Not sure whether this counts as a feminist discussion, but I'm giving it a try. I mentioned on another thread that, after seeing last year's TV programme about black-cab rapist John Worboys, I realised he 'had' me, too. I rang the helpline and the police were brilliant - they confirmed my story and discussed the case as much as I wanted to.
Bizarrely, the discovery was actually helpful to me. I'd been struggling with "denial of abuse" issues so, for me, this single episode (which I barely remember) represented all the other half-remembered and anxiously dismissed incidents of abuse that kept me questioning myself. I now accept that I have been more seriously abused, and more often, than I can consciously recognise. This denial is part of the issue I wish to discuss.
John Worboys sexually assaulted upwards of 400 women: probably hundreds more. His method was always the same - a little story, a little drinky that was drugged. Now this is what bothers me: up to 700 of us accepted that drink.
We trust London cabbies, sometimes literally with our lives. Worboys abused that position of trust. But - still! A cab driver gives you a drink, and you don't smell anything fishy? I bet none of us would have smiled and said "cheers" if an illegal minicab driver had done it. Not a single one of us rang the police, or the taxi office, to say "Driver number XXXX has just done something weird."
We trusted hansom cab drivers - rightly so. But why did we allow this trust to override our common sense? We all registered that this was "odd" behaviour, so why didn't we just get the hell out of there and press Dial? What happened to our natural alarm bells?
Answering for myself, I have to assume I was so deeply programmed to TRUST A MAN IN A POSITION OF HONOUR that I had no self-preservation instincts to go with that. In my case, this is the factor that led to my putting up with abuse in many situations. I was also, as mentioned, extremely willing to forget, deny, tell myself I'd got it wrong, etc, etc. I can trace this directly to my parental background. Did all 400 of Worboy's passengers come from families like mine?
How did Worboys know which women to trick?
I asked the cop how come so many women had bought his story. He said he wished he knew that - as more & more evidence came to light, they found it hard to believe he was getting to first base as easily as he did.
As some of you know, I'm committed to helping women in abusive relationships re/gain a sense of their own right to respect and safety. Most of you know at least something about the dynamics of abuse. Many people are conditioned to consider themselves less important than others; it's common for a woman to count herself less than a man. But 400 Londoners, each with enough independence to be getting a cab on her own at night ...? That's a lot!
If self-abandonment and self-denial are THAT prevalent amongst women, then feminism has a far bigger problem than I ever suspected.
I'm not sure if anybody's able or willing to pick this up - it's more of an emotional/psychological angle than this board's usual. It's both personally and politically interesting to me - what do you think?