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from the can-I-live-in-a-different-world-please? dept.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports that a new nail polish called Undercover Colors changes color when it comes in contact with any date rape drug so, a woman just has to discretely dip her finger in her drink to test it for safety. "Our goal is to invent technologies that empower women to protect themselves from this heinous and quietly pervasive crime," say four male undergraduates at North Carolina State University who are developing the polish and currently asking for donations to complete their work. "Through this nail polish and similar technologies, we hope to make potential perpetrators afraid to spike a woman’s drink because there’s now a risk that they can get caught."
However some sexual assault prevention advocates warn that the nail polish is not necessarily the best way to approach the sexual assault epidemic on college campuses. “One of the ways that rape is used as a tool to control people is by limiting their behavior,” says Rebecca Nagle. “As a woman, I’m told not to go out alone at night, to watch my drink, to do all of these things. That way, rape isn’t just controlling me while I’m actually being assaulted — it controls me 24/7 because it limits my behavior. Solutions like these actually just recreate that. I don’t want to fucking test my drink when I’m at the bar. That’s not the world I want to live in.” According to Alexandra Brodsky the argument that women simply need to be more responsible is a common response to the current conversation about sexual assault on college campuses — and one that activists say doesn’t get to the heart of the issue. "The problem isn’t that women don’t know when there are roofies in their drink; the problem is people putting roofies in their drink in the first place."
(Score: 5, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Tuesday August 26 2014, @10:22PM
What? How?
Okay, calm down - swearing rarely helps you to get taken seriously. It's not the world I want to live in, either, but it is - seemingly - the one we're stuck with for now. Let's see what we can do about changing it, but why not also use an easy, hopefully temporary bit of tech to mitigate the problem for now?
What next? Let's rally against autonomous cars, because I don't want to live in a world where humans causing accidents is a problem to be solved!
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 26 2014, @10:32PM
> Okay, calm down - swearing rarely helps you to get taken seriously.
You are a pompous ass.
(Score: 1) by quixote on Tuesday August 26 2014, @11:27PM
Partly, you're just being stupid. You're not emigrating to Somalia. Why? Because it's a huge hassle having to watch your back all the time, and emotionally draining, and generally very unpleasant.
Well, that's the world women live in. A war zone. And, no, they don't like it and would much rather live in a nice safe place where all men, not just most of them, respected their right to live on this planet.
But partly, you do have a point. It's bloody stupid to object to a tool that works in your war zone and makes you less vulnerable.
Sure, the real job is to get the 5%-20% of men who cause the trouble to stop causing it. You can help with that. Call out asshole behavior when you see it.
But that doesn't mean a kevlar vest is a bad idea in a war zone, which is where we currently unfortunately live because there are too many people wandering around saying "Problem? What problem?"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27 2014, @10:45AM
It's quite incomprehensible how you can get the "you're just being stupid" part from what was written. Seriously, if that's how you react you're being WAY too oversensitive and by calling someone stupid you're just adding to the problem. The post you replied to was very polite about the opinion voiced by Rebecca Nagle that this "Solutions like these actually just recreate that". She's actually saying that being able to test for roofies is like being raped, because it makes her think about reality and get scared by it. Let me be more blunt:
1. It's stupid to assume there is just ONE solution to a given problem and criticise a crutch for not being a silver bullet. Ms. Nagle is an ass for criticising something for not helping in the right way, comparable to the pope speaking out against condom use because he prefers to preach abstinence. If we take your war zone example, it's stupid on the level of not only declining to wear kevlar yourself but also speaking out against kevlar vests in general and accusing the vest manufacturer of being part of the problem - because you instead like to dream about peace and can't accept any other solution than the magical silver bullet that gives you your utopia without any effort or intermediate steps.
2. Reality is what it is, and it's both rude and stupid to last out at some random guy trying to help because reality isn't what you'd like it to be. That's not constructive, and it doesn't help one bit in building a working relation between the sexes - and that's what we all want, isn't it?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 27 2014, @11:45AM
Educating people not to rape is actually *incredibly* effective. Much more effective than continuously inventing things women can do to "not be raped" (which as well as just being the least effective tool in our shed, feeds into the all too prevalent victim blaming that happens to rape victims).
https://medium.com/evidence-base/want-to-prevent-sexual-violence-accept-that-you-know-a-rapist-2ffab1f6990b [medium.com]