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Path: utzoo!watmath!watnot!watdcsu!dmcanzi
From: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Newsgroups: net.women
Subject: Re: Rape (The nature of reality)
Message-ID: <1750@watdcsu.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 12-Oct-85 04:23:25 EDT
Article-I.D.: watdcsu.1750
Posted: Sat Oct 12 04:23:25 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 12-Oct-85 21:00:58 EDT
References: <25100002@smu> <25100003@smu> <2569@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi)
Organization: U of Waterloo, Ontario
Lines: 45
Summary: 

In article <550@oakhill.UUCP> hunter@oakhill.UUCP (Hunter Scales) writes:
>In article <1714@watdcsu.UUCP> dmcanzi@watdcsu.UUCP (David Canzi) writes:
>>                    You may feel that you have the right to do this or
>>that without getting accosted, but that doesn't mean you won't get
>>accosted.  A major point of my first posting was that moral judgements
>>have nothing to do with reality. ...
>
>>The whole point, the "nature of reality", is that reality will be and
>>will do what it bloody well pleases, whether you approve of it or not.
>
>	This, I believe, is her underlying objection to your posting.
>(If it wans't, it is my objection.) "Reality", in this case is social
>reality.  Social reality is what we choose to make it, not some
>objective, unchangeable reality.

To say that social reality is what "we" choose to make it is
misleading.  Social reality is the result of all our individual
decisions on how to behave.  Since each of us has only a limited
ability to influence other people, a great deal of social reality is
beyond any one person's control.  The only thing people can do about it
is learn how to deal with the things they can't control.  Such as by
self-defense and/or avoidance.

In my first posting on this subject, I was saying that there are some
things that women can't change, such as the existence of potential
rapists, and there are some things they can control, such as how easy a
target they are for potential rapists.  People seem to find the latter
more offensive than the former.

>                                  If we continue to tolerate rape as a
>given in our society, it will continue to perpetuate itself.  Only by
>demanding that rape, and murder and all violent acts, be treated as the
>crimes they are, can we hope for a better world.

They *are* treated as crimes.  They still happen.  With better law
enforcement and harsher penalties, they may happen less often.  But
they will still happen.

The words "tolerate rape as a given" are emotionally loaded.  The words
"acknowledge that rape can't entirely be eliminated" are less loaded
and more accurate.
-- 
David Canzi

There are too many thick books about thin subjects.