The Samaritans: a "Specific Demographic"

Why a woman might prefer to talk to s man-

The issues they have are caused by a woman.
They have had one or more men in their lives that have been kind and lovely.
Wanting to talk to someone s bit.. distanced.. can't think of the word.
A belief that men are more straightforward / practical than a woman. Stereotype but deeply embedded.
And yes I imagine concern about being judged by a woman or certain assumptions being made esp if had bad experience in past.

Off the top of my head!

Men (often?) prefer to talk to women about personal/ emotional stuff as that's what women are good at (stereotype) and norms of masculinity around boys don't cry etc.

Also of course what is going on/ went on in the past could have been done by a man / men from CSA to bullying to DV etc etc

Do you think the users are worried about being judged by a woman or maybe its easier to disassociate from certain problems speaking to the opposite sex.

In all honesty I think it's down to a huge number of different reasons. When I come to think of it, I also prefer male doctors and psychiatrists. Sometimes it's as simple as having had a poor or unsatisfactory experience with one or more female 'authority figures' initially, other times it's a distrust of females due to family background. I think there's also an element of misogyny, especially in some of the older service users, in that they honestly don't believe that females can possibly be as well educated or capable as males. A lot of people are still in the mindset of 'doctor knows best' and wouldn't dream of challenging them, and I think to an extent that tends to go hand-in-hand with the ones who inherently believe that female doctors couldn't possibly be as competent at males. With regard to our staff specifically, I think that part of what influences preference is that quite often our staff are put in the position where they are perceived as challenging authority figures, and I think there's still a tendency in some people to believe that males are taken more seriously and carry a bit more weight when they are standing up to someone perceived as an expert. I can kind of understand that even though I don't accept it myself, because we do encounter some really old-fashioned professionals who invariably take it as a personal slight if a patient has the temerity to question them. There are still a lot of curmudgeonly and pompous doctors around, so I can understand why there might be a perception that other males are less likely to be intimidated by them, even though I think it is just that, a perception and nothing more.

Volunteer help service is unlikely to have the resources to match sex

There’s no reason to think it would be resource intensive for a large national organisation which already has a complex phone infrastructure to do this. And as mentioned people who want to talk to the opposite sex would benefit.

They’d probably have to recruit more male volunteers though; and they’d have to give a shit about protecting women, which seems like a bar that big name NGOs can’t clear.

A university member of staff who targetted me after finding out about my family issues was allowed to become a Samaritan. Part of the problem I had was him asking me for sex. I reported him for harassment and nothing was done. I reported him to uni and almost got kicked out. When I went to join Samaritans in my third year I found he was the trainer!!. When I mentioned it the person I spoke to, in a sarcastic tone of voice, she said "oh that was you, we don't want liars here"...

It was a course most women don't tend to do. I was one of two who graduated. The other slept with him. After graduation I found out many many women who had tried to do the course left because of him. I also found out his behaviour wasn't only limited to women, though he always targetted vulnerable gay men (which given I was at uni decades ago was most of them - he was the lesbian and gay association contact for the department - they covered no one else when I was at uni).

He's now married to another man and still volunteers for Samaritans - yes despite rules he advertises it. I can almost guarantee he's one of the people in this article. Samaritans got me through my uni experience, I'd delibrately never rung the nearest branch (it wasn't like it is now then); but it made me feel sick to find he was working there.

I did become a volunteer, years later at another branch and then we weren't allowed to put the phone down on anyone and it was 100% confidential. I left after a series of difficult calls, including sexual ones, we had plenty of training in that, I had one who was threatening to hurt someone (nothing I could do but listen) and the last was a man who wanted company as he died and that was horrible to go through, nothing I could do. Now it's very different, I rang after social services crisis worker said to phone them instead and all I had was pressure for my number and address to inform social services due to safeguarding. I refused and they ended the call. I've never rung again.

Volunteer help service is unlikely to have the resources to match sex

And for a variety of reasons those who need help may not feel comfy talking to same sex.

There are other solutions. If Samaritans gave it proper thought I'm sure they could reduce this immensely.

requests for male workers from female service users are common enough to the point whereby we actually struggle to meet the demand with regard to male staff.
Do you think the users are worried about being judged by a woman or maybe its easier to disassociate from certain problems speaking to the opposite sex.
I was hoping to do some volunteering phone work the stories of prev callers and worse perve volunteers is awful.

Should probably add to clarify: presumably the reason that you can’t ask for a male or female volunteer but instead have to keep calling back is that they don’t have a male or female phone queue. So a sex-matching system would in fact benefit people who (in good faith) want to talk to an opposite sex volunteer; it would become technically possible to provide that if asked for.

It strikes me as very unusual that your service might have as many requests for male GPs as female, especially from female customers, but okay, sure

It's a pretty small and niche organisation, so I wouldn't necessarily expect what we encounter to be the norm everywhere. Just to expand a bit, the majority of our service users are female, roughly a 60/40 split at last count. We don't assign healthcare professionals, but what I do often involves interaction with and/or challenging GP's and psychiatrists, so quite often the question of changing someone's existing GP or psychiatrist comes into play, and this is where the expression of preference often comes up. What we do, however, does involve asking our service users at the point of referral whether they have a preference for working with our male or female staff, and while the vast majority don't express any preference at all, requests for male workers from female service users are common enough to the point whereby we actually struggle to meet the demand with regard to male staff.

