Think of it more like “don’t talk to strangers”. It’s not so much that strangers are dangerous, but it’s that you don’t know them, and you need to be cautious.
Only for a lot of women, whether it’s right or wrong, do feel cautious around strange men. Not because they’re men. But because they’re an unknown.
So you would give the same caution when meeting unknown women?
I am pretty sure that I am not that different from the average woman. I’ve never been raped, but statistically speaking I know a lot of women who have. I know even more women who have come close to having that happen – including myself. Numbers of times. The reason it didn’t happen was because I am wary (and lucky). If you think I live or have ever lived “in fear”, you are deliberately misinterpreting what I have repeatedly tried to explain.
If you can’t understand the fact that men cause vast majority of the physical violence and sexual violence that happens (to men and to women), and that women are in a special category of vulnerable to that violence, then I just can’t help you. You will have to live with your own obtuseness.
So which words, specifically, in post #20 are you having trouble with?
No. Statistics. How many men commit rapes? How many women commit rapes? How many men have been raped? How many women have been raped?
Absurd to equate the two.
Whack-A-Mole, do you think it is unreasonable for women to be fearful of strange men sexually objectifying them and acting on that mindset?
This is a simple yes or no question.
I’m noticing an emerging trend of women being faulted for their wariness around men when in vulnerable situations, and it’s bothers the fuck out of me.
Your failure to understand this distinction would explain why you are seriously misinterpreting Ulfreida’s posts. Let me rephrase it [eta to clarify: rephrase the distinction] : “any man (given no clear evidence otherwise) might be a potential rapist” and “every man is a potential rapist” are not the same statement.
I don’t understand how deep your ignorance is in this matter. Do you mean that you don’t understand what it means to ask a question? That you don’t understand that you asked a question? That you don’t understand that, if you ask a question, people are likely to try to answer it? That you don’t understand why it seems odd that you’re apparently puzzled that AHunter3 tried to answer the question that you asked?
You made a specific claim: that “It most certainly is not true for most women”. It’s your claim; you’re the one who needs to defend it. Cite, please.
The point of that anecdote is that it’s not necessary to “live in fear” in order to have a continuing background awareness of a possible threat.
This might be enlightening reading to some in this thread: Imagine if men were afraid to walk home alone at night.
My first thought was, well, that’s true of all of us at some times…
Then I realized it was the same stupid answer as “All lives matter.” So…never mind.
The sentence is misleading. If you read the linked article, it was about what happened when women in the UK were asked, “what would you do if men had a nine p.m. curfew?”
Some common answers included go for a walk, go grocery shopping during less crowded hours, go for a run with earbuds in, walk in the forest at night, work late and walk home.
There’s your women terrorists from hell, right there.
No surprise, these answers managed to enrage a lot of men.
I will go on the record as saying I don’t think Ive ever had an appreciable fear of sexual violence and I wouldn’t change my habits at all if all men had a 9PM curfew. Except habits that involve socializing with men outside after 9PM, of course.
I am cautious at times and careful with my words and body language around men I don’t know well, but that’s because I’m annoyed by men that read sexual signals into really innocuous stuff. Mentioning -while doing construction work on a hot day, even - that you can’t wait to get home and shower. Inadvertently using a phrase like “go down” in an awkward way that can be stretched into double entendre. Guys almost always latch onto that stuff, I can see it happen.
But what I’m trying to avoid is discomfort and awkward situations, not sexual violence. I’m racking my brain and thumbing through my history of interactions with men, and I can’t think of one time I felt in fear of sexual violence. I can think of times I should’ve been - I was reckless in my youth and would sometimes go alone with guys I didn’t know to remote locations, the situations usually involved drugs. But nothing ever happened and I didn’t feel threatened at the time.
This is just my experience, though. I understand that everyone is different.
I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time taking this seriously. You aren’t dumb or naive, and I think you’ve been on the planet for more than thirty years. I just can’t believe you are that ignorant of the ways women’s experience on the street, in bars and restaurants, on dates and elsewhere differs from men’s. I just don’t believe it.
Back in the day I was cat-called by (I presume) gay guys a couple of times, and once I had a dude grab my crotch. These were rare singular events that I remember to this day. Women have to put up with this shit all day every day.
I can put my drink down on the bar, go to the bathroom, stop to talk to someone, return to my drink and have full confidence it hasn’t been tampered with by some creep.
