[HN Gopher] The Hatpin Peril (2014)
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The Hatpin Peril (2014)
Author : danbolt
Score : 25 points
Date : 2020-08-12 21:31 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.smithsonianmag.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.smithsonianmag.com)
| epicureanideal wrote:
| > "When he lifted his arm and draped it low across her back,
| Leoti had enough. In a move that would thrill victim of modern-
| day subway harassment, she reached for her hatpin--nearly a foot
| long--and plunged it into the meat of the man's arm. He let out a
| terrible scream and left the coach at the next stop."
|
| Although what the man did is inappropriate, stabbing him seems
| excessive. She could've first asked him to stop.
|
| > "A Chicago showgirl, bothered by a masher's "insulting
| questions," beat him in the face with her umbrella until he
| staggered away."
|
| Again, seems excessive. Why not just tell him off and walk away?
|
| > "Such stories were notable not only for their frequency but
| also for their laudatory tone; for the first time, women who
| fought back against harassers were regarded as heroes rather than
| comic characters, as subjects rather than objects. Society was
| transitioning, slowly but surely, from expecting and advocating
| female dependence on men to recognizing their desire and ability
| to defend themselves."
|
| I would say this is more than self defense. The examples given
| are overreactions that would be prosecuted as crimes under most
| circumstances.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| Responding by STABBING someone, as a measure of first defense,
| is ludicrous, disproportionate, and far more immoral than the
| harassment leading to it.
|
| The harassment is ALSO TERRIBLE. Just not STABBINGLY so.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| You should consider it from the point of view of someone who
| is very vulnerable to assault, who is not at all on an even
| footing with her potential assailant, and who is in a
| confined and semi-private space with her assailant. Stabbing
| someone who invades your personal space slowly over the
| course of the trip, culminating in putting their arm around
| your shoulders. As a man I would start throwing elbows, but
| stabbing the guy with a hat pin seems pretty understandable
| in those circumstances too.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| The mental gymnastics you are doing are extreme. STABBING
| someone in response to this is absolutely not ok. There is
| no consistent social norm reasoning that could make it so.
|
| What if I have a blood clotting disorder? You stab me in my
| arm and I die. This is ok as an immediate reaction? What if
| I only accidentally bumped you because the subway jerked?
|
| It's just crazy.
|
| I agree if you really are in a position of self-defense,
| reaching for any countermeasures you can makes sense,
| stabbing with a random object included.
|
| That's not what this is describing, not remotely.
| lolc wrote:
| Some attacks are most effectively prevented by the threat
| of immediate, excessive violence. It was just a novelty
| that females would operate without a male intermediate.
| Which is why it made news.
| anunnymouse wrote:
| You mention something about social norms - I think these
| evolve over time.
|
| Could it be that putting your arm around someone was a
| much larger transgression against the norms of the time
| than you think it is now? Perhaps the stabbing response
| is then not so asymmetrical in that context.
|
| I don't know.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| > What if I have a blood clotting disorder?
|
| I guess the safest answer is don't go around groping
| strangers.
|
| > What if I only accidentally bumped you because the
| subway jerked?
|
| I'm a male who has ridden NYC subways for 15+ years, and
| have been groped probably a half dozen times. It is clear
| when it happens versus when a bump happens.
| SpicyLemonZest wrote:
| I can certainly understand the impulse to react with
| overwhelming force. Even as a man, many potential
| assailants are larger and stronger than me.
|
| But I'd surely go to prison if I followed through and
| stabbed some stranger for putting their arm on my
| shoulders. One of the first things you learn in any kind of
| self-defense training is that you should not - and legally
| must not - wield a weapon except to protect yourself from
| an immediate risk of serious injury.
| Igelau wrote:
| Considering the state of medicine in 1903, there's a good
| chance he lost the arm or died.
| lolc wrote:
| The problem at the time was that those behaviours were
| acknowledged to be inappropriate but addressing them verbally
| did not stop the perpetrators from repeating. The threat of
| unmediated violence changed the risk profile of the action.
|
| Also, you may not have this expectation yourself, but society
| at the time would not be surprised to see a male in a similar
| situation react with at least the threat of violence. In this
| view females just normalized their behaviour in public.
| fxtentacle wrote:
| Wow, this comment got downvoted into oblivion really quick. It
| doesn't read as insensitive or provocative to me. I was hoping
| that people on HN would have the mental ability to tolerate an
| opinion that they disagree with and engage it with counter-
| arguments. But apparently, we're canceling unwanted ideas
| instead.
|
| If I remember correctly, a downvote is for spam, attacks, or
| other things unrelated to the discussion, not for disagreeing
| with someone.
| quickthrowman wrote:
| You do understand that women were not allowed to vote during
| the hatpin panic, right?
|
| Perhaps that fact will provide some context as to why women
| were stabbing men with hatpins for sexually assaulting them.
| They didn't have the same rights that men did!
