'Walking home at night is not the same for women' - study

I notice that poster never mentioned Zara Aleena who was murdered by a random stranger walking on a main road in 2022.

Though not being white maybe she isn’t relevant to that pp

This shows it’s about vulnerability. I bet the men who feel unsafe are smaller, slighter men or men who have previously experienced assault.

Women are vulnerable because they are, as a population, smaller and weaker than the male population. If we are attacked we know there is a good chance we can’t fight back well enough to escape.

Of course, we also know that straight men, the majority, like to have sex with women. And some of those men don’t care about whether the woman wants sex with them.

In other words, are vulnerability to assault is absolutely rooted in our sexed bodies, and the sexed bodies of men.

Its not a social construct.

And that’s why our sex matters.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2712302/

'male victims are most commonly killed by a friend or acquaintance (38 to 50 percent of cases), followed by strangers (17 to 32 percent), and intimates or family members (6 to 23 percent) (Kellermann & Mercy, 1992; Mouzos, 1999; Wilson & Daly, 1994; Wolfgang, 1958). By comparison, female victims are more than twice as likely as their male counterparts to be killed by an intimate partner, with studies indicating that between 38 and 70 percent of all femicides are committed by someone with whom the victim had an intimate relationship (Chimbos, 1993; Craven, 1996; Kellermann & Mercy, 1992; Moracco, Runyan, & Butts, 1998; Mouzos, 1999; Rennison & Welchans, 2000; Wilson & Daly, 1994; Wolfgang, 1958). Research further indicated that less than one-third of female victims are killed by a friend or acquaintance and even fewer (8 to 15 percent) are killed by a stranger'

Everything you say is statistically true but it doesn't negate the fact that women are far more likely than men to be assaulted or murdered by a sexual predator. What are the statistics on men being murdered by completely random (not gang related) strangers?

There are figures, and you are correct, although I don't have time to find the relevant stats right now!

Yes, there seem to be sex-based differences in vision, especially peripheral vision.

These could be caused by heightened risk aversion/awareness that cause the results shown, but it seems a leap to suggest that's the only or necessary reason. If one is trying to be logical and scientific. Correlation is not causation, etc.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5951855/

See, I'm shocked by this too. I think it must be socialisation and learnt behaviour that I never learnt as a girl. This, honestly, does not go through my head, though I am neurodiverse. When I was a teen walking home from work in the dark on unlit roads I was afraid of serial killers.

The impression I have is that men are usually murdered from gang violence and fights, rather than sudden unexpected sex attacks from randoms and stalkers, or DV murder from partners. I don’t suppose there are figures either way however.

indeed, one might almost think some viewers were deriving salacious pleasure from it. Strangely the murdered are almost always nubile young women rather than grizzled old ladies or matronly middle aged types.

Anyone watching tv crime series would certainly think women are the main victims of violent crime, it's a never ending diet of murdered women in some shows.

You mention “two black women” from the year before - care to mention their names? I remember them. I don’t know why you don’t seem to.

Poor, poor Sarah Everard. It’s absolutely sickening when her murder is used as a shining example (heavy sarcasm here) how “women like her” don’t need to worry too much about walking alone at night. You should be ashamed of yourself for mentioning her in such a way.

Where to start with this? Why in the tragic case you mention do you refer to her colour and class? And what about women who are not white or middle class - any statistics up your sleeve about being “murdered in the open”?

That hyper vigilance, I wonder whether it’s socialisation, experience or what?

I do think it bears further investigation.

The relative risks to men and women aren’t clear, when all else is equal. I think the imbalance between perpetrators and victims affects it as well- boys are more likely to get hurt in a scenario they have contributed to than women. It’s more complicated than straight forward.

It’s absolutely true women take all these measures and live with all these fears. It’s not necessarily rational- speaking as someone who does all that stuff. Maybe men are just reckless and unimaginative?

DH was shocked when I told him not only the (reasonable) precautions I take but how the (perceived) threat of violence, and ultimately, rape is ever present and kicks in with what to him seems an innocuous situation.

For example, we were walking through a small park one night. There was a group of lads sat near the path by one entrance just chatting. As we walked past they got louder. I’m instantly on high alert - were they trying to get our attention? Were they coming closer? What other noises could I hear. Carried on, nothing happened, all good. No change in my behaviour.

