Terrorist attack at OSU?

[Tybee]

I stand corrected. Diversity Officer was in a headline for another article covering this issue.

The news on this story is getting weirder. There is a story now out about how he was taking a class and had to do a group project on microaggressions. Yikes, what a confluence of themes, sorry you are affected by this personally!

[Yarrow]

Now, if you take a deep breath and look at the statistics, odds are pretty low you'll ever run into this sort of thing, so there's no sense going through life being fearful.

I think all women live their lives being fearful and on guard. It's the price any female pays in this society from birth. Sure it's unlikely we'll be hit by a terrorist or struck by lightening, but being attacked, assaulted, raped, or sexually molested as a little girl happens everyday. I've certainly been a victim and 75 percent of the women I know have been too. You want to talk about going through life fearful - a woman has to constantly be on high alert. Doesn't matter if she's considered attractive or not, or even if she's just a child, it's just what we females deal with everyday. It's our reality. Sadly.

[creaker]

Well, sometimes fear motivates us to be more prepared and on guard..........

It seems for most people it just motivates them to be fearful. The "prepared" part would be education, and training, and practice, maintaining a regimen a bit like one would expect a soldier to do - but most people don't do that. I admit I haven't, but given the odds it's not at the top of the list of things I need to do.

[ApatheticNoMore]

I think all women live their lives being fearful and on guard.

I tend to think feelings of overall (not in a particular circumstance like that dark alley at night, or that scary seeming person etc.) of safety and danger are by and large irrational, part of the personality, but not for any real reasons, and so attempts to link them to this and that cause aren't really. Of course if one is attacked one might fear that again, obviously, but I don't think all women are afraid all the time.

When I was a little upset about a shooting at a university here where I was taking a class (ok there one day a week - not there when this happened) noone seemed to be much interesting in talking to me about it and it was a flash in the pan as far as news. But it doesn't seem to have a scary terrorist!, scary Muslims!, angle so just another shooting in America ho hum. Really it seems to have been a targeted personal vendetta and not indiscriminate but noone knew that at the time.

[Teacher Terry]

When I went to grad school at a big university I had one semester that I had to attend 2 nights a week and no one to walk with. This was before cell phones and pepper spray was illegal. They always had a campus rapist and it was before escorts to your cars were available either. So I carried a can of oven cleaner and walked with my finger on the trigger. As a kid I had an older boy from high school grab my crouch as he walked by. I went back to my school and reported it immediately and he never did it again. I was about 10. Then when I was 18 my friend and I were walking early at about 6 am and it was light out and a man grabbed my breast as he walked by. We started to yell at him and throw rocks and he ran fast.

[rosarugosa]

ANM: Interestingly enough, I feel safe most of the time. Probably without any particularly sound reason (although I do generally try to avoid dangerous situations), but I think it is somewhat a matter of an individual's state of mind. I am often armed with nothing more lethal than a pine cone or an acorn. Then again, some women might be forced by circumstances to be in less safe situations, so I don't mean to make light of that.