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Yes, but that doesn't make it any more reasonable to beat
| someone in the face with an umbrella for saying something you
| don't like...
|
| Also, as a separate point, it was only in 1868 that all men
| were able to vote in the United States, although it seems
| most men could vote by the 1820s.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_voting_rights_in_t.
| ..
|
| Would it have been acceptable for a non-property-holding
| white male in 1820 to beat another man with a stick if the
| other man offended him, on the basis of the first man lacking
| voting rights?
| spanhandler wrote:
| Hell I've seen women this century hit guys pretty hard just
| to say "hello" or because they disagree about where the guy
| wants to go eat or something else entirely trivial. Similar
| is all over TV, so common it passes below the level of
| notice most of the time. At least this wasn't just
| socially-acceptable casually-abusive battery and had a
| purpose. Go hatpin ladies.
| dmurray wrote:
| > Would it have been acceptable for a non-property-holding
| white male in 1820 to beat another man with a stick if the
| other man offended him, on the basis of the first man
| lacking voting rights?
|
| If we're going to go for "all men", how about a felon or an
| immigrant attacking a proper citizen in 2020 on the same
| basis?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| Have you ever talked to a woman before? Because I've asked
| plenty about what being a woman is like with regards to
| harassment and unwanted attention from men, and what they
| described to me might surprise you.
| perl4ever wrote:
| >Would it have been acceptable for a non-property-holding
| white male in 1820 to beat another man with a stick
|
| Definitely if they were congressmen.
|
| https://newrepublic.com/article/151817/violence-broke-
| congre...
| jasonv wrote:
| I don't read the article as necessarily defending the practice
| -- it talks about the mores of the time and why this might have
| been happening with more frequency for a spell. The article
| also notes that the practice dissipated as daily fashion trends
| shifted.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| You're assuming that women and men are on equal footing,
| physically. When you politely ask someone to stop invading your
| space, it's backed by your ability to push them out of it.
|
| If you're 6'2" and the other guy is 6'2" you're on pretty even
| footing. But if you're 5'1" and the guy is 6'2" you're not on
| even footing and shouldn't be expected to act like you are.
|
| This is to say nothing of how physically intimidating it is for
| someone to just enter your personal space like that. And when
| you're in an enclosed space like a carriage, you have no escape
| route. So in my mind stabbing the guy in the arm was pretty
| mellow. There's no telling where things would have gone from
| there.
|
| If you're at all concerned about getting stabbed in the arm,
| maybe get to know the other person before you invade their
| space.
| Sniffnoy wrote:
| > You're assuming that women and men are on equal footing,
| physically. When you politely ask someone to stop invading
| your space, it's backed by your ability to push them out of
| it.
|
| Disagre; it's generally backed by one's ability to raise a
| stink and possibly even call the police. That is to say, it
| relies on the force you can summon from having people
| (whether bystanders or professionals) recognize that you're
| in the right and rally to join you, not your own personal
| capacity for force.
| [deleted]
| epicureanideal wrote:
| I think stabbing someone has a very high chance of making the
| situation far more dangerous than just asking the person to
| stop.
|
| Also, it has been true for centuries that a woman screaming
| "help!" would draw the attention of all the men in the area
| (for example the carriage driver in this case) who would be
| eager to beat the other man to a pulp if he didn't stop
| harassing her.
|
| Women and children first into the lifeboats, remember? Most
| men do care about women as a class and even elevate their
| care for them above their concern for themselves.
|
| Also, although people might give a 5'1" man some leeway
| regarding using a stick against a 6'2" man if the 6'2" man
| attacked him first, I don't think anyone would find it
| acceptable for the 5'1" man to INITIATE the violence using a
| weapon merely because of the POSSIBILITY that the larger man
| might attack him.
|
| If you're in a bar and a large man says something insulting
| to you, do you just skip to attacking him because, if you say
| something insulting back he might attack you? If you do, I'm
| pretty sure you're the one who will be charged with a crime.
|
| You know, sometimes people who ask for directions then demand
| your wallet. Should I just attack everyone who approaches me
| for directions, because they might be a thief?
| whatshisface wrote:
| > _Also, it has been true for centuries that a woman
| screaming "help!" would draw the attention of all the men
| in the area (for example the carriage driver in this case)
| who would be eager to beat the other man to a pulp if he
| didn't stop harassing her._
|
| Is that really true?
