I gave up cycling after 2012 because it was frightening to share the road with people who used their vehicles as weapons of intimidation. The usually inarticulate, often homophobic comments were annoying but bearable. The shock of having a motorist pass a few inches from my left shoulder wasn’t.
I’d watch the driver’s actions as I tried to compose myself. More often than not, they’d watch me in their rear view mirror. Not for an instant, but for seconds, long enough to let me know that this was a deliberate act. I never responded. They could leave me in a heap by the side of the road, and they could probably get away with it. This happened to me at least once a week. A few acquaintances effectively told me to ignore it or get over it, but sixteen pounds of carbon fiber and aluminum wouldn’t protect me, and the inch of styrofoam on my head wouldn’t withstand a blow from a 4,000 pound vehicle. If they miscalculated their pass, I’d be dead.
And if the comments in the local papers were any indication, there was a fair possibility that someone would deliberately take me out. When a cyclist was killed in the Pittsburgh area, people would flock to the comments section to blame the rider. More often than not, the motorist was distracted, drunk, stoned, or operating the vehicle without a license. None of that mattered. After listing a litany of our communal transgressions and reminding us that we, as unlicensed, untaxed scofflaws, had no right to share the road in the first place, commenter after commenter would say the same thing: They wouldn’t be dead if they hadn’t been on the road. Why would you risk your life with so many dangerous drivers on the road? This is what happens when you take your toys out of the yard.
Comments such as these were indicative a widely held, if legally incorrect view that roads belonged exclusively to motorists; all others were transgressors, violators of some kind of natural order, and attempts to define roads as shared, communal spaces were met with scorn and a hatred that often manifested itself physically.
That their arguments often bolstered the need for bike lanes or more stringent enforcement of traffic laws mattered not. Collectively, they were irritated at being inconvenienced by sharing the road yet they ignored drunk, aggressive, or distracted drivers—or they claimed that such dangers were the price of freedom, implying or sometimes stating outright that additional restrictions, restrictions that would protect drivers as well as cyclists and pedestrians, posed the greater threat.
I would argue that individuals who hold these positions are motivated by a belief in their freedom to harm, which is in turn informed by a hierarchal worldview that views the concepts of equality and responsibility to others as a fundamental threat to a social order that favors members of some groups over others. We see this from people who resist the concept of roads as shared spaces. We see it from people who believe that they have a right to infect others by not wearing masks. We see it from cultural conservatives who see restrictions on their ability to discriminate as oppression. Those of us who advocate for equality often repeat the old aphorism, “equal rights for others doesn’t mean fewer rights for you. It’s not pie,” but this isn’t likely to sway someone who believes that their rights supersede someone else’s. This could explain the justification and dismissal of the harassment faced by many female runners.
In her article, “Women Deserve to Run Without Fear,” published by Runner’s World last fall, Christine Yu related stories of female runners who discussed their experiences with harassment. Incidents ranged from runners being subjected to unwanted comments to having men chase or follow them down trails and roads. According to a survey conducted by Runner’s World, 84% of female runners have been harassed.
The article’s premise—that women should be able to run without fear—shouldn’t be controversial. Indeed, most of the commenters, both female and male, were sympathetic. Many related personal experiences and described the lingering psychological effects of these encounters. Among the first was a fear of running alone.
Unfortunately, some commenters, hiding behind the veil of an anonymous user name, weren’t as supportive, as can be seen from their remarks.
Predictably, many, like this Phi Beta Kappa, focused on women’s attire:
Really… if you want to be seen as less than walking sex candy, cover up. You wear sexy workout gear that’s practically lingerie and get mad when you are hit on, stalked, etc. is it a self esteem thing? Honestly, even if you do it to attract an attractive person… why dress to attract everyone including undesirables? If the person you are looking for is on your level and in your league then you really don’t need to show it all off to get that quality persons attention. Just cover up and stop whining. I think it’s safe to say that this individual hasn’t run a 10K in 90° weather, but I can’t get over the sheer narcissism on display, as he isn’t willing to even consider the possibility that women aren’t dressing for men, or that women get harassed for simply . . . being women, regardless of their attire. In our next example, the gentleman attempts to engage his audience with a brief statement of sympathy (they often do) before revealing his true colors: As a civilized man, and a father ofva girl, I am sad such things are happening. But you cannot expect to run in remote, secluded areas in sexy attire, and not risk being attacked by an evil person. Have some common sense! All such articles do, is insite more negativity against men, and present women as the perpetual victims. I’m also a father of a boy, and I’m sick of crazy feminism. Pay no attention to the misogyny behind the curtain! I truly feel sorry for our “civilized man’s” daughter. Finally, nothing says enlightened like someone dictating how women should react to catcalls: Boo Hoo. Is this what constitutes a “strong woman” in today’s world? Poor wilted flower. This whole article is absurd. If a woman is in genuine danger, she deserves safety and protection. Someone saying she looks hot is not dangerous and diminishes the focus of the article. These posts were outliers in the larger discussion, but they reveal much about the psychology of harassment, why it’s still so prevalent, and how those who criticize the victims are angrier about the suggestion of a resolution than they are about the abuses in the first place. Each of posts above rightfully attracted a barrage of responses; it’s critical that we call out such attitudes and counter them with logic and appeals to equity. But many who do so often find that the men (and at least some women) who blame victims of harassment seem to be immune to accusations of double standards, impervious to invocations of rights and equality, and prone to seeing themselves as the victims of a larger plot to undermine personal liberties.
