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From: mgflax@phoenix.princeton.edu (Marshall G. Flax)
Newsgroups: misc.handicap
Subject: Re: blind politics
Message-ID: <15998@handicap.news>
Date: 6 Jun 91 15:40:14 GMT
References: <15958@handicap.news>
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Reply-To: mgflax@phoenix.princeton.edu (Marshall G. Flax)
Organization: Princeton University
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Fidonet: Blink Talk Conference

Index Number: 15998

In article <15958@handicap.news> Tim.Cumings@p0.f460.n101.z1.fidonet.org writes:
>Index Number: 15958
>
>I wonder how many of you saw the article in the Braille Monitor a couple
>of months ago entitled "I'd Rather be Mugged," written by Michael
>Bailiff. In the article Mr. Bailiff describes how he was almost mugged
>one night near the campus of Yale University, but when the mugger found
>out he was blind he decided not to mug him. Mr. Bailiff argues that he
>shouldn't be given any special treatment, because he is blind. I agree
>with this principle to an extent, but I feel Mr. Bailiff has taken it to
>its absurd conclusion. Can you imagine a woman writing into a newspaper
>that she would rather be raped than be exempt from that violent crime
>because of her blindness. Apparently, Mr. Bailiff would agree with this
>position. Principles are important, but when they are seen as more
>important than people's lives,  that's where I draw the line. I'd like
>to know what other people think about this. I'm sure there are members
>of both blind consumer organizations on this echo, as well as members of
>neither.
>

Tim,
	It seems to me that your analogy between robbing a blind person
and raping a woman fails on several counts.  The first point is that
women are raped *because* they are women -- we live in a society that,
in uncountably many ways, says that it is acceptable to treat women as
objects of desire and violence.  If women were treated as men, they
wouldn't be raped.  If men were treated as badly as women are, there
would be an outcry the likes of which have never been experienced in
this country.  If I were a woman, I would love to be free of the
additional violence that I would face solely because I was a woman.
Violence, in this country, is decreasing against men and increasing
against women.  Coincidence?

	The second point on which the analogy fails is that, while rape
is always a deliberately violent act, simple robbery may often be purely
economic.  And being economic, it is fair to compare it to other
economic factors.  So I can understand a blind person who would rather
have $100 stolen from him/her once than perpetuate sterotypes that keep
him/her underemployed or unemployed.  I can also understand a woman who
says that she would rather not have to face *additional* violence as a
woman.

	Perhaps a better analogy would be the following: a woman who
would rather lose her job than wear high-heels because submiting to a
corporate culture that demands that women have their rears stuck up into
the air perpetuates an athmosphere that encourages men to rape women.
/****************************************************************************/
/* Marshall Gene Flax '89       (609)258-6739  mgflax@phoenix.Princeton.EDU */
/* c/o Jack Gelfand|Psychology Dept|Princeton University|Princeton NJ 08544 */
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