Sexist and dangerous Samaritans ad

How strange.

Not as far as I can find. Always women approaching men.

surely there must be a Samaritans train ad in-which a bloke reaches out to someone in despair?

So it's Always women's job to save men? Good to know 🙄 that's me womaning wrong again!

Sorry, I have to say this. Many years I had a friend whose brother tried to kill himself by jumping in front of a train and ended up quadriplegic. I used to romanticise about killing myself but stopped after that happened

Why are they perpetuating the message that anyone severely depressed can snap out of it with a little chat?

They're not. No-one is saying that a little chat will solve someone's severe depression. What this ad is saying is that a random question or chat can distract someone from what they might be thinking of doing, grounding them in that moment and bringing them back from the brink.

As I said early on in this thread, someone talking that exact action probably saved my friend's life. He continued to have problems with depression for a while, but being brought back from the brink by that person not only prevented him from throwing himself in front of that train that afternoon, but also brought him to the realisation that he needed to get help. And he is now doing very much better.

Urgh I wasn't going to post this on this thread as it's outing but I had a friend who killed herself jumping off a bridge in front of a train. She actually worked for the railways, and she would have known exactly what the aftermath involved, as unfortunately many/most railway workers do. I will spare the details but, well, she planned it all in detail.

I will never understand her decision, but then she was extremely mentally disturbed when she killed herself.

So, yeah, people who kill themselves on railway lines know that trains have drivers, staff, passengers etc. Some of them know better than most exactly what effect it will have and still do it anyway 😔

Yes, agree with this

I'm pretty sure that suicidal people know that trains have drivers, just as they know that any method is going to have someone discovering the body and being traumatised by that. They aren't mentally in the right place to be considerate of themselves, let alone others.

I still think that even in a station I would tell them. It's possible that realising that what they think is a simple quick painless way to die has consequences for others, may stop them using this particular method
Ot make them feel even worse.
Bringing them back to the present even momentarily with trivia or with things that are happening now (weather, or whatever) might stop them spiralling might make them more likely to think twice
Not guilt trip them into " think what your family would go through" or "what about the train driver?"
They've obviously gone past that point.

Yes, a young woman I know who used to volunteer on the helplines stopped doing it because of this - she’d been doing it for years but said it got all too much; they weren’t even allowed to end the call even if it was a known pervert who called up every day and who everyone knew was masturbating on the other end of the line. Whatever the worthy sentiment behind never ending any call, in practice it just meant female volunteers were subjected to being used as a live sex line for a number of perverts.

She said that the sex callers just hung up if they got a male volunteer, so it was only ever the female volunteers who had to sit there listening to it right to the inevitable “climax”, as organisation policy. She said it wore you down.

I didn’t ever quite look at them as an organisation in the same way again after learning that.

On Twitter/X someone said their current CEO is the woman who pushed gender ideology at Girlguiding. (It figures, no?)

Someone mentioned the Brenda Line earlier in the thread.

https://gendercriticalwoman.blog/2023/06/18/the-brenda-line-samaritans-2/

Of course some of them were calling for a laugh or boys wanting to know about sex. The staff were encouraged to engage with them and teach the callers useful information, about sex, whist ignoring the ongoing masturbation. Some were classified as lonely men who were unable to form relationships with women and Varah believed the women who worked the Brenda line could help these men form respectful relationship with women.

Not if they are only thinking about how to do it, and nowhere near a station. which was the case when I have mentioned it to fellow MH service users. It has made at least two people think about what jumping in front of a train actually entails.

I still think that even in a station I would tell them. It's possible that realising that what they think is a simple quick painless way to die has consequences for others, may stop them using this particular method.

This ad has disturbed me a great deal.I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’m glad the Twitter thread has been supportive to women’s fears like this one.

It was Samaritans who insisted their call handlers never hang up on callers even when it was blindingly obvious they were masturbating, wasn't it? There was a thread on here.

I agree with this. The research does support simple interventions being effective at diverting the moment of crisis. It's great that Samaritans want to raise awareness of that. It's the execution of the campaign, especially the lack of thought for the safety of women, that it is objectionable, not the idea of intervening when it's safe to do so.

I have myself spoken to passengers on Tube stations a couple of times when I've been concerned about them (of course, I'll never know whether they were actually contemplating jumping, or just having a bad day, so looking miserable). But I would only do so, if I felt it was safe for me. Fuck the Samaritans for guilting women into ignoring the boundaries we need to be safe.

