Like, I have a nice apartment in a big metro. The cops and firemen and landlord have some rights to bust in without my permission. With respect to everybody else in the world, I'd let in almost anybody under particular conditions. So who do I "imprison" by claiming the apartment?
Conversation
Like, I'd probably let in almost anyone credibly claiming a bathroom emergency.
My "prisoners" would be people I wouldn't let in under any circumstances besides violence. So likely seriously unraveled/unhygienic homeless people, diseased people, people who seem threatening.
2
1
8
Replying to
loving this thread, but let me point out that you can flip this. As a woman, I'm extremely cautious about letting ANYONE into my apt, including eg nicely-dressed well-spoken person I've just been on a first date with. Apt can then be seen as the limited space I am a prisoner of+
2
1
2
Replying to
Of course. Threat perception is subjective. Even as a guy, I’d be wary of letting in anyone obviously capable of overpowering me.
1
3
Replying to
right, but there's something beyond perception here in the degree to which (our) society enforces territoriality, so that in your framing women (and people of color, and disabled, immigrants, etc) have a kind of limited visa to public spaces. Not a strict binary
1
4
Replying to
Yeah I get what you mean. Your face is your visa scoping your rights in public as well. That generalizes to everybody to some extent though. White men are not exempt when they travel in non-white countries, even if their prison is a restrictive halo.
1
1
3
In general every public space has an attached notion of “default human” and globally that default is actually non-white men in most places. But yeah, women and children have very few public spaces anywhere where they count as default human and men are the alien presence.
1
3
5
Playgrounds, certain marketplaces come to mind. Tagging along with my wife in clothing department stores is probably the only situation I feel truly out of place.
1
2
Noting, as Dr. Older mentioned earlier, disability as a factor: most ‘public’ spaces are actively hostile to all but the able-bodied. Borders that are far from notional.
1
1
3
I’m wary of conflating borders and disability support though. It’s important to distinguish permissions from accessibility. Ensuring a notional right to be present in a space is important separately from enabling that presence.
1
3
Active hostile design (anti-homeless spikes for example) is not the same as positive access rights infrastructure like ramps or elevators. And if there’s a marginal extra cost to ensuring access to a group due to disability, it’s a different issue than mere permissions/rights.