Social Dominance Orientation
The idea behind social dominance orientation dates back to the early 90s, and is described as a theory that:
postulates that societies minimize group conflict by creating consensus on ideologies that promote the superiority of one group over others (see also Sidanius, Pratto, Martin, & Stallworth, 1991). Ideologies that promote or maintain group inequality are the tools that legitimize discrimination. To work smoothly, these ideologies must be widely accepted within a society, appearing as self-apparent truths; hence we call them hierarchy-legitimizing myths.’ By contributing to consensual or normalized group-based inequality, legitimizing myths help to stabilize oppression. That is, they minimize conflict among groups by indicating how individuals and social institutions should allocate things of positive or negative social value, such as jobs, gold, blankets, government appointments, prison terms, and disease.
These hierarchy-driven ideologies are in direct conflict with equality-based arguments, though individuals with a high degree of SDO often invoke the concept of personal liberties. This could be summarized as “rights for me, but not for thee.” We might also accurately describe this as “the right to harm.”
When we argue that individuals have a right to partake of an activity such as running without fear of harassment or that most roads are publicly shared resources, we’re invoking an egalitarian concept of shared spaces where every individual is granted dignity and agency regardless of status, size, wealth, or mode of transport. It’s the Golden Rule, the essence of modern liberal democracy, and the basis for our responses to people who attack our freedoms.
People who invoke hierarchies are impervious to accusations of hypocrisy because they don’t acknowledge others, particularly members of less privileged groups, as equals in the first place. In fact, they explicitly reject these claims as threatening to their concept of social order, which is why many of them see themselves as the aggrieved party even as they attempt to assert their dominance. The responses to Yu’s article show this duality by trivializing very real concerns about verbal harassment, invoking the inevitability of assault, blaming women’s choice of venue and attire for such assaults, and claiming that such articles paint all men in a bad light, thus claiming the mantle of victimhood.
These opinions are undergirded by several implicit and explicit assumptions: that size, strength, and power should determine access to public spaces; in the case of gender-based harassment, that women’s bodies are commodities; that some people (drivers, men) are naturally and irrevocably dangerous; that people who transgress existing power structures are ultimately responsible for any harm; that women don’t deserve to occupy public spaces; and finally, that the perceived loss of liberties resulting from laws and changing social norms is more dangerous and harmful than leaving matters as they are. Liberty in this case might be defined as the freedom to harm—the freedom to see women in sexualized ways, the freedom to catcall and lear, and the freedom to reassert traditionally gendered spaces, which effectively means limiting women’s access to parks, trails, and streets.
It goes without saying that when a person in this category of people views the world through a hierarchal lens, they are less likely to view others as worthy of equal access, and they are more likely to violate the rights of others for that reason. And with every law or rule designed to protect the vulnerable, they’ll see themselves as the victims of ideologies that don’t genuflect to their idea of the “rightful order.”
This is why appeals to equality fail with them. What we see as equity and fairness, they see as loss of status and privilege. We see this with the president and his mixture of bullying, grievance, and double standards. We see it with people who claim that lockdown drills and bullet-proof backpacks are the price we pay for their right to own assault rifles. We see it with mask protestors who believe that their right not to be inconvenienced, their right to infect, usurps public health. We see it when people who call people snowflakes and wilted flowers express outrage at flag protests—and articles about female runners being harassed.
Hope for Change
I see arguments as performative act not intended to change minds necessarily but as useful ways to engage people who are open to change. There will always be holdouts who take up bandwidth and claim a sense of grievance at what they perceive to be a loss of liberties, but society can change, and change rapidly. Vast numbers of people opposed drinking and driving laws, until rather quickly they didn’t. In 2009, most Americans opposed gay marriage; seven years later, a plurality supported it. With the rise of #Metoo and a growing awareness of the need to safe access to public space, I hope, I believe, that views like those expresses in the comments will become increasingly unpalatable and confined to unseemly spaces, even if we can’t abolish them entirely.
In the meantime:
Women can and should be able to run wherever they please without being catcalled, stalked, threatened, or harmed.
Running in the summer gets hot. A woman’s choice of clothing is not an invitation. She’s not dressing this way for an audience. As for tights in the winter, they’re comfortable and efficient. Again, she isn’t wearing them for someone else’s pleasure.
Women have the right to occupy public spaces. This isn’t 1830.
