Why AREN’T men more afraid?

I'm a man, and I wouldn't generally feel afraid walking around most places late at night, although I might be wary in certain situations, eg walking past a gathering of male teenagers - but even there I generally assume that most teenagers are not actually looking to be physically aggressive. If I was walking down a dark alley and a man was walking towards me, I would feel tense.

I suppose I need to understand more the observation that

men are statistically more likely to be victims of violence

Is that a lone man walking the streets being suddenly attacked, or is the context more likely to be arguments outside a pub, or gang-related fighting, or some other dispute between people who know each other? If I'm not involved in any of those contexts, I don't feel like I am at all likely to be a victim of violence.

Plenty of men are scared, I think, but they put on bravado. When my late mum was in her 80s, she was getting a bus from the town centre late at night, and not worried at all. A young man came and asked if he could wait by her (his bus was at a different stop), and they got talking. He had been mugged, and avoided going out alone at night. I doubt he'd tell his friends his fears, though.

Fate I was like you until I was sexually assaulted on the street in broad daylight and now my behaviour has completely changed. I wonder if it’s because “it’s not happened to me, so I can’t identify with it”. As most men haven’t been assaulted (I’m guessing) they can’t identify with it. Most women have, and so our behaviour changes to either prevent it happening, or feel scared ready with fight/flight hormones should it happen again. Our brains remembers the fear, we feel the fear, we pass on that information to other women. So women that haven’t been assaulted can adjust behaviour accordingly, whether they get the feeling of fear fight/flight adrenaline response will depend on an individual I guess. Part of it is the risk to women is higher, so it’s taken more seriously physiologically and psychologically.

As an aside most of the women I know that have been assaulted have been in the daytime and not at night.

I definitely think lots of men avoid certain areas and streets at certain times, but that they put it down to "common sense" and "situational awareness" and other manly feelings, rather than "being afraid".

I have been thinking about something similar.

A man approaches man with knife and asks for wallet, gets wallet and leaves and no physical harm is caused = a violent crime been committed (which is has, I’m not disputing this!)

A man tries to corner a woman in an alley, woman shouts for friends and leaves alley and no physical harm is caused = a woman had a lucky escape and no crime was committed

I think it’s because of sexual assault.

I’d rather be beaten up like a bloke than be raped then beaten up too.

They also tend to victim-blame themselves and others a lot (you shouldn’t have gone to that part of town, are you insane? Etc etc you were drunk and acting stupid)

It’s a human tendency though (he did XYZ so that’s why it happened to him, it’d never happen to me) It’s probably a survival mechanism, we’d never leave the house if we didn’t think this way

I think it’s because men might be mugged or attacked for their phones or wallet but women are mugged for this too. Men are not attacked for their sex on the whole. They are not abducted by strangers and raped and murdered. They do not get approached in the streets and harassed by other men or women as women and girls do. They do not get catcalled by women in white vans or groups of women on the streets. Teen boys do not get targeted sexually by women age 20 to 70.

I do remember once when I was younger, walking home alone very late - after midnight. The circumstances were that I'd had an argument with the person I was out with and stormed off. I was furious - 'literally fuming' in today's vernacular. I remember stomping home thinking that if anyone attacked me I'd knock nine bells out of them, I was so furious I felt it would be a relief to vent my anger. Nothing happened to me, I don't think I encountered another person at all.

I look back twenty years on and can't believe I took that risk.

Yes, heathen I think they would feel more frightened. That’s a good analogy.

Agree with what's been said about harassment and near misses

If men walking down the street got shouted at,
Hey nice phone baby!
Wow, expensive watch you got there!
Oh yeah bet you carry loads of cash don't you!

and every so often someone rummaged through their pockets but didn't actually steal anything...

Then they'd be a bit more scared of being mugged than they currently are, right?

I'm not big or tough. The few violent situations I've been in, I have usually talked my way out of. I think bigger guys get more attention from people trying to prove a point, but there's no bragging rights to be had beating up a 5'8" nerd. And also being male I don't need to worry about predators.

Also wrt male violence stats, I do wonder if 2 pissed up guys start a fight in a pub, does that count as 2 male victims of violence and warp the statistics compared female victims of violent crime?

This is the rapist I was talking about:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-55276209

It was interesting when the Manchester rapist (who was thought to have raped hundreds of men) was convicted, there were no concerns about men’s safety.

