WEBVTT

1
00:00:18.460 --> 00:00:23.160
It's been about two years, and like I mentioned already, this was a street rape where a total

2
00:00:23.160 --> 00:00:25.240
stranger grabbed me and pulled me in an alley.

3
00:00:25.240 --> 00:00:32.300
So since that time, I can feel in my body when I'm in the streets or in the halls or

4
00:00:32.300 --> 00:00:35.500
a building or anything, a tension across the back of my shoulders.

5
00:00:36.120 --> 00:00:39.800
I'm always super aware there might be someone back there who's going to grab that.

6
00:00:39.800 --> 00:00:41.780
It's like you feel tense. You actually feel tense.

7
00:00:41.960 --> 00:00:47.120
Yeah, I really feel tense, and I feel very tense when I see men, particularly black men,

8
00:00:47.120 --> 00:00:50.180
on the street because the man who raped me was black.

9
00:00:50.900 --> 00:00:57.800
And I resent that a lot because I never had a racial problem before.

10
00:00:58.520 --> 00:01:02.080
I still live in a biracial neighborhood. I've always chosen to.

11
00:01:02.180 --> 00:01:04.460
I just like that part of the city anyway.

12
00:01:05.820 --> 00:01:09.600
But I do have this thing in my head to deal with that.

13
00:01:10.420 --> 00:01:19.120
And then I take a lot of precautions, and I resent like hell the fact that I have to think about doing that.

14
00:01:20.960 --> 00:01:22.940
And carrying weapons and all that stuff.

15
00:01:22.980 --> 00:01:26.820
I never thought about that three years ago, and now I do.

16
00:01:27.960 --> 00:01:31.960
But the part that pisses me the most is I don't want to live like a soldier.

17
00:01:31.980 --> 00:01:36.680
I'm a civilian, and we have to.

18
00:01:37.800 --> 00:01:43.780
This is what's really bad, and I would like for women to get, women generally, to be enraged about just that.

19
00:01:44.640 --> 00:01:47.280
No, I'm really, I'm very, very angry.

20
00:01:47.440 --> 00:01:50.380
This just happened to me like I was telling you about a month ago.

21
00:01:50.520 --> 00:01:57.360
And I'm angry. I'm angry too. I'm so angry that I feel like I would kill.

22
00:01:57.380 --> 00:02:00.680
You're angry at that man, but you're not angry at him in general.

23
00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:04.560
No, I'm not angry at anybody in particular. I'm not angry at him either.

24
00:02:04.960 --> 00:02:06.380
Just the whole situation?

25
00:02:06.560 --> 00:02:08.220
I couldn't be angry with him in a sense.

26
00:02:09.220 --> 00:02:13.140
The whole situation is the fact that this stuff even happens.

27
00:02:14.080 --> 00:02:18.180
I think that's inexcusable. I think it's inexcusable that this stuff even has to happen.

28
00:02:18.960 --> 00:02:25.580
On the other hand, I know that while I was being raped and for a long time afterwards, I never felt angry.

29
00:02:25.860 --> 00:02:30.300
I didn't feel anything. I was just glad to be alive.

30
00:02:30.940 --> 00:02:31.960
That was my reaction.

31
00:02:32.460 --> 00:02:37.560
But later on, like after I heard so many other women talk about their experiences,

32
00:02:37.560 --> 00:02:45.820
I mean I feel much more in touch with that kind of primitive sort of anger that would make me feel like,

33
00:02:45.960 --> 00:02:49.160
boy, if this ever happens to me again, I just want to blow his brains out.

34
00:02:49.260 --> 00:02:54.300
Just remembering what it feels like to not know if this guy is another Richard Speck.

35
00:02:54.680 --> 00:02:58.680
I didn't know what he was going to try to do to us after he raped us.

36
00:02:59.280 --> 00:03:01.940
And you just never know if you're going to come out of this alive.

37
00:03:01.940 --> 00:03:08.580
And that's what's so ironic to me about the attitude on the part of psychiatrists and the police who say,

38
00:03:09.060 --> 00:03:10.760
why that can enjoy it?

39
00:03:11.380 --> 00:03:12.260
Oh boy.

40
00:03:12.540 --> 00:03:15.900
They just think that rape is just a simple screw.

41
00:03:16.600 --> 00:03:23.400
Yeah. You know, people had sex. Someone was dominant. Someone was passive. Sex was had.

42
00:03:23.920 --> 00:03:30.340
And the word rape is something that they just don't understand or relate to very much or take very seriously.

43
00:03:31.240 --> 00:03:37.120
Well, yeah. This man in my class, he said, he honestly said, well, don't most women want to be raped?

44
00:03:37.140 --> 00:03:38.140
Oh my God.

45
00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:39.940
Well, really, you can't see her in that.

46
00:03:39.940 --> 00:03:44.880
I can't even comment that men really, you know, innocently think that.

47
00:03:45.060 --> 00:03:47.500
Well, I mean, what can you say? Innocently expect.

48
00:03:48.020 --> 00:03:53.920
Yeah. See, you can't get mad at every single individual guy who comes up with a stupid remark like that

49
00:03:53.920 --> 00:03:57.800
because that myth has been so deep in society for so long.

50
00:03:57.800 --> 00:04:04.620
Everybody has things that they believe about the opposite sex or, you know, some other kind of person.

51
00:04:04.800 --> 00:04:06.320
Do they? I'm not sure I do.

52
00:04:07.620 --> 00:04:12.000
I wouldn't have thought I did either until recently.

53
00:04:13.120 --> 00:04:14.900
When, you know, talk about consciousness raising.

54
00:04:15.840 --> 00:04:24.720
A lot of these things, things you always took for granted or sort of believed, you know, that you have to come to terms with.

55
00:04:25.220 --> 00:04:25.940
Like what?

56
00:04:25.940 --> 00:04:32.300
Well, okay, getting into the thing like male sexuality is a good example of it because for years as a little girl,

57
00:04:32.300 --> 00:04:37.060
I believe that you had to watch out for seducers, which is really ironic.

58
00:04:37.760 --> 00:04:43.240
That, you know, the smooth talker who was only interested in one thing and that kind of stuff

59
00:04:43.240 --> 00:04:45.320
and that the world was full of guys like that.

60
00:04:45.320 --> 00:04:48.980
Well, it isn't. There's hardly any of those kind of guys around.

61
00:04:49.100 --> 00:04:51.180
Oh, yeah. I'm gonna post on this.

62
00:04:51.240 --> 00:04:52.400
Oh, yeah.

63
00:04:52.760 --> 00:04:54.280
I would say they're probably out there.

64
00:04:54.280 --> 00:04:56.960
I don't meet smooth talkers. I don't know.

65
00:04:57.200 --> 00:05:03.840
I do. That brings us to the whole notion of like women's space on the street, anywhere.

66
00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:05.900
It's like constantly being violated.

