A local blogger named Seattle Rex has taken it upon himself to respond to our Street Harassment guide, which appeared a few weeks ago in The Stranger. He juxtaposes our guide with a Seattle Times op-ed bemoaning that Seattle men are timid in bars to make his point that women are fickle and don't know what we want (Do we want men to be timid? Do we want them aggressive? WE'RE TOO SILLY TO KNOW!!!), all the while dismissing women's general desire to feel safe walking down the street as a "first-world problem":

The Stranger’s article decries the harassment which Seattle women supposedly endure on a frequent basis, and teaches them, with pictures, how to respond.

Yeah, I know.

That the privileged, well-educated, consumer-spendingly-gifted, first-world-problem-having women of Seattle count this as amongst their greatest problems truly is a testament to just how far they’ve come. It’s clear that they officially have no actual, real problems to address anymore, but it sucks that they aren’t about to try and help anyone else.

You see, the harassment that The Stranger claims exists, is ostensibly dispensed by Seattle men. Yes, those Seattle men. The same Seattle men another female writer that very day described as shy and timid.

I'm calling attention to this because it's a common straw-man argument I've read on various men's rights blogs. This particular blogger, like others, conveniently ignores context, either because he's an idiot or because he knows context will ruin all his grandiose mansplaining points. (Example: His wife's never suffered from street harassment, therefore it doesn't exist.)

So, here's an encore lesson for the dense: When a woman goes to a bar, she's entering a social space where strangers—men and women—traditionally go to congregate, drink, socialize, dance, and hit on each other (notice how I didn't mention that it's a space where women go to get groped). She can expect that people will engage with her, hit on her, and vice versa. She can also hopefully expect that, if she indicates she's not interested in being hit on, she will be left alone.

Streets are not bars. (Surprise!) The different way we conduct ourselves in bars versus on the street should be obvious, but again, for the dense, here's how you can tell you're on a street and not in a bar: There's no drinking in streets. There's very little dancing. Generally, streets are used as conduits to get from Point A to Point B. At least, that's how most women use them. And it's here, on our public streets, sidewalks, and buses, that women should feel free to walk around without being harassed, stalked, groped, or intimidated by men.

But apparently that's too much for women to ask for. Back to this blogger who continues, hilariously, by comparing us to Nazis:

If you are a man, then it’s your fault, and even if it’s not your fault, it’s your fault.

... Every bigot, since the beginning of time, has been convinced that his/her bigotry is somehow justified. There are no exceptions to this statement. In fact, justifying ones own bigotry is probably the most consistent human behavior there is. Feminists are simply carrying on a 10,000+ year tradition of scapegoating a large group of people while intimidating opponents into silence. The fact of the matter is that if I needed money from advertising to support this site, this post would not exist. It’s why you’ll find nothing similar on any other Seattle-based blog.

Had this been 1940′s Germany, the line from The Stranger would have read as follows:

“What Jews need is a wake-up call: You’re the problem. If not you personally, then your best friend, a coworker, or that Jew in your stickball league is.”

To criticize this statement would have been disloyal to the state, and so, few people spoke up. Today, we look back and call those people “Nazis”.

HAHAHA, well that settles that. Total fucking idiot.

Curtsies to Smith for reading for alerting us to that delightful garbage.