ITEM When a female jogger m Central Park in 1989 was raped and brutalized.20 "Take Back the Night" demonstrations were nationwide. The solution? A headline m an Ellen Goodman column read "Safety for Women?
Try Removing Men."2′
ITEM When a male jogger n Central Park п 1989 was hospitalized after being brutally beaten on the head with a dub. he reported the incident to the poke.22 Coincidentally, he had witnessed two similar incidents of men being kicked, punched, or beaten m Central Fbrk withm the previous month. He had also reported both of those nodents to the police. He later called the police to see how many such attacks had occurred r> the previous two months. He was told there had been none at all.
Our anger toward men as victimizers blinds us to men as victims. The attacks the male jogger reported — all attacks on men — were never acknowledged as even having occurred. If a woman had reported three separate rapes to the police and not a single one was even acknowledged as having been reported — much less investigated — it would be hard to imagine the degree of outrage. When crimes against women are more readily recorded, crimes against women become more readily visible.
Violent crimes against innocent women create distrust toward innocent men. Every man who invites a woman back to his home has to risk rejection not only because he is expected to do the asking but because the rape she just read about or heard about adds to her likelihood of rejecting him. He is tainted with suspicion even if he himself has also been victimized by other nten or been injured while protecting women.