Walking funny can make you a target for crime

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I'm guessing I'm not the only one here with an odd gait.

http://www.scribd.com/doc/35330362/Attr ... yson-Stein

^ I just get a blank page with the headline on clicking the link.

I just saw an article on Cracked today (my second favourite website!) and it mentioned this as well. I have NO DOUBT that my 'odd posture and gait' as a teenager is what attracted the nasty bullies to me and everyone else just played along. Since I corrected my posture, I have never been bothered once. Being 6'6" helps too!

I agree with everybody above. When I was in high school and college, I don't know how I walked "wrong" or funny, but I clearly remember people in passing cars yelling out insults, throwing stuff at me, even taking my picture. It started to fade out toward my mid 20's, and almost completely disappeared a year or two ago. It now happens to me a few times a year at most, and even then, I kind of deserved it (like crossing in the middle of a block, rather than at a corner). It didn't even happen when I was walking in of the most pedestrian-unfriendly areas I've seen: on the grass along a wide road in south Florida (no sidewalks). I'm curious why it stopped. Is it because I'm older? Because I actually stopped walking funny (whatever that means)? Or because my body language improved?

i walk on my toes and nobody bothers me

It's a pdf for no real reason.

Didn't like the font.

Didn't like the victim blaming.

Some people can't control things like how they walk or present themselves.

A line from the end of the article.

"Just as it is possible to prevent some crimes by warning people about situations of potential victimization such as walking down a dark street close to buildings or flashing money in a crowd, so too it maybe possible to prevent other crimes by informing people about how they might be inviting victimization by their own nonverbal cues."

For some people changing their own nonverbal cues is something that they can't do, especially if they are oblivious to nonverbal cues.

This article tapes people walking and then asks convicted felons to evaluate people's vulnerability.

Towards the beginning of this article, the authors mentioned this information can also be used to make more effective police decoys. And that's a use of this information other than blaming the victim.

Let's talk about junior high and high school bullying. If someone went around talking against other people's religions, you could say that person is bringing on problems themselves.

But someone who merely walks differently ?

That's more a case of people who are mean-spirited looking for a reason. There's also negative features like this bastardized group solidarity by having an other and excluding the other. There's also a bystander effect where people who witness bullying but don't do anything, well, it's corrosive to them, too.

And a lot of it is gray area and you don't quite understand it till later. Now, good teachers seem to have skills of recognizing mean-spirited mischief and being able to say 'I need to see you do some work' before they understand all the details of what's going on.

Years ago, a paralegal in the Unitarian Church, she told how if someone told a racist joke or a homophobic joke in her workplace, she would just look at them a little longer than usual, enough to make them feel uncomfortable, and she felt they got the point from this. Some people have the skill that if several people in a group are talking against someone, this person can say, he seems like an alright guy to me.

This is difficult stuff. And none of this is 100%.

I am glad i don't work at the ministry of silly walks.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IqhlQfXUk7w[/youtube]

This is why I always walk like I'm a pretty big dude who looks like he might be a little insane.



...I also sit, stand, and do pretty much everything else like I'm a pretty big dude who looks like he might be a little insane, come to think of it. It's the height and the eyes, I think.

I've been told I waddle like a penguin. Then, of course, I've put on 30 lbs in this past year, nost of it since November, when I initially came down with bronchitis, followed by my allergies. I was coughing so hard, I was always weak and tired. Now that my PCP has me on Astelin spray, I'm coughing a lot less, so it's time I get off my rump and start walking and riding the stationary bike.

"odd gait " is probably an understatement for me. I have heard this same thing as applied to how rapists choose women - not necessarally the pretty girl, but the one who walks funny. If they walk funny and have a ponytail to grab, all the better.

Something about me attracted ridicule in the past - something in my gait, body language and/or physical appearance. I have noticed, like Aspie1, that the amount of abuse I got tailed off as I got older (I don't wan't to tempt fate and say that it has stopped). This abuse was usually hurled by teenagers and I think that as soon as you stop being a "contemporary" or "rival" of theirs, they just view you as "some old guy" and don't pay so much attention.

I've had a few comments about my gait - someone said that I walked like a "cartoon character", another that I marched along like a Sergeant Major. I have an injury to my lower back which probably doesn't help the situation. I 've been told repeatedly that my body language, posture, gait etc marks me out as a potential target and I try hard them but I can't get it perfect. I've also been told that all of the above will magically improve as I gain more confidence. I've never gained more confidence though...

I'd say rapists are opportunists and since awkward women are going to be on the periphery of society, this then gives them the opportunity they need (isolation).

But a rapist will most certainly target a strong women if she exposes herself to the opportunity he's looking for, those guys are animals, if the opportunity is there they're going to take it.

This thread reminded me of a poll that I did a couple years ago. I had noticed for a while, having been to some very large gatherings of people on the spectrum, that an incredibly unlikely percentage of them were duck toed. Statistically the duck toed gait is found in less than 5% of the general population. You should go take a look at the poll results on that thread. I found them very interesting.

http://www.wrongplanet.net/postt200292.html

IDK. I'm 6'3" and walk really fast with a semi strut. I rarely get messed with.