Sorry, i can try to look out for that in the future but tbh im not very good at tagging anything consistantly so i might forget. if you feel like you need to unfollow me for your own saftey i wont be offended.
I was told by my professors that Kitty Genovese was a 28-year-old unmarried woman who was attacked, raped, and brutally murdered on her way home from her shift as manager of a bar. I was told that numerous people witnessed the attack and her cries for help but didn’t do anything because they “assumed someone else would”. Nobody intervened until it was too late.
Now… is it likely that people overheard Kitty’s cries for help and ignored them because they thought someone else would deal with it? Or, perhaps, did they ignore her because they knew she was a lesbian and just didn’t care?
Maybe that’s not the case. Maybe it was just a random attack. Maybe her neighbours didn’t know she was gay, or didn’t care.
But it’s a huge chunk of information to leave out about her in a supposedly scientific study of events, since her sexuality made her much more vulnerable to violent crimes than the average person. And it’s a dishonour to her memory.
RIP Kitty Genovese. Society may only remember you for how you died, but I will remember you for who who were.
this was one of the first lessons I had in psych too and we were never told about this either nor was it in any of the reading materials
I never knew this.
I also never knew this about Kitty Genovese, but I do know that, in fact, many of the dozen (not thirty-eight) people who witnessed some part of the attack (which took place after 3AM, on a chilly night in March when most people’s windows were closed) tried to help in some way.
One shouted out his window for the attacker to leave her alone, which did successfully scare the man off temporarily.
Another called the police but, seeing her still on her feet, said only that there had been a fight but the woman seemed to be okay.
And when Kitty Genovese was finally attacked in a vestibule where she couldn’t be seen from outside, Karl Ross, a neighbor, saw what was happening but was too frightened himself to go to her rescue–so he started calling other neighbors to ask what he should do. Eventually one of them told him to call the police, which he did, and the woman he called, Sophie Farrar, rushed out to help Kitty even though she didn’t know whether the attacker was gone.
Kitty Genovese died in the arms of a neighbor who tired to help and comfort her while they waited for the police and ambulance to arrive. Kitty was in fact still alive, although mortally wounded, when the ambulance reached the scene.
The man who saw the final stabbing? Who panicked and called other neighbors first instead of the police? The man who said, infamously, that he “didn’t want to get involved” because he was reluctant to turn to the police for help? He was thought to be gay himself. He was a friend of Kitty and Mary Ann’s. After being interviewed by the police he took a bottle of vodka to Mary Ann and sat with her, trying to comfort her.
So, no. I don’t think the evidence indicates that Kitty Genovese’s neighbors let her die because she was a lesbian, because Kitty Genovese’s neighbors tried to help.
(Also, going by the content of the murderer’s confession, it was indeed a random attack.)
how on EARTH was this “scientifically” studied but the details gotten so wrong and the wrong as hell conclusion published and taught in schools?!?!?! where were those scientists observation skills?! on vacation?!
How to take facts and turn them into an urban legend that gets taught in schools: Make a bad made-for-t.v.-movie about it, watch it, believe everything the movie says, annnnnnnd go! That’s how it gets taught as this supposed “scientific study.” Someone got fucking lazy.
I was waiting for the night bus at 1am the other night, eating fries, when a dude, high as fuck, tried to harass me. It took several “I don’t want to talk to you, please go away” for him to finally move, but I think it helped that another man was giving him the death stare and clicking his tongue at him. He then checked I was okay and whether I knew the guy or not. Good dude.
Shout out also the man who silently switched places with me on another night bus to be a buffer between me and a guy who had threatened me. Thank you
Men: this here? This here is what you need to be doing as allies. The men who harass and insult women are not likely to take our complaints about it seriously. But you, another man, they will listen to.
I was pumping gas at like 10 PM one night, and these bunch of drunk guys came walking up to the gas station, and one of them yelled over to me if I wanted to see his dick. His friend says to him, “You don’t have anything she wants to see.” and apologized. It was pretty awesome.
this is all we want from men. to recognize the wrongs done by other men, and acknowledge it. not give us shitass defense like, “not all men do that”