http://simrob.livejournal.com/ ([identity profile] simrob.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] chrisamaphone 2013-05-25 03:05 am (UTC)

At issue here is that there are always bunches of things that people do that are illegal (jaywalking, driving 10 miles above the speed limit) but that are nevertheless considered reasonable and acceptable behavior. (Conversely there are things that people usually don't do - and that are considered unreasonable - that are technically legal, like marking off one's lawn with spray-painted "do not trespass" signs, but I'm not sure that's relevant to the point at hand.)

Whose job is it to decide which if these "grey area" things are reasonable or not? The driver who passed Chris going the speed limit probably felt like they were justified in their feelings of being inconvenienced even though they were legally completely in the wrong.

Put differently: placing the onus of education on the minority bikers to explain to everyone that, no, they're legally allowed in the road and not allowed on the sidewalk etc etc etc. sets the stage for exactly the micro-aggression scenario Chris described, and certainly I think that's a place where the feminism analogy holds.

Post a comment in response:

This account has disabled anonymous posting.
If you don't have an account you can create one now.
HTML doesn't work in the subject.
More info about formatting