67
00:05:06.400 --> 00:05:11.200
I mean, rape is not just a literal physical act of putting the penis in your vagina.

68
00:05:11.200 --> 00:05:11.420
People putting their hands on you.

69
00:05:11.460 --> 00:05:12.360
Right. Exactly.

70
00:05:12.640 --> 00:05:18.140
I'm not making comments at you, catcalling. It's like they presume.

71
00:05:18.500 --> 00:05:20.220
The arrogance of that is just...

72
00:05:20.220 --> 00:05:26.720
I'm much more paranoid of things happening to me on that level than of actually being physically attacked, raped.

73
00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:32.700
Or just meeting someone who's, you know, I'd like to get to know you, you know,

74
00:05:32.840 --> 00:05:34.540
I'd like to make it with you immediately.

75
00:05:34.620 --> 00:05:38.380
Well, you mean just having the drag of having to deal with that kind of stuff.

76
00:05:38.400 --> 00:05:45.780
To cope with them on that level, you know, and feeling like, oh, I'm not a friendly person because I'm not...

77
00:05:45.780 --> 00:05:51.620
Oh, boy. What you're talking about, things that bother you, no longer bother me in the slightest.

78
00:05:52.040 --> 00:05:57.340
They used to. I don't know if, you know, being raped caused a big change in me,

79
00:05:57.340 --> 00:06:02.960
but I can deal with men or anyone, anyone who's going to be hostile or something,

80
00:06:03.000 --> 00:06:07.420
and in a social framework, you know, with no qualms at all now.

81
00:06:07.720 --> 00:06:11.000
I mean, those situations just don't intimidate me.

82
00:06:11.000 --> 00:06:14.300
Usually my feeling is that I'm never severe enough.

83
00:06:14.600 --> 00:06:16.740
Like, the other night this guy came by and he said,

84
00:06:16.760 --> 00:06:20.060
what's a beautiful thing like you doing out on the night of the man?

85
00:06:20.220 --> 00:06:22.960
Thing, right? And I just went, huh!

86
00:06:23.820 --> 00:06:26.280
He was just stunned that he would say that.

87
00:06:26.540 --> 00:06:29.440
And my ideal response would just be to go,

88
00:06:29.780 --> 00:06:34.100
before he even got the last word out of his mouth, is to shove his teeth right down his throat.

89
00:06:34.700 --> 00:06:37.260
That's what I mean. That's the way they are going to learn.

90
00:06:37.820 --> 00:06:39.800
That is just so swift.

91
00:06:41.660 --> 00:06:47.000
I mean, I just, like, why should I waste my energy to stop and tell him that that is offensive?

92
00:06:47.660 --> 00:06:51.200
No, no, I never do that. I never do that.

93
00:06:51.200 --> 00:06:52.980
I just want to beat him up.

94
00:06:54.380 --> 00:06:57.440
I have a friend who's raising two little girls.

95
00:06:58.140 --> 00:07:02.520
She was going through all these conflicts, like her kids and her two girls get attacked on the playground

96
00:07:02.520 --> 00:07:04.460
by these bands of little boys.

97
00:07:04.460 --> 00:07:07.480
See, she has taught them not to fight back.

98
00:07:07.880 --> 00:07:11.440
She's, like, conflicted about their acting out aggression and stuff.

99
00:07:11.940 --> 00:07:15.440
And that, like, brought back to me all the times when I was a little girl.

100
00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:18.740
Boys would throw snowballs at me. They'd pick up my dress.

101
00:07:18.880 --> 00:07:21.960
They'd steal my marbles, chase me home from school.

102
00:07:21.980 --> 00:07:26.780
Then when I got older they would ride on their bikes with their pea shooters and shoot peas at our legs.

103
00:07:27.280 --> 00:07:30.000
And I thought, you know, this is like unmitigated aggression.

104
00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:34.240
But my mother and all the mothers I've ever heard of would say to their daughters,

105
00:07:34.500 --> 00:07:36.200
it's because they like you.

106
00:07:36.460 --> 00:07:36.740
Oh my God.

107
00:07:36.740 --> 00:07:37.200
Right.

108
00:07:37.760 --> 00:07:41.400
And it sets up this kind of thing that gets real confusing.

109
00:07:41.720 --> 00:07:45.340
Adolescents, when you go through this kind of game playing stuff with boys,

110
00:07:45.780 --> 00:07:49.440
like, well, maybe yes or no, you're not sure, you know,

111
00:07:49.480 --> 00:07:54.060
because it's your burden in society as the woman to say no and set the limits.

112
00:07:54.600 --> 00:07:58.680
So boys never know, well, are those real limits or does she want me to or not?

113
00:07:58.680 --> 00:08:02.640
I think that a lot of confusion gets in there.

114
00:08:03.040 --> 00:08:08.640
It may be that a lot of women who get raped never get beyond the place where they blame themselves

115
00:08:08.640 --> 00:08:13.840
and feel like it all happened in some sort of karmic way, well, I deserve this.

116
00:08:13.860 --> 00:08:21.640
Like when I was working the rape line, like a lot of women called and just expressed this kind of sense that,

117
00:08:21.920 --> 00:08:27.360
well, I got into that car, well, I let that person into my house, you know,

118
00:08:27.360 --> 00:08:29.160
and like, well, I must have deserved it.

119
00:08:29.220 --> 00:08:37.300
And I can just say, what kind of a society is it where you have to expect that if you go to the grocery store at 11 at night

120
00:08:37.300 --> 00:08:42.700
or you come home from a movie the way I did and walk into my entryway that I deserve this?

121
00:08:42.980 --> 00:08:49.520
I wonder if a lot of it is like not really even knowing whether you wanted it or not.

122
00:08:49.640 --> 00:08:50.540
I mean, maybe it's...

123
00:08:50.540 --> 00:08:51.760
That's a confusing thing again.

124
00:08:51.840 --> 00:08:53.780
That's one of those things you don't want to think about.

125
00:08:54.160 --> 00:08:54.700
Oh, it's so stupid.

126
00:08:54.700 --> 00:08:56.260
You don't want to have sex or not.

127
00:08:56.260 --> 00:09:05.060
But see, now that's the whole thing because I can have any number of fantasies that are a little bit off the wall.

128
00:09:05.140 --> 00:09:07.160
But they're my fantasies.

129
00:09:07.160 --> 00:09:08.260
And you're doing them.

130
00:09:08.460 --> 00:09:10.580
I am creating those fantasies.

131
00:09:10.600 --> 00:09:14.520
And if they are fantasies in which I am being taken or overwhelmed,

132
00:09:14.960 --> 00:09:18.680
that is not what happened to me with a gun at my head.

133
00:09:18.740 --> 00:09:23.880
There is no coincidence between my fantasies and the real actual act of rape.

134
00:09:23.880 --> 00:09:32.200
I don't believe that there is a woman who can want to be raped in what we know as what rape really is.

