Irrational fear is even worse. The thing is, often that fear is self generated. it feeds on itself. It validates itself. It selects evidence that fits it’s world view and it denies any evidence that doesn’t fit. It is this facility for paranoia to select the evidence it will accept that allows people to convince themselves of the most unreasonable things…
- There are people who believe aliens abduct them every night
- There are people who believe the Illuninati are controlling the world
- There are people who believe that psychics can talk to the dead
- There are people who believe that Reptilian aliens live among us
- There are people who believe that television newscasters hid secret messages in their broadcasts meant just for them
And there are people who believe in a vast, globe spanning conspiracy of men to victimize women and a universal penchant for violence against them.
If you ever wonder what goes on in the mind of someone like that, the Internet has made it easy to find out – simply read what they write. Read it, then go to someplace like Above Top Secret and read the words of someone who believes the CIA is listening into their thoughts through their fillings. There is little difference.
The Biting Beaver shows us an inside look…
“Men occasionally come to the park after hours. Men who likely travelled with other men. Perhaps they were teenagers, not yet 21 but sure as hell in a grown male body.
My blood ran cold in my veins. I fumbled immediately for my fanny pack and my flashlight and then I paused and decided that a flashlight would sure as hell let any man know precisely where I was.
In a secluded forest, a place that has always been a sort of chapel to me, a place where I slip off the well worn trail and meditate for hours in the darkening forest I was scared. I was terrified because I know what men are like. I know through many painful encounters that a woman, in the middle of a forest, with no ability to defend herself, at night, is a target.
The coyotes closing in around me brought smiles to my lips and a sense of wonder and childlike safety and good humor. The thought of a group of young men sneaking into the park after hours to drink a stolen or illegally bought 6 pack of beer was bone chilling.
It occured to me then that there is no animal on this proud planet that is more dangerous to a lone woman than a man.
I scurried out of the park, thinking all the while about male hunters in the woods trying to poach the wildlife and what could possibly happen to me if they came upon me out there, defenseless.
It also occured to me that there is no place on this planet where I can go to feel safe from men. No place where my autonomy and body isn’t threatened, even if my actual chances of being harmed by a strange man in the woods are remote, I have FELT male violence my whole life and my head remembers it very clearly.” – The Biting Beaver commenting on Hearts blog
There really is no way someone liek that will ever see reality. The filters and the fear are to important to them… it defines them.
p.s. you will notice that I said “someone like that” – I did not say “this is what women think of men”, a common tactic of the paranoid.
No comments yet.