I wish there was a way we could make them see it.
The odd comment that men are proportionately more likely to be attacked misses the point, too. As PP noted, the numbers aren't that straightforward. Women experience deliberately intimidating behaviour which could be a prelude to violence all the time - daily or weekly, for many of us - and reporting rates of all degrees of attack are appallingly low. Caroline Criado Perez dissects the stats behind the "men are more at risk" gambit in "Invisible Women". It's not easy to read.
And anyway, the real issue isn't the numbers. It's what our chances are if we are attacked. It's the strength differential (I mean, Duh!) And yet we don't tend to hear much about it. Misplaced perceptions that being a feminist means denying this? All those modern kick-ass heroines? Perhaps just the sheer discomfort of facing such an uncomfortable truth...
A thriller I read recently put it really well. Paraphrased...
It's hard to grasp the devastating simplicity of someone with more physical strength than you. It reduces you to nothing.
If a man wants to kill you, he will.
The fact is, we live with this knowledge every day. Every encounter with a strange male in an enclosed or isolated space is an act of trust. Because if he wants to, he can.
And the other key difference, of course, is what he may "want" to do. A burst of competitive anger on a Saturday night is a universe away from the savage gratification that lies behind so much male-on-female violence, with the potential for rape, abduction and worse.
Living with all this is a uniquely female experience.
And NO, this ISN'T to say we're victims, or living in fear, or pathetically limiting our own lives despite our admittedly excellent odds of not becoming tomorrow's next horror story. FWIW, I'm more independent than many, do a lot alone including travelling abroad, and thoroughly enjoy it.
But am I aware of these awful realities? Yes, of course I am. All women are, on some level. And it's fucking exhausting and so, so wrong.
So when men don't listen to us on this, and laugh it off or "rationalise" it, do they really think that their dismissal somehow reassures us? Cos common sense would say it's far more likely just to compound how utterly powerless we can sometimes feel.
#pissedoffonyourbehalfOP! (And trying to think which words may get it through to his - quite literally, lucky bugger - thicker-than-our skull).