135
00:09:32.860 --> 00:09:33.380
I can't either.

136
00:09:33.520 --> 00:09:35.120
I can't believe anybody would want that.

137
00:09:35.220 --> 00:09:39.020
The thing about did I want to be raped or not that so many women go through,

138
00:09:39.380 --> 00:09:41.880
the fact is that they want sexual satisfaction.

139
00:09:42.500 --> 00:09:43.980
They haven't had it in their lives.

140
00:09:44.040 --> 00:09:45.160
Very few people really do.

141
00:09:45.180 --> 00:09:50.200
I mean, there's a lot of sexual activity and very few people who are truly satisfied with their sex lives.

142
00:09:50.840 --> 00:09:55.780
And having discussed this kind of thing with a lot of women in recent months,

143
00:09:56.480 --> 00:09:58.860
you know, it debunks a whole lot of that stuff for me.

144
00:09:58.860 --> 00:10:00.140
And I know I'm not a freak.

145
00:10:00.220 --> 00:10:01.860
I know, you know, I'm a normal woman.

146
00:10:02.280 --> 00:10:03.880
I want sexual satisfaction.

147
00:10:03.960 --> 00:10:04.200
Who doesn't?

148
00:10:05.020 --> 00:10:07.020
All human beings want that, male and female.

149
00:10:07.060 --> 00:10:10.300
And part of this ridiculous woman on a pedestal thing,

150
00:10:10.460 --> 00:10:14.500
a woman being a piece of merchandise and a statue on a pedestal

151
00:10:14.500 --> 00:10:17.320
and a guardian of public morality all at the same time.

152
00:10:17.560 --> 00:10:18.460
I want to be on a pedestal.

153
00:10:18.460 --> 00:10:20.740
That's a great contradiction, isn't it?

154
00:10:20.900 --> 00:10:24.560
You see, the thing between being on a pedestal and wanting sexual satisfaction,

155
00:10:24.740 --> 00:10:26.500
maybe that has something to do with it.

156
00:10:27.220 --> 00:10:27.860
Yes, it is.

157
00:10:27.960 --> 00:10:29.600
No, I want to be on a pedestal, man.

158
00:10:29.740 --> 00:10:31.900
Listen, my father didn't love me when I was a little girl.

159
00:10:32.100 --> 00:10:33.140
I want to be on a pedestal.

160
00:10:33.140 --> 00:10:36.940
Okay, now let's define what we mean by being on a pedestal.

161
00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:37.120


162
00:10:37.120 --> 00:10:38.120
Okay, respect.

163
00:10:38.200 --> 00:10:39.160
I want respect.

164
00:10:39.580 --> 00:10:44.180
Okay, that's not, okay, I make a big difference between that and being a statue.

165
00:10:44.920 --> 00:10:46.720
Being this lovely example.

166
00:10:46.720 --> 00:10:48.800
Right, it means being on a pedestal.

167
00:10:48.940 --> 00:10:52.360
You can't be somebody else's idea of you is, you know,

168
00:10:52.600 --> 00:10:54.740
like something that someone else is doing.

169
00:10:57.400 --> 00:11:02.580
That's the thing, maybe, is the thing about men thinking that women want to be raped.

170
00:11:03.140 --> 00:11:07.500
Men know that women have sexual feelings, right?

171
00:11:07.580 --> 00:11:11.040
They know that they don't, that they're not telling their feelings, right?

172
00:11:11.040 --> 00:11:11.500
So many, so many.

173
00:11:12.180 --> 00:11:14.140
They're not being out kind about what they do want.

174
00:11:14.140 --> 00:11:17.900
That's the only way I can understand when men say that kind of stuff.

175
00:11:18.080 --> 00:11:18.500
And they know.

176
00:11:18.500 --> 00:11:20.420
I guess they don't talk to women.

177
00:11:20.540 --> 00:11:24.060
That's the problem is men and women don't talk to each other in this society.

178
00:11:24.280 --> 00:11:25.720
You know, that's what the problem is, man.

179
00:11:25.740 --> 00:11:28.040
Men and women do not talk to each other in this society.

180
00:11:28.480 --> 00:11:30.220
Men and women do not love each other.

181
00:11:30.480 --> 00:11:31.340
They think they do.

182
00:11:31.420 --> 00:11:32.440
They need each other.

183
00:11:33.000 --> 00:11:39.660
But as a sex, women don't really like men, basically, I don't feel, and vice versa.

184
00:11:39.960 --> 00:11:41.240
They don't like women either.

185
00:11:41.860 --> 00:11:45.780
Well, there's, you know, there's a battle of sex that's been going on for a long time.

186
00:11:45.780 --> 00:11:49.540
And now with, you know, feminism on the increase, thank God,

187
00:11:50.140 --> 00:11:55.220
some of the stuff is polarized a little more strongly about the battle of the sexes.

188
00:11:55.220 --> 00:11:56.280
But that's making it worse.

189
00:11:56.880 --> 00:11:59.140
Well, it's making it worse and making it better.

190
00:11:59.280 --> 00:12:01.300
I mean, we just have to go through it.

191
00:12:01.580 --> 00:12:03.120
No, I mean, I think there's other ways to do it.

192
00:12:03.660 --> 00:12:05.500
Well, I think there are, but how do you do it?

193
00:12:05.880 --> 00:12:07.260
Women shouldn't talk to people.

194
00:12:07.540 --> 00:12:09.280
Be hostile, is that what you're saying?

195
00:12:09.280 --> 00:12:11.280
Be hostile, somebody deserves it.

196
00:12:12.620 --> 00:12:14.040
I think all men do.

197
00:12:14.420 --> 00:12:15.700
I don't, I hate men.

198
00:12:15.780 --> 00:12:19.580
Why do you think men in the class are more hostile than we in the class?

199
00:12:20.780 --> 00:12:23.000
Because they're the ones in power.

200
00:12:23.840 --> 00:12:25.080
They're aggressive.

201
00:12:26.380 --> 00:12:28.160
They define everything.

202
00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:29.700
This is how it is, right?

203
00:12:30.320 --> 00:12:33.220
They have total control over their...

204
00:12:33.220 --> 00:12:34.280
But they don't.

205
00:12:35.060 --> 00:12:36.140
Not anymore.

206
00:12:36.600 --> 00:12:38.980
Listen, I understand what you're saying.

207
00:12:38.980 --> 00:12:42.160
But they're going to try to exert control.

208
00:12:42.820 --> 00:12:43.960
Sure, they do it all the time.

209
00:12:44.020 --> 00:12:46.180
But God's a perfect example of control.

210
00:12:46.200 --> 00:12:48.000
If a woman stands up and says,

211
00:12:48.160 --> 00:12:49.540
I have control of my own life,

212
00:12:50.440 --> 00:12:51.980
the immediate male reaction...

213
00:12:51.980 --> 00:12:53.340
Don't say it, just do it.

