4 ms·

That seems like an outlier, while harassment is sadly commonplace, I know many women in SF/Oakland (arguably worse than Seattle) and they do not have enough iss

by s0rce 9y ago

That seems like an outlier, while harassment is sadly commonplace, I know many women in SF/Oakland (arguably worse than Seattle) and they do not have enough issues with harassment on public transit to prevent them from safely using it.

mrep 9y ago
"But is it actually an outlier or is that just what you have heard because every women I have talked to has been harrassed on the street. Women just don't talk about it with men because they usually ensue even more harassment saying it happens" AKA: #metoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement - My girlfriend's response after showing her this thread
- ergothus 9y ago
  This is almost certainly an issue. I'm in Seattle and am happy with the bus experience itself, though unhappy with the coverage. But I'm white, straight, and male and thus gifted with blissful ignorance of many of the worst problems (and likely unknowingly support some of the problems). FWIW tell your girlfriend that it sucks she's has these experiences and I'm glad you've shared the problem because I hadn't even thought about that aspect of bussing. I suspect some routes are dramatically worse than others. When I moved here I loved my bus at the time (the 41 - ran seemingly every 15 mins, had very few stops to slow it down) but my coworkers warned to avoid (whichever route) that ran to the methadone clinic, both for the constant stopping and for the odds of bad/awkward passengers. My wife has not told me of any particularly bad experiences, but she busses less often than I do and I have no idea what normal life is like for her when I'm not around, so I have no idea if her bus experience would count as "fine" by my expectations.
  - ergothus 9y ago
    ...As a topical follow-up, I just confirmed with my wife her Seattle bus experiences, and discovered a few points: * She has seen issues, but "only" had a few herself. "I'm not pretty enough to be harassed" is a crushing one sentence summary of the existence of harassment, the objectification of women, and what we've done to womens' self-confidence. * She reminded me of an issue I was present for - a guy was loudly declaring how horrible women (he used a number of other terms too) were. For me it was just extremely awkward, and I never registered how a woman would feel about her safety in the future after seeing that. My wife said that she wasn't afraid at the time, because I was present and several other men on the bus were telling him to sit down and shut up, but that she would definitely be influenced by this if she were boarding a bus that was only lightly occupied. This tells me how much men miss about the atmosphere for women even when present. * She mentioned that she usually doesn't take the bus downtown when traveling alone anymore because of regularly feeling too tense when she did. I hadn't really registered that. (in my partial defense, doing this when alone meant I wasn't around to see it, but it still seems a huge thing for me to miss). * She validates that some routes are more problematic than others. Heading to Harborview is worse than heading to Convention Place, as an example.
hncommnt 9y ago
I live in SF. My wife has started taking uber pool because she can no longer deal with the verbal and physical harassment on muni buses and trains by homeless and/or mentally unstable people (both men and women). I've had on multiple occasions had guys with no pants on smelling of feces sit next to me. I don't want to deal with that so I pay two to four bucks more and take an Uber Pool.

by s0rce 9y ago

mrep 9y ago

"But is it actually an outlier or is that just what you have heard because every women I have talked to has been harrassed on the street. Women just don't talk about it with men because they usually ensue even more harassment saying it happens" AKA: #metoo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Me_Too_movement - My girlfriend's response after showing her this thread

ergothus 9y ago
This is almost certainly an issue. I'm in Seattle and am happy with the bus experience itself, though unhappy with the coverage. But I'm white, straight, and male and thus gifted with blissful ignorance of many of the worst problems (and likely unknowingly support some of the problems). FWIW tell your girlfriend that it sucks she's has these experiences and I'm glad you've shared the problem because I hadn't even thought about that aspect of bussing. I suspect some routes are dramatically worse than others. When I moved here I loved my bus at the time (the 41 - ran seemingly every 15 mins, had very few stops to slow it down) but my coworkers warned to avoid (whichever route) that ran to the methadone clinic, both for the constant stopping and for the odds of bad/awkward passengers. My wife has not told me of any particularly bad experiences, but she busses less often than I do and I have no idea what normal life is like for her when I'm not around, so I have no idea if her bus experience would count as "fine" by my expectations.
- ergothus 9y ago
  ...As a topical follow-up, I just confirmed with my wife her Seattle bus experiences, and discovered a few points: * She has seen issues, but "only" had a few herself. "I'm not pretty enough to be harassed" is a crushing one sentence summary of the existence of harassment, the objectification of women, and what we've done to womens' self-confidence. * She reminded me of an issue I was present for - a guy was loudly declaring how horrible women (he used a number of other terms too) were. For me it was just extremely awkward, and I never registered how a woman would feel about her safety in the future after seeing that. My wife said that she wasn't afraid at the time, because I was present and several other men on the bus were telling him to sit down and shut up, but that she would definitely be influenced by this if she were boarding a bus that was only lightly occupied. This tells me how much men miss about the atmosphere for women even when present. * She mentioned that she usually doesn't take the bus downtown when traveling alone anymore because of regularly feeling too tense when she did. I hadn't really registered that. (in my partial defense, doing this when alone meant I wasn't around to see it, but it still seems a huge thing for me to miss). * She validates that some routes are more problematic than others. Heading to Harborview is worse than heading to Convention Place, as an example.

hncommnt 9y ago

I live in SF. My wife has started taking uber pool because she can no longer deal with the verbal and physical harassment on muni buses and trains by homeless and/or mentally unstable people (both men and women). I've had on multiple occasions had guys with no pants on smelling of feces sit next to me. I don't want to deal with that so I pay two to four bucks more and take an Uber Pool.