All men should be aware of this

I agree with you in principle OP, but can’t see what this man did that was so wrong.
You’re saying he shouldn’t have stopped and opened his backpack I guess?
It seems a fairly innocuous thing to do tbh, and as nothing happened, it seems it was.

Having been followed in the past I get it OP. You were right to be wary. Hard to describe the atmosphere at the time to others. You had to be there to understand.

But that's borne out of the OP criticizing his behavior without offering reasoning as to what he did that was so intimidating and what he could have done differently.

If I say to you "what you did yesterday was unacceptable." And what you did yesterday was be near me my chance and after I walked up to you, I don't see what other conclusion you could come to other than "the only thing I could have done differently is not be there"

She’s not saying this though. She says this was unusual. I can honour her feeling and her right to act on it because no one was harmed in the process.

or knows that a lone woman often doesn’t want to interact with a man

Exactly! If he had have spoken to her and said "morning" you'd no doubt have a thread full of people saying "can't even go for a walk without having some random man talking to me"
Or "I'm not an emotional support human!"
🙄

Anonymously. Likely where he won’t see it, without any real identifying info.
outside of that yes that’s a real issue that needs addressing. There are lots of safeguards in these roles but equally they are female dominated and we do need more men in them.
im thinking it’s more the low pay and shit hours and thanklessness that puts men off though, not sensible atttitudes about protecting yourself around unknown men in remote locations

I mean, I've just read the post right above mine, and there it is again:

because he and every other man is expected to apparently blink out of existence or literally put their hands in the air if a woman is in the vicinity

It's such an extreme response to one probable overreaction by a woman who may have felt vulnerable for any number of upsetting reasons.

I find it fascinating - and honestly, a sign that OP does have a point about the need for greater awareness of how some women may experience the world for any number of distressing reasons.

But he literally didn't do anything untoward.

I'm not blaming her or criticising her for feeling anxious. I think we've all been there. But we also have to distinguish between specific behaviours that we can ask men to cut out, and anxiety based on nothing specific that it's our job to deal with, because there's nothing we can reasonably ask men to change.

Also, while I do believe instinct is a valuable thing to pay attention to, I think we should be wary of placing undue emphasis on "spidey senses" and the like. I once knew a woman whose "spidey senses" and "fear instinct" only ever came into play around black and brown men. Never the rowdy white boys she loved to hang out with, one of whom actually did get convicted of sexual assault (not of her) a few years later.

Sounds like he stopped to let you go past?
I'm honestly struggling to see what he did that would make you feel wary.
It sounds from your OP that you were fine when you thought the long haired person in front of you was female but when the long haired person turned out to be male you got worried. Which makes no sense. It's still the same person 😕

No, but the constant strawmanning is disingenuous and honestly quite cruel.

The OP does not

• hate all men
• never go out in public
• insist no man ever goes out
• forbid men from reaching in backpacks
• doom your sons to a life of misery

🙄🙄🙄

Replies like this are patently absurd.

Every single poster's capable of reading and accepting, if they choose, that

• she doesn't usually feel this way when encountering men
• she's conscious she's extra sensitive because of a past local attack
• she finds it hard to put into words what made this encounter different
• she's using it as an example to make a wider point in any case

I'd hope every reader would also be able to recognise that

• they don't know OP's past (I tread gently in response to posts like this because, particularly if OP's perspective seems a bit extreme, there may be a history of trauma they're under no obligation to disclose)
• they weren't there, and we've all experienced situations where we felt vulnerable but couldn't put into words why this was

In this context, that posters choose instead to leap to man-hating paranoia and sons doomed to a life of misery...

...actually makes me think there's something else going on in these posters' minds. I'm honestly not sure what, but the strength of feeling the OP engendered in some is, whatever you think of her behaviour and views, itself irrational.

Whatever that something else is, I do know I find it very sad that so many posters seem incapable of a rational, balanced, empathetic:

"It sounds like you found it quite unsettling. I personally wouldn't have been worried, and think we need to be remember most men are simply living their lives. However, I appreciate I wasn't there and you experienced it differently - we all know there are cues we can't put into words that can alert us to danger. Certainly, the wider point you're making is sound."

I mean, it's not hard to say this instead of leaping to some dystopian cartoon of man-hating women locking up your poor sons for fear of them ever opening a bag in public!

I think these responses show the OP has a point about raising awareness, tbh!