214
00:12:54.140 --> 00:12:56.840
And, no you don't, I have control here.

215
00:12:57.220 --> 00:12:58.460
Oh, I heard that.

216
00:12:58.520 --> 00:13:00.480
I heard that from innumerable men.

217
00:13:01.260 --> 00:13:03.140
The trick is not to care what they think.

218
00:13:03.480 --> 00:13:07.640
Right, but you have to go through a process where you're at least in touch

219
00:13:07.640 --> 00:13:09.440
with the fact that it's important.

220
00:13:10.040 --> 00:13:11.300
Now, I really feel...

221
00:13:11.300 --> 00:13:13.800
As women, our power is on the rise.

222
00:13:14.200 --> 00:13:15.320
That's all there is to it.

223
00:13:15.380 --> 00:13:15.880
It really is.

224
00:13:16.400 --> 00:13:18.140
And my God, look what's happened to men.

225
00:13:18.620 --> 00:13:21.360
Look at the crummy kind of beings they're becoming.

226
00:13:21.500 --> 00:13:23.100
They're just so pathological.

227
00:13:23.300 --> 00:13:26.700
I mean, how many women do you know who are supporting their husbands?

228
00:13:26.900 --> 00:13:27.860
The guys are drunk.

229
00:13:28.180 --> 00:13:35.500
What gets me is that women are so much into a thing of supporting men.

230
00:13:36.420 --> 00:13:36.940
Emotionally.

231
00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:38.460
There's nothing wrong with that, is there?

232
00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:41.600
It's like the man is more important than you.

233
00:13:41.840 --> 00:13:46.240
And you listen to him, you talk about all his problems,

234
00:13:46.740 --> 00:13:51.680
and help him, you know, and like put all this energy into what he's doing.

235
00:13:52.360 --> 00:13:53.240
Into his career.

236
00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:56.440
You can't live your own life and do that too.

237
00:13:58.320 --> 00:13:59.380
So don't do it.

238
00:13:59.720 --> 00:14:01.000
Right, so don't do it.

239
00:14:01.100 --> 00:14:03.380
But it's a trap, it's a real trap.

240
00:14:03.380 --> 00:14:09.760
Because you can get a lot of satisfaction out of caring for someone.

241
00:14:09.860 --> 00:14:12.660
Looking after their so-called needs and things.

242
00:14:12.940 --> 00:14:16.060
There's something very safe about that kind of social role.

243
00:14:16.560 --> 00:14:20.880
I think that one reason, it's very easy to say, Carol, don't do it to a lot of women.

244
00:14:20.960 --> 00:14:23.840
But a lot of women don't know any of their alternatives right now.

245
00:14:24.340 --> 00:14:26.140
Women do not have at this time.

246
00:14:26.160 --> 00:14:26.640
Yeah, it's safe.

247
00:14:26.640 --> 00:14:33.620
If you can assert yourself, your own self, then you're going out on a limb.

248
00:14:34.100 --> 00:14:38.680
But if you disappoint someone else in what they do, if they succeed, fine, you feel good.

249
00:14:38.740 --> 00:14:40.480
If they fail, you get to comfort them.

250
00:14:40.660 --> 00:14:41.960
And you never take any risks.

251
00:14:42.020 --> 00:14:45.020
And you don't take any risks and you don't get any out of it.

252
00:14:46.280 --> 00:14:49.860
You've just got to find out the place where you can't bear it anymore.

253
00:14:51.300 --> 00:14:54.500
You get to a point where you simply can't stand to live that way.

254
00:14:54.500 --> 00:14:56.160
It's your line of line resistance.

255
00:14:56.640 --> 00:14:59.020
And you have to change your life and your situation.

256
00:14:59.480 --> 00:15:02.940
And I think, you know, I've certainly gotten to that point myself.

257
00:15:03.040 --> 00:15:04.340
And I've done it.

258
00:15:04.380 --> 00:15:07.580
But I'm lucky because socially I can handle anything.

259
00:15:08.400 --> 00:15:12.740
You know, I can go on TV shows and discuss this stuff.

260
00:15:12.800 --> 00:15:18.000
And I am not going to feel the slightest bit inferior to any guy.

261
00:15:19.260 --> 00:15:20.240
Well, it's the way I am.

262
00:15:20.340 --> 00:15:21.380
I wasn't always that way.

263
00:15:21.380 --> 00:15:26.500
I mean, I have acquired that moxie through mostly from talking to women

264
00:15:27.160 --> 00:15:31.640
and going through the experiences related to a whole lot of the challenges,

265
00:15:31.840 --> 00:15:33.060
having to do with the rape.

266
00:15:33.960 --> 00:15:35.080
So that's interesting.

267
00:15:35.120 --> 00:15:36.360
That says something, doesn't it?

268
00:15:36.600 --> 00:15:41.820
The more the oppression gets piled on, I mean, the more people will rise up.

269
00:15:42.020 --> 00:15:47.380
It's just that this patriarchal system has gotten so perverted that it isn't working.

270
00:15:47.620 --> 00:15:48.740
And so it's impossible.

271
00:15:48.740 --> 00:15:51.740
And so we go in and walk away from everybody.

272
00:15:52.780 --> 00:15:54.500
I'm from sexism, really.

273
00:15:54.600 --> 00:15:55.820
I mean, it's no better for the men.

274
00:15:55.900 --> 00:16:01.160
That doesn't negate my right and need as a woman to have a separate movement,

275
00:16:01.460 --> 00:16:05.940
separate organizations, separate social clubs, places where women will be together.

276
00:16:05.940 --> 00:16:06.840
I hope you think I wasn't buying that.

277
00:16:06.840 --> 00:16:09.320
Okay, I just wanted to make sure I could say that.

278
00:16:09.520 --> 00:16:15.780
Because I feel that that's one thing that will force men into getting that stuff straightened out among themselves.

279
00:16:15.800 --> 00:16:17.280
Yeah, they'll have to work out their own issues.

280
00:16:17.280 --> 00:16:20.500
They won't have that woman sitting there and listening to all their problems.

281
00:16:20.540 --> 00:16:22.020
They're going to have to turn to other men.

282
00:16:22.540 --> 00:16:23.540
Right. So you don't have to do this.

283
00:16:23.620 --> 00:16:29.400
It might be a dangerous thing to say this, but like the guy who jumped me,

284
00:16:29.560 --> 00:16:33.080
as far as he himself is concerned, I'm not particularly angry at him.

285
00:16:33.980 --> 00:16:41.720
I am, I am, but I'm far angrier at these slobs who wear black robes and sit on judges' benches.

286
00:16:43.080 --> 00:16:48.300
Because the actual, you know, a goofy guy, your stereotype, you know,

287
00:16:48.500 --> 00:16:51.880
working class klutz who goes around raping women on the street,

288
00:16:52.620 --> 00:16:57.740
is just a kind of poor slob who is sicked on you by a system that condones this.