Like a PP, I haven’t really experience the fear others talk about. I grew up in a place and time where bombs and shootings were commonplace, and that’s what you avoided. You didn’t take children into town because of the risk of violence, not because of men. I went to an all girls school and never learnt to be fearful. My mum is strong and any man trying it on was to be sent away with a flea in their ear and a slap on the wrist. I then moved to London and happily cycled and ran whenever I felt like it, with no problems getting late tubes or trains. Perhaps I was naive and foolish; I certainly don’t mean to dismiss the experience of others, and most of my friends will have had unpleasant encounters. Almost all of those encounters were in social environments (house parties, homes) and not the random stranger in a dark alley type.

“One of the things I think is missing from the discussion around this is the area in which you live. It's a bit galling to hear wealthy, middle class people say "these incidents are so rare" “

I was just about to say - I do walk places alone, isolated places in daytime to walk the dog and I’ll happily walk to and from places at night.

But that’s because I live in a small town, it’s not middle class, lol, it’s just small - so, not a huge risk.

And proper isolated countryside doesn’t bother me at all, there’s no-one there!!!

But I might avoid secluded places in nearby cities after dark, I do avoid things like shortcuts in alleyways in cities as well - places with people, but no-one could see if something happened.

no-ones hanging about up mountains or fields in the middle of nowhere waiting 3 days for one potential victim to go past.

My husband has been attacked on nights out. He's also stopped a woman from being abducted from the street. We live in London. DH does text me when he's heading home. He also holds his keys when walking through the dodgier parts of our manor. But he can make more riskier decisions regarding routes, he admits. He never stays out beyond midnight, whereas I'm heading home before 10pm on a night out.

We both work early mornings. I have the advantage of being a tube worker so I wear my uniform to and from work on the bus and tube. I make a point to say hello to the bus driver and I wave to Tube staff. My way home is different and I say hi to the member of staff at my local Overground station. My husband also wears his uniform but keeps himself to himself though his hivis vest is easily picked up on CCTV on the bus.

I think generally DH still experiences risk, but to a lesser degree and has a bit more freedom to what he likes.

Men are conditioned from a young age not to be fearful. Big boys don't cry, etc.
However, I have discussed this with DH, and just from the time spent with him, I know of course he does.
It's kind of dismissive to say a lot of it is drunken brawls.
All the men I've known hwo have been attacked by drunk lads have been blameless, it was a bunch of lads who wanted a fight.
Often men who look different are attacked. For looking alternative, having long hair etc.
DH used to have long hair and he was very wary around certain groups of men.
Also he says he has had to deal with hundreds of low level threatening situations even from school, avoiding the school bullies, to being surrounded in a beer garden and intimidatingly asked which team he supports, knowing if he gave the wrong answer there would be trouble.
But he says at the end of the day you can't live your life in fear, and can't lock yourself away. You learn to judge the situation and avoid the kinds of places and people that are high risk.
Pretty much the same as I do.

I think a lot depends on where they live/where they grew up.

Crime rates appear to be high where I live, but most of those relate to being drunk and disorderly as its a big party area, so thankfully most reported crimes are not serious and are focused on a few very small areas. If you look at specific crimes in our area it is mainly shoplifting, cycle theft, car theft/damage and public order (so being drunk), frustratingly violence and sexual offences come under the same bracket, the numbers are very low, but it doesn’t specify a split.

Where I used to live going out after dark, or somewhere quiet on your own wouldn’t be safe for anyone. As a teen the place I lived had an extremely low crime rate, as a result it was very common to see both men and women walking home alone after nights out etc. Being a small community also helped as everyone knew everyone, so if you did chose to commit a crime etc it wouldn’t remain a secret.

Where I live now I do go out in the dark if I’m staying in our immediate area which is typically very safe, we also live next to the police station. If I’m venturing further I would only go if I was with at least one other adult.

I have been a victim of crime (I think most of us have in some way), I’ve had my car stolen, I have been mugged (twice), I’ve been beaten up, sexually assaulted and threatened with a weapon. All of those things happened in the previous area I lived apart from my car being stolen.

My partner has no sense of danger, he’d go for a run at 8pm and think nothing of it, after a bit of nagging and general worry he has stopped doing that and now goes earlier. He has always lived in very nice safe areas, so as a man he had always been at an extremely low risk of crime.