It’s irrelevant anyway since Samaritans currently don’t offer people the option of choosing their volunteer’s sex. So no one would be losing out in the situation where callers and volunteers were sex matched. Meanwhile, it would protect female callers and female volunteers from the endemic male predator problem which the Samaritans are dealing with. Heads women win, tails no one loses

Agreed.

Only reason I replied was to emphasise the point that @JulesRimetStillGleaming was making, i.e. you can't just assume that in all instances a female service user is going to prefer a female member of staff, or more specifically, not have a preference for working with male staff, because in my experience women who prefer working with males are not at all uncommon.

It strikes me as very unusual that your service might have as many requests for male GPs as female, especially from female customers, but okay, sure.

It’s irrelevant anyway since Samaritans currently don’t offer people the option of choosing their volunteer’s sex. So no one would be losing out in the situation where callers and volunteers were sex matched. Meanwhile, it would protect female callers and female volunteers from the endemic male predator problem which the Samaritans are dealing with. Heads women win, tails no one loses.

Just to echo what @JulesRimetStillGleaming is saying, I work for an organisation that does 1-to-1 work with vulnerable adults of both sexes, and it's surprising how many female service users insist on working with male staff and volunteers. It's not something the organisation has ever audited, so I can't say with any certainty whether or not those outnumber the times where we have female users asking specifically for female staff, or indeed male service users asking for a specific sex, but anecdotally, from taking the referrals myself I encounter requests for male staff as frequently as I do female. It's not as simple as women invariably wanting to work with other women in all cases. The same is true when it involves GP's and Psychiatrists. The majority of our repeat customers with a preference tend to be strident about wanting a male doctor, where as very few specify that they will only accept a woman. There's no 'one size fits all' approach that would work.

Yes, that was me. I was explaining that there’s no reason in principle that a system that connects female volunteers and callers could not be adapted to cope with your individual wants.

I quite often ask for a man and am always told that you get to speak to whomever answers the phone and if you want someone else you have to hang up and call back. It can often take over ten minutes to get through so anyone in a fragile state would find that challenging.

I'm just responding to the poster who said that women should be put through to women and saying that as a user of the service that isn't always what I want.

Didn't Ted bundy work for a help line of some sort?

So that wouldn't work. And not all men are predatory

You could specifically request a man in that instance after being put through to a woman. I don’t see how that is an obstacle. It would be easy to put extra checks and safeguarding in for calls like that, or for calls where men specifically requested a woman.

It’s extremely obvious that not all men are predatory, does that actually need mentioning?

I ring the Samaritans a lot (I'm autistic and I find it helps me cope) and sometimes I want to talk to a man. Loads of complicated reasons but sometimes I prefer it (most of the time probably - I find men easier to talk to). So that wouldn't work. And not all men are predatory (and that's from someone who has encountered one). I've spoken to some lovely Samaritans that are male.

It seems like they need to start connecting male callers to male volunteers and female callers to female volunteers, then they’re solving the problem of perverted male predators at both ends of the equation and protecting their female callers and their female volunteers. It should be relatively easy to accomplish this with voice recognition if they had the will to do it.

Anyone think they’ll actually implement this?

No, me neither. Because (a) they don’t give a shit about protecting women and (b) TRAs would kick up a fuss. And as always (b) provides a fantastic excuse for (a).

Jules, that is horrific. I'm so sorry.

You may well not want to but you could report to police.

The fact it's in the news is obviously going to mean loads of victims take action. That they weren't in a position to at the time.

Fucking scum. Anywhere there are vulnerable people. Men get in and abuse.

@JulesRimetStillGleaming that’s so awful.

I’m so sorry that you got a predator when you needed comfort.

I called once and happened to mention I am bisexual and the guy started asking me all sorts of questions about sex between women. He then told me what shifts he worked and gave me the number of that branch so I could call back and speak to him again. Needless to say I didn't.

You can build up a rapport with someone as you always give your ‘name’ and a caller can ask for you specifically if they call again.

^^this is not true.

The sex callers loved the lack of consent…. Otherwise not just use other available ways to get off?

I often suspected some of the male volunteers were the Pervy
callers….

It's bloody serious actually. I can't begin to tell you what it did to me. It's kind of unspeakable, so I wouldn t mind speaking it, now that it's out in the open. Fuckers.

I was very vulnerable indeed.

No probs obviously!

Just thought. Given the situation you might (as I might) put what happened on the first contact.

Get a person higher up- insist. Not a contact form or standard calls person iyswim.

Others might have better ideas- they might give you the brush off. I hope not but...

Thank you so much, Gerbil. That is a great way to put it. I would like to have my say, report it at long last.

Never had a woman call up to ask me what underwear I had on that's for sure.