289
00:16:58.400 --> 00:17:03.760
God knows how many women this guy had raped, been picked up for, released.

290
00:17:04.140 --> 00:17:08.060
In other words, they're saying, yeah, yeah, yeah, this is the formality you go through and you go out and do it again.

291
00:17:08.060 --> 00:17:13.860
This is what the male establishment really, and I don't think it's a cliche to call them that in this instance.

292
00:17:14.200 --> 00:17:17.340
It's telling them, go out and do it again. Okay, we don't know.

293
00:17:17.580 --> 00:17:24.160
I went to court with this woman who, from Spanish-speaking, she had been raped.

294
00:17:24.660 --> 00:17:30.380
And the police officer on that case was talking to me about why so few rape convictions happen.

295
00:17:31.260 --> 00:17:36.140
And he said then, and he said, oh, because too many women have cried rape.

296
00:17:37.360 --> 00:17:40.200
Now that's a myth. That is really a myth.

297
00:17:40.900 --> 00:17:42.940
Bullshit. Well, that's what his attitude is.

298
00:17:43.180 --> 00:17:50.080
He said, I had a woman come in and she claims that she was raped and she picked the guy out of a lineup.

299
00:17:51.220 --> 00:17:54.020
She identified his picture in the mug, shot the duck.

300
00:17:54.760 --> 00:17:59.260
And this guy says, now I just don't believe that she's got the right man.

301
00:18:00.760 --> 00:18:01.680
The cops are down there?

302
00:18:01.680 --> 00:18:07.180
He says, given the West Side Gang structure, he said, I don't see how that guy could have been at that place.

303
00:18:08.460 --> 00:18:13.940
So here you have the police officers making their prejudicial little judgments.

304
00:18:14.520 --> 00:18:19.800
Here's what more can a woman do besides identifying her out of a lineup and picking a picture up.

305
00:18:19.800 --> 00:18:21.240
What she's supposed to do, you know.

306
00:18:21.800 --> 00:18:24.100
She needs to know about the West Side Gang structure.

307
00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:25.840
Yeah, right.

308
00:18:26.240 --> 00:18:29.160
And so here he is saying he just doesn't believe her.

309
00:18:29.160 --> 00:18:34.160
It's just very clear to me that at the police station and at the state's attorney's office,

310
00:18:34.500 --> 00:18:40.620
these men who are responsible for bringing charges and indicting that the rapists are not doing it

311
00:18:40.620 --> 00:18:46.460
because they simply have so much, so many myths in their own heads that they just don't believe it.

312
00:18:46.740 --> 00:18:50.740
And in this case, this guy said, he admitted that he had an intercourse with her.

313
00:18:51.140 --> 00:18:53.540
He just said, but she consented.

314
00:18:53.680 --> 00:18:56.740
And he got up on the stand and he was so believable.

315
00:18:56.740 --> 00:19:03.720
And I thought, this man, the defendant, had a rape conviction in California.

316
00:19:04.240 --> 00:19:07.440
Now that rape conviction was not admissible in court.

317
00:19:08.760 --> 00:19:12.260
Now it just so happens in this case that this woman was a virgin.

318
00:19:13.380 --> 00:19:14.260
Oh, God.

319
00:19:15.000 --> 00:19:21.100
She was impregnated during the rape in a devout Catholic and had to have an abortion.

320
00:19:22.340 --> 00:19:24.200
You know what that's going to do to her head?

321
00:19:24.200 --> 00:19:24.980
Yeah, right.

322
00:19:25.220 --> 00:19:31.380
Even if she hadn't been a virgin, et cetera, et cetera, say she'd been a mother of two children and she wasn't married.

323
00:19:31.640 --> 00:19:35.640
You know damn well that that's the first thing the defense attorney is going to bring out in court.

324
00:19:35.860 --> 00:19:40.020
The only point I'm making there is just that if you want to have any kind of sexuality,

325
00:19:40.460 --> 00:19:43.720
what business is it of anybody else, particularly the court?

326
00:19:43.900 --> 00:19:50.400
But in fact, it is crucial business to them because unless you were white, married, totally respectful,

327
00:19:50.400 --> 00:19:56.440
if you are black, if you have any kind of sexual life and you're not married, you can forget it.

328
00:19:56.620 --> 00:19:59.540
I was raped four times, five times by this man and beat up to boot.

329
00:19:59.620 --> 00:20:01.460
And you know what they're going to get him on? Battery.

330
00:20:02.100 --> 00:20:03.960
I was kidnapped. I was tortured.

331
00:20:04.640 --> 00:20:05.960
Did you come home from the rape?

332
00:20:06.460 --> 00:20:08.000
Oh, that's what they always do.

333
00:20:08.140 --> 00:20:10.140
Because they say they don't have a good enough case.

334
00:20:11.080 --> 00:20:14.540
I have witnesses, people who heard me scream, all kinds of stuff.

335
00:20:14.840 --> 00:20:18.500
And they're not, number one, I don't know what their problem is,

336
00:20:18.500 --> 00:20:21.520
but it's the legal system itself apparently that works against it.

337
00:20:21.600 --> 00:20:22.580
It's set up that way.

338
00:20:22.580 --> 00:20:25.160
Well see, they think that rape is not a winnable charge.

339
00:20:25.920 --> 00:20:30.500
So they would always rather either reduce it to a misdemeanor or change it to assault,

340
00:20:30.700 --> 00:20:33.020
which is theoretically easier to prove.

341
00:20:33.860 --> 00:20:39.060
And it's like it's true, if you cannot prove immediate out of crime in force, you don't have any chance.

342
00:20:39.060 --> 00:20:42.540
That's right. The fact that I was raped four times before means I'm a whore.

343
00:20:42.700 --> 00:20:43.060
Right.

344
00:20:43.640 --> 00:20:44.920
My boyfriend, which is about as crazy.

345
00:20:44.920 --> 00:20:49.000
Because women are commodities, they're merchandise, so you use merchandise.

346
00:20:49.240 --> 00:20:50.440
You had a presentation you went to?

347
00:20:52.100 --> 00:20:52.100


348
00:20:53.580 --> 00:20:55.060
You just kept coming back and waiting for me.

349
00:20:55.100 --> 00:20:56.160
I kept letting him in.

350
00:20:56.820 --> 00:20:57.800
But you...

351
00:20:57.800 --> 00:21:00.280
I was afraid that he was going to kill me.

352
00:21:00.280 --> 00:21:00.720
Uh-huh.

353
00:21:00.940 --> 00:21:03.660
If I told anybody about this, I was afraid he was going to kill me.

354
00:21:03.660 --> 00:21:07.000
That's the state of mind I was in. I was frightened to death.

355
00:21:07.380 --> 00:21:09.440
It's not that far off, you know, because...

356
00:21:09.440 --> 00:21:11.820
It's not. I mean, it's one woman that we've been to court with.