I’ve been on bad dates. Sometimes it was my fault, sometimes the other person’s, But I’ve never been afraid for my safety. (Yes I am aware that men can be raped, but it’s just never been a concern for me.)
I was walking a petite pretty woman home one night and started to take a short cut. She said “Oh yeah, I forgot guys can do this.” This is the reality of the world. Surely you are aware of this.
I’m not a rapist. I would never do that. But if a random woman on the street sees me, She doesn’t know that. So I will do what I can to make her feel comfortable and not take offence if she takes precautions.
After mulling these recent exchanges over for the last few hours, what is bothering me is that I don’t see men like Whack-a-Mole piping up in threads like this one, where men expressed the opinion that women need to do more to protect themselves from would-be rapists. The thread revealed a fundamental lack of caring and/or understanding that women are made fearful of men because the world doesn’t quit issuing them warnings, admonishments, and lectures about playing life safe. And when they do get victimized, the fear intensifies because not only do they have the trauma to live with but also the shame of letting oneself become a victim.
Guys concerned about being judged by as potential rapists should be the first in line arguing for a society that doesn’t treat the curtailment of women’s freedoms as a solution to male criminality. Rather than being frustrated with women for being wary, they should ask themselves where that fear is coming from.
I’ve rejected a lot of the fear-mongering messaging aimed at women. I don’t consider myself a particularly brave person, but very few things described in this article strike me as scary (Spoiler alert: women are more likely to be fearful of certain situations than men). But I have had to deal with judgement when I dared to do things “women shouldn’t do”, like go out alone at night or travel abroad by myself. So something is certainly whack with all of this. The wackness doesn’t seem to be coming from women, though.
Me personally? Generally, I’m not really afraid of strange men, or women, necessarily, unless they give off a “creepy vibe”. (And if you don’t know what that is, I can’t help you. It’s one of those, you know it when you see it type of things) And in reality, most people are assaulted by someone they know.
I was simply relating how someone might feel. Because of our society, because of what we hear on the news, because of the image of “rapist jumping out of the bushes at night”, etc. It might not be accurate, or rational, but that’s where it comes from.
Part of the problem is how women are always told, “don’t go out alone at night”, “don’t go around in strange neighborhoods”, “don’t get drunk in public,” etc. And if a woman IS raped, it will be assumed she WAS doing one of those things. “What was she wearing? Why was she talking to that strange man – shouldn’t she have been with friends?”
So if you try and be cautious around people, you’re rude, if you don’t, you’re risking yourself. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
I think a lot of us male heterosexual folk fantasize about how nice things would be if you female folks weren’t on edge about us, didn’t feel like you had to worry about us, didn’t have to be defensive or proactively wary and so forth.
I suppose that’s an incredibly self-immersed and self-centered way to approach the matter, but I think that, yeah, we do that.
A few of us end up feeling like that, all by itself, is something so desirable that we’d opt to shut down the patriarchy to make that possible. It’s what makes us start really listening and caring about what women have to go through.
Is it horrible if it’s coming from a selfish standpoint? Do you prefer the chivalrous version?
You’re asking, which is better, wanting women to relax around men, without men changing anything that they do, because it would make men feel better about themselves, or wanting women to accept being protected by men from men, like it’s always been?
Um, not really seeing either of these as interesting choices, if that’s what you mean.
I’m sure there are some men who want patriarchy to end because freeing women from sex-based oppression is a good unto itself. Not because it increases their access to sex, and not because of chilvary (which is really nothing but benign paternalism). But because of empathy.
No, neither of those things.
Assume that by ‘shut down the patriarchy’, changes in men’s actual behavior is necessary and being embraced by the proponents thereof.
Let’s try again.
A few us want the outcome of sexual equality (including but not limited to safety from sexually intrusive conduct) for our own selfish reasons, i.e., we like the outcome. That means we wish it for selfish reasons.
ETA: replying to Ulfrieda
Oh, okay. What do you think the outcome would be, the one that you like?
That women should be able to go or be anywhere safely (or at least that they’re no less safe than anyone else), and not exposed to sexually intrusive conduct (or, again, that it’s not something that women get subjected to disproportionately); that women have equal access to resources and opportunity, not blocked by either policy or attitudes.
Hence that women are engaging in sexual interaction only on their own terms, not because they’re coerced or pressured into it and not because they’ve been put in a position where they need to trade sexual access for resources or safety or whatever.
ETA: And also hence, that then women would not be on edge and wary of us, etc, as I said.