Elizabeth Barrette (ysabetwordsmith) wrote,
Elizabeth Barrette
ysabetwordsmith
  • Mood: busy

Dressing for Safety

In the long ugly debate of blaming the victim for many crimes, clothing often comes into question, and the general agreement is that clothes don't cause crimes, criminals cause crimes.

However, there is one clothing change that is very old, and if you can make it work, then it reduces certain types of crime by quite a lot -- crossdressing.  You have to be good enough to PASS or it just makes you more of a target.  But if men are looking for a woman to rape, and they think you're a man, they'll ignore you.  If they're looking for a man to murder, and they think you're a woman, they'll ignore you.

Right now, being a black man makes you look like murder bait to some people who are considered free to murder anyone they want with little chance of reprisal.  So I figured that I would point out this historic solution.  It's not ideal, but it might keep people breathing long enough to effect a longer-term solution. 
Tags: activism, gender studies, networking
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  • 21 comments
dhyvd

what about police uniforms?

dhyvd

December 5 2014, 05:06:36 UTC 6 years ago

I guess you could dress up as a female police officer, with big artificial breasts, and perhaps that would distract any would-be murderers. Of course, there is the problem of being a rape target, in that case, so....

(I like your straight-faced style of satire, though, very well written. Wish I could equal it.)
fayanora

Re: what about police uniforms?

fayanora

December 7 2014, 11:04:34 UTC 6 years ago

Okay now I'm wondering if it really is satire or not. Because I sure as heck didn't read it as satire. I tried re-reading it as satire and failed. If it IS satire, the problem with satire is that it runs the risk of being too close to reality, and thus falling flat on its face.

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