357
00:21:11.820 --> 00:21:16.660
After she got a conviction, she was gang raped by four men.

358
00:21:17.120 --> 00:21:21.140
She took that case to court and we won the case. It was really wonderful.

359
00:21:21.640 --> 00:21:25.520
Since that time, her house has been burned down, her boyfriend has been shot.

360
00:21:26.100 --> 00:21:29.300
All I'm saying is that when you do go to court on these things,

361
00:21:29.620 --> 00:21:32.760
like this woman who just lost a case from the Spanish community,

362
00:21:33.040 --> 00:21:35.960
all his friends know that she tried to get one of their buddies.

363
00:21:36.200 --> 00:21:36.520
Yeah.

364
00:21:37.020 --> 00:21:40.720
He has threatened to take out vengeance on her family.

365
00:21:40.720 --> 00:21:45.140
So there are all these factors that militate against a woman's going forward.

366
00:21:45.340 --> 00:21:45.500
Right.

367
00:21:45.620 --> 00:21:46.640
And standing up for herself.

368
00:21:46.980 --> 00:21:49.640
Right. And since her chances are that she's going to lose the case,

369
00:21:49.880 --> 00:21:52.380
that guy's right back out on the street in her neighborhood.

370
00:21:52.740 --> 00:21:53.380
Doing it again.

371
00:21:54.300 --> 00:21:54.300


372
00:21:54.540 --> 00:21:57.380
This dragged on for a whole year. She was in and out of court.

373
00:21:57.480 --> 00:22:00.580
In and out of court. Had to tell her story over and over again.

374
00:22:01.080 --> 00:22:03.840
But by the end of that case, she was a wreck.

375
00:22:03.860 --> 00:22:04.460
That's right.

376
00:22:04.640 --> 00:22:08.600
You know, and I just... I felt like if I had been advising her from the start,

377
00:22:08.600 --> 00:22:11.300
I would have told her don't go through with it. You don't have a chance.

378
00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:17.180
The police told her on a Friday that she could wait three days before she went to the hospital.

379
00:22:18.540 --> 00:22:21.440
They didn't say, look, if you want to have a chance in this case,

380
00:22:21.440 --> 00:22:23.900
you have got to go to the hospital right now.

381
00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:30.180
But even then, three days later, she had such bad bruises on her neck and her arms and her breast

382
00:22:30.180 --> 00:22:32.500
that they were written down in the medical report.

383
00:22:32.880 --> 00:22:33.280
Mm-hmm.

384
00:22:33.500 --> 00:22:38.240
The judge receives the medical report, glances at it, and throws it out.

385
00:22:38.240 --> 00:22:43.500
Says there's no way, he said, a woman who is 21 years old can be raped.

386
00:22:44.400 --> 00:22:45.240
Oh, okay.

387
00:22:45.260 --> 00:22:46.180
There's no way.

388
00:22:46.220 --> 00:22:46.640
No way.

389
00:22:46.720 --> 00:22:49.240
Up in Chicago, he said. Well, in fact, she'd grown up in Mexico.

390
00:22:49.940 --> 00:22:50.380
Ignorant.

391
00:22:50.480 --> 00:22:51.960
But nonetheless, I mean...

392
00:22:51.960 --> 00:22:56.480
No, it's just absurd. I mean, okay, these are the kind of people we have as judges.

393
00:22:56.600 --> 00:22:57.020
Right.

394
00:22:57.320 --> 00:22:58.620
Now, what kind of... Yeah.

395
00:22:59.280 --> 00:23:03.580
I mean, they're political appointees. I mean, they, you know, it just ain't like in the movies.

396
00:23:03.580 --> 00:23:07.980
They indulge themselves in all their sexist things.

397
00:23:08.300 --> 00:23:08.380
Sexist.

398
00:23:08.420 --> 00:23:10.220
Yeah. They just have a ball, man.

399
00:23:10.400 --> 00:23:15.960
The one study on rape that's been done by Amir shows that rapists do not differ from normal men

400
00:23:15.960 --> 00:23:19.460
except on one point, which is the tendency to act out violence.

401
00:23:19.860 --> 00:23:20.300
Yeah.

402
00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:21.980
That doesn't mean they're crazy.

403
00:23:22.180 --> 00:23:22.560
No.

404
00:23:22.900 --> 00:23:25.180
But see, everybody says, oh, rapists are crazy.

405
00:23:25.580 --> 00:23:27.460
Well, they're not any crazier than anybody else.

406
00:23:27.880 --> 00:23:29.700
Except for the one I got.

407
00:23:29.700 --> 00:23:30.800
Well, now that may be an assumption.

408
00:23:30.800 --> 00:23:31.720
No, but he was crazy.

409
00:23:31.720 --> 00:23:33.000
Well, that's really what we're talking about.

410
00:23:33.000 --> 00:23:35.640
Crazy bad rap and sane men rape. I mean, this is what we're saying.

411
00:23:35.760 --> 00:23:36.020
Mm-hmm.

412
00:23:36.540 --> 00:23:41.620
And a hell of a lot of sane men who are going to mug an 80-year-old man on the street with a wallet...

413
00:23:41.620 --> 00:23:42.980
The fact that no rape does not make a man crazy.

414
00:23:42.980 --> 00:23:44.400
It's going to rape. You know.

415
00:23:44.400 --> 00:23:44.720
Right.

416
00:23:44.720 --> 00:23:46.320
It's going to pounce on anybody vulnerable.

417
00:23:46.380 --> 00:23:48.180
It'll make it right. And women are vulnerable.

418
00:23:49.620 --> 00:23:52.680
The reason I say he's crazy is because this guy does stupid things.

419
00:23:53.440 --> 00:23:56.140
He does very stupid things. Like, he asks for a jury trial,

420
00:23:56.220 --> 00:23:59.280
and what he should do is plead guilty and get a lesser sentence.

421
00:23:59.280 --> 00:24:03.440
Oh, a jury trial is... Aren't they often asked for a jury trial?

422
00:24:03.940 --> 00:24:04.660
They do.

423
00:24:05.060 --> 00:24:05.520
Because they get more...

424
00:24:05.520 --> 00:24:06.720
Jury trials, yeah.

425
00:24:06.860 --> 00:24:12.160
Because those defense lawyers, you know, the guy's defense attorney, he's very skillful.

426
00:24:12.160 --> 00:24:18.540
He's going to make damn sure that he selects a jury of people with the right kind of social prejudices

427
00:24:18.540 --> 00:24:21.160
who believe that rape is socially sanctioned.

428
00:24:21.280 --> 00:24:24.120
I mean, they don't believe they believe that, but he knows that they believe that,

429
00:24:24.120 --> 00:24:26.440
and those are the people he's going to let be on the jury.

430
00:24:26.920 --> 00:24:30.460
And these criminal lawyers are making a bundle, and...

