and TBH even policemen do stuff like this sometimes. Why all that trust? It seems a bit bizarre to me.

Oh that one.

Oh yes I had heard of that, just didn't know it was called that.

Can you tell us more about the Milgram experiment SP, or link to something about it? Have never heard of it.

I think this all ties in with the Milgram experiment and the way we as humans seem to be programmed to do what those we trust ask when it fits in context. With the way society places women below men in the pecking order it leaves women particularly vulnerable to sexual assault (as the Fugitivus post makes quite explicit).

I've often wondered if the reason I've never had a problem telling a guy that I'm not interested, is partly because we studied the Milgram experiment in school. It completely changed the way I approached situations in school and in friendships where I would otherwise have acquiesced.

You know that thing about young men being more likely to be violently assaulted than women?

Could some of the causes of that be because a) They are out and about more (on the street for example) while women get cabs and b) they aren't taught to placate other men who might be violent as we are, they aren't always as finely attuned to the body language and the nuances of the man who is going to attack them, so they fail to use the strategies women often do, to ensure that they aren't seen as targets?

Just musing really

I also think lots of men would accept the drink, offered by either a man or a woman. Drugging of foreigners goes on a lot in Russia for example, where strangers friendly up to them, especially on the trans-siberian, and especially male foreigners. BUt even so, you're probably right that there is some extra biddability about women that stops them from wanting to offend.

Just to pick up on a point AgeingGrace and AF articulated about whether you gave off any signs. I seriously doubt it. It was just bad luck. I went through my late teens and early twenties on a death wish. The things I'd do, like hitch hike drunk on a regular basis . I have never been raped. Which tells me that that it was because there was never a rapist in the vicinity. I believe you were just at the wrong place at the wrong time

Sorry I have come back to this very late. The work has to be more about men recognising their responsibility to women and then a woman could be a better judge of who is safe....not making sense, what I mean is if most men, who are decent(ish) treated women with unquestionable respect we would recognise when someone does not, but the gentle erosion of that respect by many (including in law) means that our radar is less acute...

Nothing interesting on telly, grace ?

I like your anecdote. It sounds like something I would do now but maybe not at one time.

Bucking social mores is very hard to do. Sometimes it gains you a kind of shocked admiration, someimes it gets you a reputation as a cocky, frigid mare.

thanks, proles

I feel like I hijacked

have pm'ed grace but I think she is watching shite telly

What happened to that thread...is it still in existence ?

I should have posted it in that thread, shouldn't I?

I just love that article, it says it so clearly.

Must re-visit it every now and then...

post

Speechless, just speechless

That piece brings to mind the recent thread about the guy on the school run who "came in for coffee"

Thanks for posting that HB

Every time you pot a link like that, I remember that I should widen my reading

This is one of the most brilliant pieces I have ever read about women's conditioning to placate men.

laters, grace x