James' World 2

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Men are punching random women on the streets of New York City. As usual with these kinds of diffuse and chaotic stories, there’s much that is unknown, including how often this is happening, how many people are involved, or whether it’s at all coordinated. But what we do know is already alarming. CNN reports that dozens of women have discussed being victims on social media, and formally interviewed six of them. NBC News reports there have been at least 3 arrests. CBS News reports that NYPD released images last week of a fourth man wanted for allegedly punching a woman in Union Square. Even reality TV star Bethany Frankel says she’s been victimized. 

Women report being assaulted by men of different races and ages. Still, across the different stories, a couple of similarities pop out: The alleged victims are mostly young and pretty, and most of them say they were minding their own business when they were attacked. Some were on their phones or reading on tablets. Others were speaking to friends or daydreaming. Whatever they were doing, they were just living their lives, and that, it seems, is what enraged their assailants. 

Whatever the scale of this problem eventually turns out to be, it’s not surprising that these stories have gone viral and captured the public’s imagination. While it rarely turns to violence, most women who spend much time walking around in public have experience with men who berate them for paying attention to something other than the man who is now, often out of nowhere, spewing invectives. In our modern era, that often manifests with men who are infuriated at women for looking at their phones. But I’m old enough to remember when I would get yelled at for reading books in public.

Whatever the excuse the angry man concocts, the impetus is always the same: The eyes of a woman are directed at someone or something that is not him, and he is indignant over it. So he will make sure she has no choice but to look at him, either by getting in her face or — in these alarming New York cases — punching her. If he cannot capture her adoring gaze, well, he will make her stare at him in fear. 

These stories resonate, as well, because the nation is having a moment of increasingly unhinged male fury at women for daring to have lives that are centered around something other than catering to a man’s every whim. Unleashed by Donald Trump and the MAGA movement, there’s an upswell of loud male entitlement shouting at us from every corner. 

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People eat in a restaurant sidewalk shed on Mott Street in Little Italy in New York City. (Gary Hershorn/Getty Images)

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