431
00:24:30.460 --> 00:24:32.280
Oh, it's so utterly corrupt. I don't know.

432
00:24:32.520 --> 00:24:35.260
You know what they do? They take a glass of water and move it around.

433
00:24:35.360 --> 00:24:37.320
Say, now put your finger in this glass of water.

434
00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:41.160
See, you can't do it. So how could a man rape a woman who doesn't want to be raped?

435
00:24:41.920 --> 00:24:44.000
But you're not a glass of water. That's all that's good.

436
00:24:44.000 --> 00:24:47.700
With a gun in your head, you think I'm going to move around with a knife at my throat?

437
00:24:47.920 --> 00:24:50.480
Or it doesn't even take a weapon. If a woman knows...

438
00:24:50.480 --> 00:24:52.140
It's bigger than you are, and you don't know how to do it.

439
00:24:52.160 --> 00:24:55.120
Right. You don't know what's... Right. You don't know what's going to happen to you,

440
00:24:55.120 --> 00:24:57.460
and so you submit. You scare them. Right.

441
00:24:58.260 --> 00:25:00.420
That's just... You know, and they know that.

442
00:25:00.440 --> 00:25:03.500
They know it's not reasonable. They just do it to be pricks.

443
00:25:04.080 --> 00:25:06.080
I mean, the thing is, it's so distressing.

444
00:25:06.700 --> 00:25:09.760
Life is, you know, life is the safest thing around.

445
00:25:10.220 --> 00:25:13.460
Everybody has hostilities. Everybody has unhappiness.

446
00:25:13.480 --> 00:25:15.000
They might as well take it out on someone.

447
00:25:15.460 --> 00:25:19.120
And if women are going to be obvious victims in society, I mean, oh, it's just...

448
00:25:20.220 --> 00:25:23.920
So much of this stuff is programmed into people from childhood.

449
00:25:23.920 --> 00:25:27.900
The victims and the assailants.

450
00:25:28.520 --> 00:25:29.760
And it's just really disgusting.

451
00:25:30.020 --> 00:25:36.360
That's why I can have some sympathy for the poor Slav rapist,

452
00:25:36.500 --> 00:25:44.780
as opposed to state's attorneys and people like that, who aren't, you know, just aren't doing doodly-squat.

453
00:25:44.780 --> 00:25:45.920
Right. It's a system that...

454
00:25:46.540 --> 00:25:51.120
The system or a whole set of social-cultural norms that contributes to this behavior.

455
00:25:51.120 --> 00:25:54.920
Individuals aren't... You can say, in the eyes of the law,

456
00:25:55.040 --> 00:25:57.500
one whole is individually responsible for their behavior.

457
00:25:57.620 --> 00:25:59.420
Not really. It doesn't work out that way.

458
00:25:59.780 --> 00:26:02.060
But you still want the rapists to be convicted, right?

459
00:26:02.280 --> 00:26:04.920
Oh, yeah. I want them to be shot.

460
00:26:06.320 --> 00:26:11.140
How does that fit in? I mean, if it's society's fault, right?

461
00:26:11.600 --> 00:26:17.140
Then, I mean, do you have any conflicts about, you know, like...

462
00:26:17.140 --> 00:26:19.160
Well, I have conflicts in my case.

463
00:26:19.160 --> 00:26:26.540
I mean, I let the guy go. We found him. He was like, I guess, like, forget, maybe he was 17.

464
00:26:27.160 --> 00:26:33.400
I felt sorry for him, you know. My friend who was with me, she felt sorry for him, you know.

465
00:26:34.620 --> 00:26:36.140
And I think that...

466
00:26:36.140 --> 00:26:37.440
How did you feel sorry for him?

467
00:26:38.760 --> 00:26:43.500
Well, he was black. I felt bad about, you know, I knew what kind of treatment for him.

468
00:26:43.500 --> 00:26:48.480
You know that this is a racist society. You know that black people are getting fucked over in the courts.

469
00:26:48.480 --> 00:26:52.400
You know that a white man is going to, most of the time, walk out of there.

470
00:26:52.820 --> 00:27:00.080
The more we sit here and talk this way, you know, I'm making a decision that I'm going to suspend a lot of my activities.

471
00:27:00.300 --> 00:27:09.300
And I'm going to get myself a good self-defense course before I do, you know, any more activist stuff to help other women regarding the health problem and all that.

472
00:27:09.520 --> 00:27:12.500
You know, why don't I get my own thing together better?

473
00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:17.800
And I think the best thing I can do is get a really good self-defense course under my belt, so to speak.

474
00:27:17.800 --> 00:27:28.000
And I have that. Then I will have more self-confidence and savvy and whatever I need so that I can, you know, relate,

475
00:27:28.740 --> 00:27:31.760
I believe it or not, a more relaxed level to the environment.

476
00:27:32.020 --> 00:27:38.780
I would just say that we know of a person in Hyde Park who was a black belt in karate who got killed.

477
00:27:40.020 --> 00:27:40.560
Oh, one of the weapons.

478
00:27:40.880 --> 00:27:46.200
Yeah, he disarmed one man with a gun, but there were two or three of them, and somebody else had a gun and he didn't know about that.

479
00:27:46.200 --> 00:27:48.080
Yeah, he wasn't using his head the right way.

480
00:27:48.740 --> 00:27:56.340
But the point is the average punk that I'm going to have to worry about nowadays on the street probably doesn't have a gun.

481
00:27:56.460 --> 00:28:03.520
He's probably just an opportunist. He sees a woman who's like 5'2", walking around alone, and he goes, oh boy, rape time, you know.

482
00:28:04.200 --> 00:28:10.960
And, you know, and there's I think a hell of a lot more guys like that around for me to worry about than a bunch of guys with guns.

483
00:28:10.960 --> 00:28:16.480
I really dig what you're saying, Laverne, about what it does to your head. It makes you more aggressive. It makes you more alert.

484
00:28:16.500 --> 00:28:18.760
I will feel better. I will feel better.

485
00:28:19.620 --> 00:28:25.400
When I was raped, I was like the man followed me into my lobby of my apartment building,

486
00:28:25.500 --> 00:28:31.160
and I was trying to get the key and the door to the, you know, the lock, and he came in behind us.

487
00:28:31.460 --> 00:28:36.020
I was with another friend who lived in the apartment above me and pulled out a gun.

488
00:28:36.860 --> 00:28:44.720
Well, at that point, at that close range, I mean, your immediate kind of reaction is simply paralysis,

489
00:28:45.600 --> 00:28:47.820
because you don't want to make any fast moves.

490
00:28:48.500 --> 00:28:58.500
And I know like one of the first things the police asked me after I'd been raped, see this man fell asleep on top of me with a gun in my head,

491
00:28:58.720 --> 00:29:03.800
and I turned the gun out of his hands, and well, you know, he was on drugs or something.

