Comment Of The Day: 11 Incredibly Complicated Rules For Not Getting Assaulted

Today we learned about NYC maids taking self-defense courses to fend off would-be rapists. stetson37 suggests we circulate this handy guide as well:

The “What Have We Learned on Jezebel this Past Month” Guide to Not Getting Assaulted if You’re a Lady:

DON’T:

1. Be a judge. Criticizing and/or ordering men tells them you need to be tamed. It also triggers their natural rape instinct, like when a wolf or lion attacks its prey and the deer has the gall to run – this only invites further aggression from the predator, and men are by nature predators.
2. Be a cheerleader. Supporting men constitutes consent. Exempted: if your boyfriend’s on the team, or your outfit satisfies a condition for employment.
3. Be in the vicinity of a supply closet. Standing next to small, confined spaces tells men you want to be done in them.
4. Be a feminist. See #1.
5. Be ugly. You are clearly too grateful for any male attention to have been hurt by the experience. If anything, you violated him.
6. Have a job. See #s 1-3.
7. Be easily offended by crass comments, lewd behavior, and unsolicited touching. If you can’t be “one of the guys”, you won’t get treated like “one of the guys”. You don’t see guys raping their male buddies, do you? You want to be treated like one of the guys, right?
8. Respond to male intellectual discussion with wordy history lessons. Men have needs, and your consent, education, literacy, critical thinking skills, and brain aren’t any of them. This is why many social structures – such as your lesser pay, eroding reproductive rights, and assumptions about your drinking habits and sexual history – favor you ladies over men. You say you want equality, yet society favors you and we don’t hear you voluntarily giving up perks like always knowing when the opposite sex clearly likes you (e.g. groping, whistling, disturbingly locked-in eye contact, rape), getting to wear breezy skirts during hot summer months instead of taking home larger paychecks, or getting automatic monthly sick time instead of unequivocal and unquestionably Constitutionally-protected rights. You can’t have your cake and eat it too, ladies. Also, you should probably not be having cake to begin with (see #5).
9. Drink. Ever. Your default consent is “Yes” until you say “No”. Not being able to say “No”, or not being able to remember if you said “No”, count as “Yes”. Saying “No” also means “Yes”.

DO:

1. Be stoic, sane, virgin, cool, huggable, friendless, non-emailing, selfless, non-nosy, outspoken, unemployed, short, and pretty. This is all or nothing, ladies. A single failure voids all your hard work elsewhere.
2. Work and live in male-free zones, in order to avoid natural male urges which are natural. For all men. Remember: your attacker spends his time winning Super Bowls, running world banks, exposing state secrets, governating Cullyfornia, or drawing funny comics about office life under late stage capitalism. Men simply do not have the intelligence or willpower to comprehend what you really meant or wanted when you asked for that raise or responded to his request to come home with him or passed him on the street wearing heels and a non-burka outfit.

Please print and post this where you and your lady-friends can be reminded of how you are responsible for not seducing or misleading would-be attackers. Recommended areas easily accessible by women who aren’t asking for it include: kitchens, dining rooms, laundry rooms, children’s bedrooms, the house cleaning supplies section of Walmart, salad bars, yogurt retailers, Victoria’s Secret (but only during the day, when men are too busy earning manly paychecks to see you trying on suggestive clothing), and your nearest Sephora location.

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