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Tunnel VisionJuly 25, 2007 Here's what the Black Pen wrote, in Fireball ink, with some additions and corrections by the Mind Behind the Fingers: Horses wear blinders so they won't see things that spook them. Horses' eyes are on the sides of their heads -- their side vision is great but they can't see straight ahead. (A donkey I knew once used to run -- when he had to run, like when a horse was chasing him or one of us was trying to catch him -- with his head almost perpendicular to his neck, so he could see straight ahead and straight behind.) The two halves of their brains aren't linked the way human brains are, which means that what they learn on one side doesn't automatically transfer to the other side. Allie spooks at a pile of boulders to her left but eventually decides that no troll is going to leap from the boulders and eat her. But if we approach from the other side, so that it's her right eye taking it in, it's a whole different pile of boulders, with a whole different possibility of trolls. She doesn't extrapolate from one pile of boulders to the next: just because the last one didn't make a grab for her doesn't mean the next one won't. "Once bit, twice shy," as the saying goes, but Allie's into prevention, or pre-emption -- she'll shy even if she's never been bit. (Maybe she'd tell you that she's never been bit because she shies, like the reason my mother never broke her back is because I didn't step on all those cracks.) As Keelaghan's chorus goes in "Gladys Ridge": "Better a good run than a bad stand." So we drive down the night road -- night forms a tunnel over the road and so we can't wee what's off to the left or right. "Can't see" might be a blessing: if the ground falls away sharply just beyond the asphalt on both sides, probably our driving will be more steady straight ahead on course if we aren't continually thinking about the steep banks on either side. In daytime maybe you have to make more of an effort to focus, whether you realize you're making an effort or not. One early evening not long after I got my driver's license, I had to drive solo through a snowstorm. I made it home without incident, but when I was pouring myself some dry cereal for supper my hand started shaking uncontrollably; the box flew out of my hand and cereal spilled all over the floor. Release a coiled spring and things often go boom. What struck me after I left D.C. in July 1985 and shortly thereafter washed ashore on Martha's Vineyard was how I'd learned to never look anyone in the eye. This was my technique (I didn't realize it was a technique) to avoid harassment by men on the street. To meet a man's eyes, it seemed, was often interpreted as a come-on, an invitation, a challenge. In some circumstances women took it so too: it means "Sure, give me a try." Women, in my experience anyway, and from what I hear, are more apt to approach this as a dance, with each partner taking a step, reading the signs, and using the signals to shape the next step. One step leads to another step and after a while two people synchronize their steps and get a pas de deux going. (The whole dance may take six months, or sixty seconds, or more, or less.) With men on the street the tune was "just one look, that's all it took," and if they read it as "come on," they'd keep reading it as "come on" even if that wasn't what you meant in the first place, or it wasn't all you meant, or not what you meant any more. Averting my eyes, I learned (without knowing I was learning it), was a pretty good way of deflecting attention before I got bit. Sort of like bug spray: Danger, danger, danger! Or Indifferent, indifferent, indifferent! Veils and chadors and burqas deflect attention from the female body, but whether we're talking about old-time Catholic nuns or women under the Taliban, these techniques were invented by men and forced on women -- though plenty of women have used them for their own purposes. I have no trouble understanding why women in patriarchal societies find concealment liberating. Fat served a comparable purpose for me, and in case anyone didn't read the "DO NOT DISTURB" sign, I added an extra concealing layer of blue denim. Whatever the positive uses of habits, chadors, and high-necked, ankle-length dresses, however, the underlying screwiness shouldn't be ignored. Women acting or dressing in certain ways to protect themselves from unwanted male attention is one thing. Men ordering women to act or dress in certain ways in order to protect them from male attention is inherently suspect. Pull out Occam's trusty razor and cut away all the extraneous clauses and rationales: the simplest, most effective way for men to protect women from male harassment is to stop harassing us. Forget the codes for dress and behavior; get to work on your self-control. Here's hoping the pope or some young Taliban zealot is even now whacking himself on the forehead with his fist and wondering, Why didn't I think of that?
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