492
00:29:03.800 --> 00:29:09.880
He was like really out of it. And I had an opportunity to take the gun out of his hands, which I did.

493
00:29:10.300 --> 00:29:15.680
So I explained this to the police, and they said, you mean you had the gun in your hand and you didn't shoot him?

494
00:29:16.820 --> 00:29:18.860
Well, you haven't had police training either.

495
00:29:19.360 --> 00:29:26.080
I mean, you know, someone who's been through all that is, you know, going to forget how it was not to be conditioned to use a gun.

496
00:29:26.280 --> 00:29:30.600
I took the gun out of his hand and put it under the mattress. I just lay there.

497
00:29:30.600 --> 00:29:38.460
Now, if I had any kind of self-defense, and more importantly, if I had been in a place where I really cared about myself

498
00:29:38.460 --> 00:29:44.840
and was angry and in touch with the way I was feeling at that point, which I wasn't, I could have really beaten him up.

499
00:29:45.000 --> 00:29:51.960
But I didn't. I just lay there. I want to be able to express my own strength where I'm being attacked.

500
00:29:52.480 --> 00:29:58.620
See, this whole thing about pacifism, you're not a pacifist when you don't have any power to wield anyway.

501
00:29:58.620 --> 00:29:59.380
Yeah.

502
00:29:59.660 --> 00:30:05.620
Most of the oriental martial art things are about using a person's force against them.

503
00:30:05.640 --> 00:30:06.340
Yeah, right.

504
00:30:06.820 --> 00:30:12.680
I can dig that, but I also think it's impractical to expect a lot of women to do that.

505
00:30:12.800 --> 00:30:17.680
And I think that if we're going to be effective in preventing rape, in terms of precautions,

506
00:30:18.040 --> 00:30:21.640
when I'm alone walking on the street, for one thing I hear a whistle.

507
00:30:22.760 --> 00:30:31.780
And another thing that I've started doing is when I know I'm being followed, I turn around and look to see who it is, what they look like.

508
00:30:31.780 --> 00:30:32.860
I do that too now.

509
00:30:33.140 --> 00:30:33.560
Across the street?

510
00:30:34.160 --> 00:30:35.840
Yeah. And that's the next point.

511
00:30:36.500 --> 00:30:44.600
The thing is you can't wait until the man is close enough to you to have a gun on you to find out what his intentions are.

512
00:30:45.000 --> 00:30:49.920
And so my recommendations would be that you change your direction three times.

513
00:30:49.920 --> 00:30:57.560
And if at that point that man is still following you, you have every right at that point to blow your whistle and take out whatever weapon you have,

514
00:30:57.820 --> 00:31:00.740
like tear gas or anything else, and spray it.

515
00:31:00.780 --> 00:31:09.080
I'm not recommending that women carry knives or guns because both of those things, unless you're an expert in using them, they can be turned against you very quickly.

516
00:31:09.720 --> 00:31:13.500
You have to be super willing to use them as well as able to use them too.

517
00:31:13.500 --> 00:31:14.980
Sure. You have many things.

518
00:31:14.980 --> 00:31:21.500
Right. And I don't think that if I were surprised, you know, I'm not sure I could do that.

519
00:31:21.580 --> 00:31:29.980
One thing you can do is carry a long flashlight with gas in it. You can get any kind of things that aren't going to really hurt someone.

520
00:31:30.400 --> 00:31:33.840
That's fighting them with the same bullshit they're putting on you. And that's what I don't want to do.

521
00:31:33.840 --> 00:31:38.160
But I don't want to have to do hand-to-hand combat with anybody. I don't want to let them get in that close.

522
00:31:38.340 --> 00:31:42.040
And I'll do some things to warn them beforehand, like I'll change direction.

523
00:31:42.680 --> 00:31:51.660
But if that person is still coming after me the third time I've crossed the street or I've changed direction, at that point I don't need to know anymore.

524
00:31:51.840 --> 00:31:55.200
Then people say, oh, well, what if he's completely innocent?

525
00:31:55.280 --> 00:32:03.220
Well, I think men have to learn that they're going to have to change the way they walk the streets if they are innocent, that they don't come up close to you,

526
00:32:03.660 --> 00:32:08.780
that they don't get it, they don't come into your lobby while you're trying to get in the inside door. They wait outside.

527
00:32:08.780 --> 00:32:13.060
Because they've got to understand that women are going to be on the offensive now.

528
00:32:13.460 --> 00:32:19.520
What about what you were saying about the way that you were raped, which was like in your hallway until you came in?

529
00:32:19.920 --> 00:32:25.100
Okay, let me tell you what happened. This man walked by us going in the opposite direction.

530
00:32:26.520 --> 00:32:30.080
We saw him a long time before he came in the door after us.

531
00:32:30.380 --> 00:32:35.340
Now, if I had had this concept in my head and I'd seen a guy walking around at this time of night,

532
00:32:35.340 --> 00:32:39.440
first of all, I wouldn't have gotten out of my car then. I would have sat and waited.

533
00:32:40.000 --> 00:32:42.400
That's the thing I'm talking about in terms of consciousness. I don't mean like...

534
00:32:42.400 --> 00:32:49.020
Well, I think that's happening to us automatically. I think some of that is just, you know, we're kind of doing it, you know, because of what's happened to us.

535
00:32:49.240 --> 00:32:56.780
True, but everybody should have the kind of consciousness where when they walk out on the street, the reality of Chicago is that you could be killed at any time walking out on the street.

536
00:32:57.360 --> 00:32:59.940
It's the easiest thing to get away with. So you've got to be aware of that.

537
00:32:59.940 --> 00:33:04.640
I think most women take the Osbridge approach, which is very understandable.

538
00:33:04.880 --> 00:33:08.020
You don't want to admit to yourself that your life is endangered.

539
00:33:08.700 --> 00:33:15.360
Inside your home, outside on the street, when you go to a washroom in a public building, or in a park...

540
00:33:15.360 --> 00:33:16.560
Or you just try not to pay attention to anything.

541
00:33:16.560 --> 00:33:23.780
Right. It's so enormous, and the threats to you are so enormous that you just want to try and push back your mind and say,

542
00:33:23.780 --> 00:33:27.240
Well, if I thought about that all the time, I wouldn't live here.

543
00:33:28.260 --> 00:33:37.800
But not... See, it seems to me there's a third way of approaching it, which is to say, realistically, my life is really in danger from random violence.

544
00:33:37.860 --> 00:33:43.540
It really is, and I've got to take some steps to like counteract that, to take care of myself.

545
00:33:43.600 --> 00:33:45.700
And I think that...

546
00:33:45.700 --> 00:33:52.480
Yeah, women like have to learn how to love themselves. That's what I think. I mean, to really care for yourself more than you care for anybody else.

547
00:34:15.520 --> 00:34:15.580
Thank you.

548
00:34:27.160 --> 00:34:28.560
Thank you.