Pan--
Last week I was working with my trainer, and he had me doing some very dignified squats! Yeah, well anyway, most people simply mind their own business and it is no issue. But there was this creepy looking guy working on the machine across from me, and he kept stopping to look at me. He even made eye contact, which pissed me off, because he didn't need to worry about my business. The little alarm went off, and I stopped in the middle of the reps and walked away. My trainer was kind of baffled and followed me. He asked what was wrong and I asked him about the creep in the corner. He said he was in there everyday, but yeah, people found him weird. So I told my trainer I had no intention of continue with the asshole ogling me. I explained that I did not make it this far, relatively injury free, buy ignoring my inner warnings. He was in total agreement.
If I was the kind of woman that Prog thinks we should be, I would have ignored my inner warning, and submissively kept taking orders from my trainer while perv boy stared.
Was this an overreaction? Well I work with a male trainer. He even will lay a hand on a muscle I need to focus on. But I can tell from his eyes and posture that it is business, and I don't get that scary feeling. Other guys have made eye contact with me in the midst of a workout. They've even nodded and smiled and then got on about their business. So what did I see in this particular guy, since I'm not prone to freakouts? I'm sure I saw a lot of things, and am only conscious of a few. That doesn't mean that others haven't had thoughts I'm not aware of, but because they respected boundaries, they did not threaten me.
We don't know what this woman saw in this guy that night, but we can see from her email that she was dead right. Cricizing her is ridiculous. She owed no one anything. That would be like me walking up to creepy eye man and explaining that I was stopping my workout now and walking away because he was creeping me out. yeah---right. Like I want ANYMORE interaction with some stranger that I find threatening. And she shouldn't feel obligated to interact further either.