Member-only story
Great Expectations
The crucial difference between seeking improvements versus a sense of entitlement
Let’s begin unambiguously: any kind of assault is a bad thing. No one deserves to be on the receiving end of an unprovoked assault.
No one deserves to be attacked merely because of their clothing or gender or skin color or any other superficial signifier. Such actions are abhorrent, which is why civilized countries have laws that clearly define such assaults as serious crimes carrying the threat of serious punishment.
Unfortunately, there are individuals for whom the law is no deterrent.
Often these people come from broken homes or suffer from some type of malady that impairs their ability to empathize with others. Some people are just mean for no apparent reason. Societies have sought ways to minimize the harm such folk can cause ever since we began to group together in towns and cities. And so far, there’s been no magic formula, no magic answer.
Which means that there can be no absolute guarantees of personal safety, no matter how much we’d like such a thing to be possible.
Over the last handful of years I’ve been struck by what appears to be a consistent narrative among a certain kind of woman. The narrative insists that every single woman should at all times and in all places be absolutely free of…
