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Comment by selmnoo | Hacker News Reader

> You just justified the attacks on her, which was the entire point of the article, saying that no attacks are justified, regardless of the situation.

No, he didn't. I have a daughter who I instruct to dress in a way that covers most of her body. This does not mean that I am justifying rapes that happen because some lustful men are aroused by scantily-clad women, it simply means I observed and recognized the reality of the situation, and realized that dressing in a certain way reduces the chance of an incident. The fact that there are men out there who are unable to control their urges is a separate thing (that we of course should be talking about as a society). Likewise, michaelochurch made an observation on what is a good strategy to reduce the chances of being hurt. He explicitly went on to mention that he wishes the reality of things weren't this way.

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> I have a daughter who I instruct to dress in a way that covers most of her body.

Honestly, you couldn't make stuff up like this if you tried. Amazing.

Is today 'purposely misread/ignore the point of posts and make a flippant content-less one-line reply' day or something? I'm a strong supporter of affirmative action programs, I go out of my way to get women and girls interested in programming, and I consider myself to be a feminist. I'm interested in getting results, and making practical and smart decisions for the day-by-day happenings.

As for you - please stop being this way, stop with the snippy replies, stop polarizing the crowds, what you're doing is unproductive. Step away from the keyboard and think about what you're doing here.

If you were to say, don't walk through the ghetto flashing your Rolex or you might be mugged, no one would consider that a controversial statement, not a justification for mugging.

It's only when sex is involved that people get a little weird.

No, it is when people makes statements that assumes we're living in a kind of environment that we refuse to accept we are living in.

And most of us are not living in places where "covering up" is a way to avoid rape.

Not least because the vast majority of rapes are date rapes, carried out by people known to the victim, not carried out by strangers. Covering up when going out is thus not advice that actually protects women in a noteworthy way.

If the intent is actually to protect women rather than to exert moralistic control over them and their sexual expression, we should expect said men to be more concerned about said women's boyfriends, spouses or other male friends, not worrying about the lengths of their skirts.

Ah ok, you're trolling - I should have realised.

Do you keep your door locked? Yes? Why should you? After all, it's not you who needs to guard your property, it's the thieves who should be told to stop stealing!

This is the exact same logic a lot of contemporary postmodern feminists use in arguments concerning rape. It's not about bondage and discipline, it's about risk management.

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