[sabraham]

As to being bigger and stronger, perhaps we should look to the nation of Japan and the feats its military was able to achieve with men roughly the size of north american women. Women are perfectly capable of defending themselves, not that they should have to, just like smaller men are perfectly capable of defending themselves, not that they should have to. These are again averages and if you look at the deviances you'll see that there are a lot of women who are larger than a lot of men.

Also, keep in mind that a man is twice as likely to be assaulted as a woman so from a statistical perspective it is men who should be fearing for their safety as they post their gender online.

Blatant misuse of "statistics." Not all assaults are equal. How many assaults toward men lead to their having thoughts of or committing suicide? Also, the implication that we should train women to a military standard so they are ready to fend themselves off from attack is absurd-- by your rationale, we should put all be proficient with switchblades and blame ourselves if we were unable to stop an attack. The causal is the perpetrator, and the culture that breeds feeling of ownership by men of women.

It wasn't so long ago that the law explicitly treated women as property, so let's not forget that too quickly. In the UK, it was in our parents' generation that women were allowed to have a mortgage (Sex Discrimination Act of 1975) and only two decades ago that marital rape exemption was abolished (until 1991, in the UK, legally a husband could not be charged with raping his wife).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_the_United_States#Rape_... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_in_English_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marital_rape#Common_law_and_the...

[jaredmck]

Fend themselves off from what attack? Oh yeah, a straw (wo)man attack. How is your argument not part of "the culture that breeds feeling of ownership by men of women"? Simply spectacular invocation of rape culture arguments, not that I've ever seen this topic discussed rationally.

No one needs to be trained to a military standard to fend off any type of vicious attack that might occur, because except in ultra-rare occasions they do not happen in first world countries. The true danger in our society is not physical at all, but mental- fear cuts down many lives by silently shaving off a million tiny slices, and those who fall victim to it never even knew they had a choice, or a chance. They just listened to the unspoken messages on TV.

[T-R]

> except in ultra-rare occasions they do not happen in first world countries

...That sounds a lot like you're implying that rape and assault don't happen very often in first-world countries... which would be a statement quite divorced from reality. Care to clarify?

[jaredmck]

They rarely happen in the "stranger danger" sense, which is really the only way the physical strength is defining any difference between men and women, as opposed to the social power difference being the factor that makes women more at risk for these types of attack.

[burgerbrain]

Compared with other hazards of life, they don't.

[T-R]

Perhaps not compared to, say, car accidents in the U.S., but that doesn't by any means imply that it's rare enough to not be a valid concern for potential victims.

From the wikipedia article cited above:

"Rape prevalence among women in the U.S. (the percentage of women who experienced rape at least once in their lifetime so far) is in the range of 15%-20%, with different studies agreeing with each other.

I'm personally not aware of any statistics that would justify calling rape an 'ultra-rare' occurrence in any part of the world; perhaps someone will enlighten me.

[sabraham]

except in ultra-rare occasions they do not happen in first world countries

You've scuttled your own argument here.