When I explained what had gone through my mind at the same time as carrying on the conversation with him, he was speechless. I am a confident person, I do walk home at night because I won’t be cowered by the actions of a few. DH fully supports this although many disagree or are uncomfortable with my stance.

And, as a biological female, that thought process and learning to keep a tiny bit of headspace on constant alert is something you learn from such a young age. That’s what it ‘feels’ like to be a woman. (One of them.)

The article as published is quite clear as to what they investigated and why. Women report feeling more fear when walking particularly at night and in environments that were perceived as more dangerous (less lighting, places where others could hide). Women report that fear of sexual assault is their biggest fear, not that of being physically assaulted or murdered.

The point of the research was to feed into discussions about designing a built environment that makes women feel more comfortable walking, which would therefore benefit them. None of the potential changes would affect men negatively. Perhaps it may even benefit men too. But let's focus on the women here, which is what this research was trying to do.

I do think you have a point. There is sexual assault but I don't personally fear that or being hit, it's already happened (in the home not the street). I fear being accidentally killed in an assault or being locked up by a psycho (very unlikely). I fear more for my teenage son than myself at night.

I agree @literalviolence
Men are victims of assault more, by other men, but women fear sexual assault in a life changing, it will ruin your life way. I would not like to be beaten up, obviously, but it's sexual assault that drives the real fear. And then there's that line from the song quoted "If we're attacked we bear the blame" which also I think affects choices about where to walk and where to go.

How have they decided the periphery is always about safety hazards?

I wondered this. I am as likely to be looking for cats (though by the town centre, more likely to see rats,) or currently under street lights, see if the crocuses are out yet to come and see them in daylight. And sometimes there's new graffiti, much of which is dull, but there's occasionally something which makes me smile.

I look round more in daylight, too - I look at wildflowers and birds and things - I just spot a lot more than male colleagues I've walked with at lunchtime do, because I was brought up to look for signs of wildlife and plants and so on, and they're there even in an urban environment. I am most likely to be the one saying, "look at that!" (And they'll respond, "how do you know what that is, what's interesting about it?") Some men do do it more - a professional ornithologist I knew often spotted more birds than I did - because he was looking for, and recognised more signs of them than I did.

But also, don't women have better peripheral vision than men on average? So we're more likely to notice movement and will turn to look at it - partly as an instinct to check it's not a threat but just a leaf moving in the breeze, but also we fo just see more peripherally.

I have not read the report, so they will cover this, and I am not saying women don't pay more attention when they walk home - we all know we do. It might not be the only reason - it isn't for me. I take note of the environment I'm passing through for interest as well as safety.

What about sexual assault and rape? that's the biggest rusk on my mind late at night, not murder.

Quite. That drip, drip, drip of what it is to be a woman starts at birth and never stops....all the 'don't walk alone at night' and the 'keep your knees together in a dress' and the wariness of male strangers. You can't assimilate that with surgery and lipstick. This is what I don't understand.

Your risk assessment can't be very good if you don't realise that as a woman you are much less likely to be murdered than a man. Murder rates in Britain are low compared to other countries, fewer women are murdered than men.

Sarah Everard was murdered in 2021, there hasn't been another white middle-class woman murdered in the open since then. Two black women were murdered in a park the previous year but nobody seemed to be interested in that. Lots of women get murdered in the home by their partners, and that includes lesbian partners. Lots of men get killed, especially young men in south London.

A study is useful because, while most (not all) women know this, many men (and a few women) do not.

The recent Twitter spat that’s been discussed on many threads here contained a post from a woman who said she believed that the question of men in women’s toilets was, for her, mere hysteria or hype.

This kind of study can be used to dispel that. If many women are nervous walking in the dark, that demonstrates that a significant number of women go through the world feeling wary.

Any poster who thinks women are just being silly and should get over having to share any small space with men should be reminded that there are many women, probably the majority in fact, who do not feel as they do. This can then be extrapolated to the more extreme cases, where women, for various reasons, can actually no longer use that space.

I know when I first came here, that I thought objecting to those men in toilets was perhaps not worth doing as I personally, thought women could probably put up with a few men “for the greater good”. It was soon pointed out to me that it wasn’t my call to make and why I was being unfair.

Any study that can demonstrate that this is a genuine phenomenon, widely experienced in the general population, to men or women who believe only silly women would be bothered, is another piece of evidence that they are in a minority believing that.

@ArabellaScott

That's it!