| spanhandler wrote:
| _Heavily_ testified as a norm in early 20th century film,
| though of course that doesn 't mean it was in reality.
| jschwartzi wrote:
| I think you're taking this pretty far down the slippery
| slope. Someone who "mashes" up to you by taking advantage
| of the carriage bouncing and then slips his arm around you
| without saying anything is very different from someone
| asking you for directions. I could see the former being a
| prelude to assault, while the latter wouldn't be.
| cryptoz wrote:
| The former is not a "prelude" to assault, it _is_
| assault.
| floren wrote:
| "Got a light?" is a classic prelude to a mugging.
| rbecker wrote:
| > Women and children first into the lifeboats, remember?
|
| More than just an empty phrase: of the passengers on the
| Titanic, 72% adult women survived, 50% of children, and 16%
| of adult men: http://www.icyousee.org/titanic.html
| [deleted]
| crooked-v wrote:
| > Why not just tell him off and walk away?
|
| It's very simple to find many, many anecdotal cases where doing
| this does exactly zilch to actual stop harassment, and
| sometimes instead results in a man aggressively insulting and
| harassing the woman for daring to refuse his attention.
| epicureanideal wrote:
| Okay, but it's reasonable to at least attempt it before
| bashing or stabbing someone, right?
|
| The same thing could be said about many circumstances.
|
| Just because a non-violent attempt to defuse the situation
| doesn't work in 100% of cases doesn't mean it is okay to skip
| attempting it, and jump straight to stabbing or bashing
| someone.
| [deleted]
| crooked-v wrote:
| > it's reasonable to at least attempt it
|
| Now consider having to do that twice a day, every day or
| every other day, where in some X% of the cases the man
| involved may themselves turn violent immediately after
| being rejected.
| mlthoughts2018 wrote:
| I guess since it would be so inconvenient, just stabbing
| someone right away is ok... ?
| rbecker wrote:
| An armed society is a polite society...
| CarbyAu wrote:
| Why not the masher NOT be a dick in the first place?
|
| If this was an isolated incident, then what you say is
| reasonable. When it happens often, the deterrent clearly
| needs to be greater.
|
| And when you factor in average strength, generally
| restrictive clothing of the day, social norms, lack of
| rights.
|
| Bugger it, you may as well take a mile as an inch, you'll
| be prosecuted the same either way.
| oh_sigh wrote:
| > She could've first asked him to stop.
|
| Maybe the masher could have just asked her to stop stabbing him
| instead?
| save_ferris wrote:
| > She could've first asked him to stop.
|
| Sure, she could've. But how many times do you think she'd tried
| that in other circumstances with success?
|
| If you intentionally violate someone else's personal space,
| particularly with sexual intentions directed at a member of the
| opposite sex, you really have no right to assume an equally
| measured response, especially if you're the physically dominant
| one.
|
| The moment you decide that it's OK to touch someone
| inappropriately, you really have no standing to argue over the
| severity of the response. Let the court decide that one.
| deeblering4 wrote:
| Reminds me of a comedian who said "if I have $1000 dollars in my
| pocket while walking home at night, I have something that another
| man wants to take from me and it makes me feel scared. This is
| how it must feel to be a woman all the time, always having
| something that another man wants to take from you."
|
| I'm paraphrasing, but I thought this was an interesting
| perspective into a kind of vulnerability that a lot of men
| probably hadn't thought about.
| ramoneguru wrote:
| Dave Chapelle - Bird Revelation.
|
| I used to do shows for drug dealers that wanted to clean their
| money up. One time I did a real good set, and these motherf--
| kers called me into the back room. They gave me $25,000 in cash
| [...] I jumped on the subway and started heading towards
| Brooklyn at one o'clock in the morning. Never been that
| terrified in my life. I'd never in my life had something that
| somebody else would want. I thought to myself, "Jesus Christ,
| if motherf--kers knew much money I had in this backpack, they'd
| kill me for it." Then I thought: "Holy s00t, what if I had a pu
| --y on me all the time? That's what women are dealing with."
| [...] If those same drug dealers gave me a pu--y and said, "Put
| it in your backpack and take it to Brooklyn," I'd be like, "Ni
| --a, I can't accept this."
| [deleted]
| not2b wrote:
| I'm sure than in almost all of these cases, the woman had already
| led the man know that she objected to his attacks (and groping a
| woman without permission is an attack), either verbally,
| nonverbally, or both, and the idiot persisted. I'm all for the
| "hatpin girls".
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| > It was true, as social worker Jane Addams lamented, that "never
| before in civilization have such numbers of young girls been
| suddenly released from the protection of the home and permitted
| to walk unattended upon city streets and to work under alien
| roofs."
|
| Wow.
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