I probably should have clarified that my dog is of the small fluffy variety - only Jack Russell size!

Mine was too (now departed). I only ever walked him in well-used local parks during the day (husband did any after dark walks and we went together if we were going out in the countryside).

My little dog usually did a poo fairly early in his walk, and I carried the poo bag with me to dispose of at home. I always vaguely thought if anyone attacked me I'd split the poo bag with my fingernail and shove it in their face.

There are lots of studies showing that men consistently take more risks than women in all areas of life, I think a lot of it is that men simply have a higher tolerance of risk, and also their assessment of risks when walking down the street is different to a woman’s, as they don’t have to factor in that they are physically likely to be less strong than at least half the population.

Because although men are more likely to be beaten up or murdered by a stranger, we don't really have stats on sexual assault - because it is so commonplace and gets ignored by police anyway that we don't report it. I'd bet that attacks against women, once they include creepy harrassent and assault are actually more common than attacks on men.
And when I'm scared walking alone, I'm not actually scared someone is going to murder me. But I am terrified that a man is going to rape me.

One of the things I think is missing from the discussion around this is the area in which you live. It's a bit galling to hear wealthy, middle class people say "these incidents are so rare" when I grew up in a very rough part of South London where gang crime, stabbings and muggings were par for the course. Even just getting on a bus was a scary experience and you would never sit on the top deck.

I know this doesn't quite fit the narrative but to be perfectly honest, if I was walking home at night I was more scared of a group of loud, drunk women than I was of men. They were far more likely to try and start a fight with me.

www.ilivehere.co.uk/crime-statistics-nottinghamshire-broxtowe.html

I have lived in other areas of nottingham where I absolutely WOULD NOT do as you describe. I grew up in Stapleford and moved to the meadows at 19 in a house share with a friend. Thought nothing of walking into town from my house for a night out. I was followed the whole way by a man in a black car who crawled next to me catcalling and trying to get my attention.

In hyson green, groups of men congregate on corners in the early hours of the morning and try to follow you/grab at you.

In Nottingham itself it's a little better because of the police presence most evenings but the bars and clubs still have men who will touch you without invitation and ask if you 'fancy a mouthful'

When I was 14 I had a bloke on the i4 into town desperately trying to look up my skirt, to the point he bent himself out of shape to do so.

Overall I feel I've e been lucky as I have never been physically attacked but you really aren't living with your eyes open if you think this doesn't happen.

I should'nt have to feel lucky that I have only been intimidated and verbally assaulted.

Men don't feel the fear in the same way because our society believes us to be the weaker sex.

I think it is about the effect of violence, especially the feeling of being in control. When I have faced casual violence from other men, I have never felt they wanted anything from me beyond a feeling that they had asserted their dominance over another man. Frankly I have grown up with idiots like this, most are just over grown school boys and in that situation I am hopeful that the assailant wants nothing more than to knock someone down and crow about it. This is why large soft looking men are often the target. When I have been attacked, I always follow the same drill, don't look afraid nor aggressive, get it over with, let the idiot feel they are the 'winner'. Also, don't want to fight back as it will only extend the agony but as I am quite large man it is nice to have that option. I know men do face more extreme forms of violence even sexual but these are rarer cases. If I saw some who I thought was genuinely psycho I am not sure what I would do, if I felt it was more likely I would change my behaviour but every time I have been assaulted I have read faces, recognised a thug who just wants to throw his weight around. It is scary but not terrifying.

It is very different for women, if a woman is being only mildly harassed she will have no idea when this will stop, if she will be followed, she has to plan an exit, will anyone help etc.

@newyearnewname123 and @LApprentiSorcier

I probably should have clarified that my dog is of the small fluffy variety - only Jack Russell size!

I do feel at risk when I walk, but I feel the benefits outweigh the risks. I’m on a FB women’s walking group and risk - real and perceived - is a frequent topic.

My DH likes me to carry a rape alarm. I am dubious if it would make a difference but humour him anyway.

I did read up a lot about how victims are selected and, like @MephistophelesApprentice, I am careful not to show any passive behaviours. Any man approaching gets full eye contact and a very assertive “hello”. I aim for my “hello” to convey that I have a loud voice and am unlikely to make a good victim.

One day I could get raped and murdered and it pisses me off that, should that happen, the Daily Mail comments section will be half full of people wondering why I was stupid enough to be there alone in the first place.