Thoughts ranjeet on 07 Dec 2006 10:05 am
Be Afraid…Be Very Very Afraid
(note : originally written in 1998)
Despite what you may think, UIUC is not the edenesque Valhalla that I may portray. For instance, it rained today. And there wasn’t even a rainbow! Would there be rainbowless rain in Shangri-la? No sir, at least not if I was running it. Don’t get me wrong though. We’re not in Gotham City here. As far as the main campus is concerned, meaning the main and engineering Quads and the surrounding dorm-laden areas, sidewalks are well lit and sparkly clean, except for the occasional homeless person. Crime in the form of assault on this main part is pretty rare except really late at night. Most of the rest of the crime is petty theft. However, the police have a campaign warning you not to be complacent. Crime exists, and the putrid dregs of our society still depend on the unsuspecting, naive pedestrian to support their high-class consumer lifestyle. To the credit of students, most assaults take place to the north and west of campus, up where not all of the residents are people enrolled at the university. The campus police have put together a pretty successful and effective(at least in my eyes) program called Truth or Dare. The posters and flyers often contain statistics and excerpts from actual police reports from people who were mugged or otherwise wronged.
One of these statistics is that 8 out of every 10 people who are assaulted on campus are male. This is supposed to get across the point that men are not immune to crime, and that macho men who think that they can take care of themselves will have that idea seriously challenged by a group of five men, who don’t play very fair. Another explanation is the natural “pack-behavior” of women. The way they herd together, even when going to the bathroom, shows that they believe in safety in numbers. Women tend to be more group-orientated than manly men, in my experience, and one could say that this instinct is an appropriate one.
However, I have a different explanation. 8 out of 10? That seems rather harsh, don’t you think? Hmmm…this isn’t just a statistic, it’s a pattern. My theory is that there is a secret underground roving band of ultra-violent feminists. Yes, my fellow male gendered friends, your worst fears have come true. This roving band roams the lawless streets at night like a pack of hungry velociraptors, searching for another innocent victim. Innocent, that is, except that for the fact that this person has certain genitalia that correspond to having the x-y chromosome pair. And so, like a vengeous pack of wolves, they descend upon the hapless stranger. Ambushed, the man is no match for crazed estrogen frenzy.
And so the man makes a police report, because with his cut-up exterior, he can’t very well say that he just fell down the stairs or something. And please…will he say that he was attacked by a bunch of GIRLS? No way! The next day, it would be in the police blotter in the Daily Illini, and from there my home page, and from there…the world. The man would never hear the end of it. No, he says that “Gee, it was so dark!” and “There were so many of them!” And so no one is the wiser, and the females, who read us quite well, are still at large.
Men of the world, I implore you to speak out against the crimes that have been committed against you. If a pack of raging women beat you, tell the police exactly what happened. And to all those who have been past victims, stand up and rectify the situation by telling the truth, and know that you are not alone. Together, we can fight this injustice.