I also think some of the responses even by sympathetic male posters reinforce this. The poster who says women's wariness of men in isolated places is a distorted response to "headlines" shows how little men understand what it can mean to live in a world in which half of the population is twice your strength and capable of subduing you in seconds if they so choose. The one who says he couldn't begin to tell which of the people he'd passed today are male or female? I can't say I'm ever not aware of this, at least. I'm out right now and, en route to my destination, weaving past a bruiser of a bloke with a battered face and three manic youths, was simultaneously entirely unbothered - but also very much aware of their sex. I'd be a fool not to be.

Well because he's being discussed at length online...because he and every other man is expected to apparently blink out of existence or literally put their hands in the air if a woman is in the vicinity. Because perfectly ordinary men are put off careers in caring or teaching professions because the assumption they're all dodgy.

He didn’t have a dog ? A man walking a dog may have felt more reassuring to@mildlysweaty. Although I am sure dog owners are capable of nefarious deeds as well.

Why would he just not say "good morning" "good evening" or some such with a smile and carry on

Maybe he’s not very sociable or has social anxiety?
Or is depressed?
or neurodiverse?
or knows that a lone woman often doesn’t want to interact with a man?
or noticed op staring at him wondering if he was a man or a woman and thought op was a bit strange?

Op was the one who quite quickly turned round and started following him and was ‘a few feet behind him’ that’s very close, lots of people would find that odd, male or female.

Perhaps he was getting his phone or camera out to start filming if he thought op was about to start harassing him in some way?

No it’s because I read the gift of fear. He might have done something subtle she didn’t even notice but in 2 weeks will go omg.

He existed in the same space as her. Her 'spidey senses' are absolutely not some infallible guide that this chap was dodgy in any way. Why do you trust her? Because she's female? I believe she felt uneasy...that doesn't mean she was correct.

Haha sorry!
i can’t say whether that man was decent. I think he was because he let her pass and didn’t rape her but I can’t talk to him.
so I agree with her claim any decent man should know and think this man probably did.
but I also think he didn’t do anything wrong.
sexism harms men too I guess although I’m struggling to see how this man was.

Woah woah woah... That's not how this goes. You don't get to just accept correction politely like you're better than me. We're meant to tediously argue semantics for 5 hours and ruin the whole thread.

"some women might find them frightening for no reason other than the fact they’re male if they’re somewhere remote like the woods"

And if the OP's position is that "this sort of behavior" is being male in the woods that's fine, everything else is superfluous.

The issue here isn't the OP being scared or anxious, the issue is the claim that any decent man would know that what the man in this scenario did was lonely to intimidate and the implication that he should have done something different although nobody can say what that different thing is. That is presumably because your assumption is right, what he did was be male and exist in that time and place so that's literally nothing he could have done so any man why finds themselves walking alone near a woods is not decent.

I am put out by men acting in ways that make me uncomfortable fairly often (hanging around by the path in the dark, walking too close behind me), but I don't think this would faze me unless I was feeling particularly paranoid that day for some reason. I think he might reasonably have decided that a woman who had literally turned to walk towards him probably wasn't going to be afraid of him. Generally speaking you don't walk towards people you're afraid of.

He did something to set her prey senses tingling. Idk what but she literally says she does that walk all the time, passes men and women, no big deal. I don’t know. She says something was off I trust her.

i understand what you mean . My dh is aware of issues women face and always crosses the road in an isolated place etc to convey to people he is not a threat.
to me its about the potential of harm in a woman’s mind and dh sees it as mens job to be aware of this that females carry and act accordingly.

It absolutely is relevant. If OP thinks we should be educating our boys to grow into men that don’t intimidate women unintentionally then we need to know what we should be doing. This man did nothing wrong. NOTHING. The only other thing that this man could have done was to stay at home in the first place.

Her point doesn’t stand because her fear was irrational in this instant because he did nothing wrong.

He literally didn't do anything wrong. Is it really unpredictable to stop and open a bag? If I were someone who felt this level or anxiety and apprehension in perfectly normal scenarios I would be either seeking help or taking self defense classes to boost my confidence, not expecting 50% of the population to amend their behaviour to accommodate it.

I agree and disagree. Just being a man in a remote place doing something unpredictable can be enough for some women. I do kind of expect men to get it.
But also don’t think this guy did much wrong

Well I mean… I stand corrected.

doesnt mean I think she’s wrong though. Any decent man should understand that some women might find them frightening for no reason other than the fact they’re male if they’re somewhere remote like the woods.

i also don’t think the man behaved badly. I can believe both things to be true at once because I don’t know whether that man knew he was scaring her or not, why he behaved the way he did or if he was a risk in the way she thought.

I get you felt nervous OP but it does seem that you’re saying men should be aware not to look in their backpacks when women are around ….if he had turned round and was following then I’d get it more but when you break it down he really did absolutely nothing in this situation.