I've also done a lot of marketing research work and still do. I agree, I haven't had anything like this in a long time. It does beg the question whether because its a charity ad, do they have the funding to do thorough and meaningful research?

From an additional perspective, I am 52 yrs old and have had a lot of life experience. I mentioned in a previous post that I was an ex police officer. Men can and do pose a risk to women. We, as women, know this. From lived experience (often from a young age) and from news and statistics. We have been brought up with constant advice. Don't talk to strange blokes, don't walk home alone in the dark, don't lead men on, don't wear revealing clothing. Obviously some of that advice is practical and obvious. Some of it shouldnt have to be the case. All of it is given because of the misogynistic world we live in. The imbalance between men and women physically is always at the forefront of our minds.

Lately, though there is a definite push towards Women Being Kind to Men. It is a backlash of sorts. It is designed to keep women in their place. Women are (mostly) by nature nurturing. Men do not like women to be powerful in any way. In my mid 40s, I did a lot of online dating. The commonplace coercion, gaslighting, and threats really shocked me. I was told regularly online by men that I could save them, be their life coaches, complete them. I didn't want this or ask for this, it was just assumed from my friendly / helpful nature. Woe betide me though if I expressed opinions or intelligence. I'd just get called a smart arse and was obviously deemed a threat and the men disaapeared sharpish. I should know my place and stay there is what I took away from those experiences. That's before we even get to the porn addled expectations of us to be sexually submissive.

There are so many reasons why most of us are not just taking this shit lying down any more. We are sick of it, and I think it's totally fair enough to call it out, to call men out, the media out. We aren't moving forward otherwise. We have to speak up against the perpetual patriarchal status quo.

After the news broke of Sarah Everard's capture and murder, there was some distasteful talk of how she shouldn't have gotten in Couzen's car. Shouldn't have trusted him. A police officer. Yet here we are being told that it's the men's feelings and safety that matter most.

Yes, that really bugged me too. "Trust your instincts" during an internal conversation where a woman is actually persuading herself to prioritise one set of instincts over another, at best, or ignore her instincts at worst. "Don't overthink, you always overthink, you silly sausage".... overthinking is the basis of safeguarding and risk assessment! What are all the potential things that could go wrong here?

Thinking about who they showed the advert to.

I've been doing market research things in various formats since the 80s and its only whilst talking about this that I've realised it's been ages since I did a survey that involved an ad storyboard/ test ad. I wonder if ad agencies have stopped going to survey companies these days, or maybe I'm just currently doing surveys for the wrong market research company!

I've been thinking about this way too much today, and I dont know if its already been said, and I think cailleach above was possibly alluding to this, but I have a real problem with the "trust your instincts" message in this campaign too.

Like a subliminal message that the only correct instinct is to intervene.

Gosh, I always think of the safety of girls (and women) in public situations like this. I always say to young girls to trust their gut. If there was nobody else (or few people) on a platform, I’d say to think of their own safety first.

In fact I was thinking of giving an handy little (rechargeable ) personal alarm as a present to a young student I know. She surprised me as she was there before me - she said it was unfortunate that pepper spray was not legal. She had a part time job and in winter it was dark when she went home.

Mind you, I am one of those very cautious people who stand well away from the edge of a platform so I don’t accidently (or otherwise) fall or get pushed onto a live cable or in front of an approaching train.

They’ll have to do a ‘keeping yourself safe’ ad after this one. Why aren’t the chappies working there not the ones who are vigilant to men acting strangely at the edge of a platform? The transport companies could incorporate that into their training of all their staff. Or, is that a bit harder than waving quasi religious flags about.

I would wonder how rigorous the audience testing was and at what stage of production. Were people to worried about appearing to be kind rather than tell a well known charity that their expensive ad was at best problematic and needed complete rework?

If anyone thinks saying to a man “do you know where I can get coffee?” (Or anything else for that matter) then try picking a random sample of blokes you see in the street or at train stations and see how they respond.

(This is not a serious suggestion, because like the majority of women here, I’ve see how many men interpret ANY interaction instigated by a womanTOO MANY TIMES).

And again it’s a distressed man that the woman is meant to support. A little variation with another man commenting on the football would be nice.

Exactly. We have no idea what proportion of men acting strangely in a train station are suicidal and what proportion are more of a danger to others.

When I was 15 I had a grown man follow me from the bus station, all through town and into every shop I went in to. Just because I was polite to him once on the bus. Had to go into a Sainsbury's in the end and tell the security there he was hassling me.