The Peril of Being Disbelieved: Horror and the Intuition of Women

MelmothTheLost

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I couldn't work out where this really belongs so if it's in the wrong place will a Mod please move it somewhere more appropriate.

There is a woman in a forest. Or maybe on a highway by a cornfield. At the doorway of a condemned building.

And she knows that something is wrong.

She is often accompanied by a date, a boyfriend, maybe a few friends. Maybe they’re kissing. Maybe everyone is drinking. Maybe they’re on vacation. And she abruptly stops having fun because something is off. The air is charged, the silence more silent than usual, the dark is full of eyes. But her boyfriend keeps kissing her, her friends are too drunk, the group wants to break into the shuttered old house. She says no, and she is teased or berated for being a buzzkill. She is weak for insisting that something is wrong, that more caution is called for than they would prefer to exhibit. She is making it harder for her boyfriend to investigate, to prove to her that he is tough enough to keep her imagined monsters at bay. All she wants to do is leave.

Someone (or everyone) dies that night. Of course they do. You knew you were watching a horror movie, so what did you expect?

http://www.tor.com/2017/04/13/the-peril-of-being-disbelieved-horror-and-the-intuition-of-women/
 
This is great. Thanks for posting it.

It’s because women know that it’s their responsibility to prevent harm from coming to them. Because no one will believe that it wasn’t her fault. Because no one will listen. Because bad things still happen to women who don’t keep their guard up, who don’t carry keys like claws and check the back seats of their cars before getting in.
 
This article reminded me of a very interesting book I'm eager to read: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence, by Gavin de Becker.

“Every day, people engaged in the clever defiance of their own intuition become, in mid-thought, victims of violence and accidents. So when we wonder why we are victims so often, the answer is clear: It is because we are so good at it. A woman could offer no greater cooperation to her soon-to-be attacker than to spend her time telling herself, “But he seems like such a nice man.” Yet this is exactly what many people do. A woman is waiting for an elevator, and when the doors open she sees a man inside who causes her apprehension. Since she is not usually afraid, it may be the late hour, his size, the way he looks at her, the rate of attacks in the neighborhood, an article she read a year ago—it doesn’t matter why. The point is, she gets a feeling of fear. How does she respond to nature’s strongest survival signal? She suppresses it, telling herself: “I’m not going to live like that, I’m not going to insult this guy by letting the door close in his face.” When the fear doesn’t go away, she tells herself not to be so silly, and she gets into the elevator. Now, which is sillier: waiting a moment for the next elevator, or getting into a soundproofed steel chamber with a stranger she is afraid of? The inner voice is wise, and part of my purpose in writing this book is to give people permission to listen to it.”

― Gavin de Becker, The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence
 
This article reminded me of a very interesting book I'm eager to read: The Gift of Fear: Survival Signals That Protect Us from Violence, by Gavin de Becker.
A must read for EVERY woman IMO!!
ETA: We need a "Gift of Fear" Thread! - I'm serious!
MOO
 
The article is about the podcast, but it gives a lot of examples of how being polite can get you into a dangerous situation.

Being “Polite” Often Gets Women Killed

True crime is having a moment — and podcasts like My Favorite Murder resonate with audiences because they reframe the narrative of female victimhood and provide tools for survival.

True crime is so often about women — women as victims, women as weak, women as objects of desire or rage — but rarely do women control the narratives, and allow female victims to be more than just bodies. Yet My Favorite Murder does just that and further sets itself apart by helping female listeners gain a sense of protection, control, or at least reassurance, as they attempt to reframe the narrative of female trauma.

The “*advertiser censored** politeness” credo that runs through My Favorite Murder also seems to be one of the greatest lightning rods for women who listen to the show. In Episode 45, Karen and Georgia cover Rodney Alcala, a convicted murderer and rapist who convinced women he was a fashion photographer in order to lure them to an abandoned building. Georgia recalled her own similar experience as a young woman in LA when a stranger asked to take her photo. “I feel so stupid but when I was 18, I was new to LA and I was so flattered that someone wanted to take my photo and it was the 90s, and I didn’t understand, and I thought I knew this person, he was so nice all the time,” she said. “When I say ‘**** politeness’ it’s because I’ve done **** that would’ve probably been really unsafe. I just want to cry thinking about it.”

“**** that ****,” Karen adds.

“I’ve accepted that it’s okay to say no to strangers or even people you know who ask you to do something that puts you in a risky situation,” a woman named Kellie wrote, “even if it means they think I’m not nice.” Kate said it’s made her more aware of her surroundings: “I’m able to discern the ‘gift of fear’ better.”

Another woman, Laurie, said she’s done apologizing for being rude if she’s uncomfortable. “I can’t apologize for a misunderstanding if I’m dead.”

SSDGM! :heartbeat:
 

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