In thinking that if you won't go out alone at night because you've got a vagina, you are actually a bit pathetic?

[solidgoldbrass]

Because, statistically, if you have a vagina, you are far more at risk of being murdered if you stay at home If your home has a man in it. Yet time and time again there's this 'Waa, waa, I need an armed escort or a male owner to protect me if I'm ever going to set a foot out of doors after dark. It's so unreasonable to expect me to use public transport or walk anywhere...'

• and also I vehementently voiced that view, so people wouldnt "see" my secret.

Just adding, that my husband is a lovely, kind, gentle man, who wouldnt harm a fly, just in case anyone thinks I am referring to him in talk of DV.

Northernlurker - there is very important serial correlation effect you and SGB are missing. Along the lines of what Abirdinthehand said.

If you set up home with a random man today then yes there is a chance you may unwittingly hook up with an abuser. However, when you are in your home with a man you know well and he is not an abuser today and has not ever been an abuser then there is a day-to-day serial correlation. Today is the same as yesterday and the day before and the day before that and it is that behaviour of a man over time that is a very good indicator of what will happen tomorrow. Its called experience and yes sometimes behaviour changes and the vast majority of the time it doesn't.

That is not the case when you are walking down the street. You are truely exposed to thousands of random men (and women) who may attack you. Of course 99.9% of men (and women) will not attack you but there are a small number of men (and women) who will. You are more vulnerable to them when you are walking alone and at night because they are more likley to pick on a vulnerable woman on her own than when she is in a group or even just walking in broad daylight.

I of course agree that in a perfect world that everyone should be able to walk alone on the street at night and be perfectly safe. That isn't how the world works though. We have to trust our instincts just as RubberDuck says. Sometimes fear is rational and it is an important survival instinct. I listen to my fear of being on the street at night and so should everyone else and take sensible precautions.

The thing that bothers me about this thread is that women are being encouraged, even bullied, into ignoring their instinct. Of course women should go out at night - but being sensible and staying safe is something we all do in all sorts of areas of our lives. Why deliberatley ignore that instinct when we are going out in the evening?

I find this talk of women walking alone at night to ?prove a point? rather misguided. Most women don?t walk about at night to ?prove a point?. They do so because they are participating in life (perhaps socialising with friends, working, attending an evening class etc.) ? and that often requires that we do things that carry a risk. Just as driving, horse riding, pregnancy and childbirth etc. etc. carry risks.

The world is full of potentially unsafe things. Of course if you have a safe home and a loving family you are safer in your home than out at night in an unsafe area of town. Just as you are far safer in your own home than you are out driving. The worst consequences of driving (dying in a horrific car accident) instead of staying safely in your home are just as bad as the worst consequences of being attacked in an unsafe area of town (being murdered). But for some reason we don?t have these endless debates over whether women should stay safely in their homes or go for a weekend drive. Perhaps women should only drive when absolutely necessary, and otherwise take a safer method of transport? But no, we accept that women are ?allowed? to drive, even when it is not strictly necessary, and we wouldn?t dream of saying to a woman maimed in a car accident ? ?well, it wouldn?t have happened if you?d taken the train, would it now? I hope you?ve learned your lesson and will take the train in future. Silly woman, driving instead of taking the train to prove a point.?

StewieGriffinsMom - are there any stats for the length of a relationship before the pregnancy in which DV began?
Whilst I heard the claim that most DV begins in pregnancy before, and don't doubt it in general I still think there must be a difference/less risk if you've been already living in a well working and equal partnership for years compared to finding yourself updiffed in the early stages of a relationship?

Or am I completely wrong there?

I've been raped.

I don't walk home in the dark alone. Neither do my DDs. I don't care what time of the night it is, I will always pick them up, and I drop their friends off home too.

I really don't care how politically incorrect that is, I will do everything in my power to keep my children safe, and I don't believe in taking unnecessary risks.

samandi - "Perhaps women should only drive when absolutely necessary, and otherwise take a safer method of transport?"

No of course not. It would though be perfectly reasonable to say "don't drive on bald tyres, keep speed down to 30 MPH on a narrow country lane and wear a seatbelt". All simple, and low cost methods of managing the risk of driving a car that every driver should understand.

There is a big difference between completley avoiding risk and sensibly managing risk.

MoreBeta THANK YOU for addressing this statistics nonsense so thoughtfully.

NL I really can't believe you are still insisting that those of us more worried about violence outside the home are thick or in denial. Maybe some women are misinterpreting their level of risk, but to say that all women who worry about violence outside the home are doing so is just nonsense.

I'm married to a man I've known for seven years, he has none of the risk factors for DV and I've never seen him be violent to anyone or anything. I thus judge my risk of DV to be extremely insignificant.

I have always however lived in dodgy neighbourhoods with high crime rates. For a long time, I lived in an area so bad that I was literally the only person I knew who had not been violently attacked on the street.

In these circumstances, I would have to a total idiot to think it's more likely that I would be attacked by my DH than someone on the street.

I take your broader point, that women as a whole underestimate their domestic risk, but to say that every individual woman is more at risk at home is letting dogma get in the way of rational analysis.

MoreBeta - "There is a big difference between completley avoiding risk and sensibly managing risk".

Of course there is, and I agree. (Although people often disagree as to what constitutes "sensibly managing risk".) However, what many posters are saying here is that they "don't go out at night" which is "completely avoiding risk" rather than saying they avoid particularly dodgy areas, keep their wits about them, keep valuable possessions hidden etc. which IMO would be examples of "sensibly managing risk".

YANBU I suppose if you're quoting statistics but actually I don't like my DH to walk around on his own at night either so it's not a feminist issue IMO.

I happily run in the streets of my local town after dark but I am too wary to run in the local country lanes during broad daylight. I know it's stupid of me but I can't rid myself of that nagging thought that it's more risky because it's more isolated.

women are not at risk of being raped if they walk alone at night, they are at risk of being raped if there's a rapist waiting to rape them.
personally I think it's wrong that women stop doing things completely to eliminate a supposed risk.

I used to walk home in the dark past hampstead heath after 9pm, that was how I got home every evening from my job.

speaking as one of those who has been abused in my own home, not going out in the dark, being picked up and not getting taxis, that makes me feel SAFE, I feel safe with my husband, I feel safe picking my children up, it reassures me, that although I cant protect them from what has happened in the past, I can protect them from strangers, stranger danger may be statistically less, but that doesnt bloody matter.

Its the one danger I can keep us all safe from.

We cant live on a desert island, we cant hide away from everyone, but we can minimise risk as much as possible.

God, sometimes I would prefer never to go outside the front door, never introduce anyone to our lives, home ed and keep us safe that way.

But we cant live like that can we.

That's exactly how I feel MJ, I can't get rid of the past, but I can do my best to make sure it's not repeated.

I'm not a small person - I am 5'11" and reasonable fit. I wonder if that has something to do with never having felt at risk at dark out of the home. Suspect the fear to do with size/strength as much as the sort of genitals we have?

Of course I don't live anywhere too scary although there are areas I'd be a little reluctant to walk around in broad daylight....

The risk are what they are. I can't judge them for anyone else and I might have been very lucky as I have reached 46 without any major problems. However I can honestly say my life would be very different and much narrower if I felt I couldn't go out alone after dark. I walk with my dog, I run. As I work 9-6ish I have no choice but to use the evenings for my leisure activities. I'm sure I'm not alone in that. Perhaps because of that I downplay the risk for myself.

MoreBeta, that's what I was trying to say, average statistics don't tell you about what is going to personally likely to happen to you, there may be whole other sets of parameters which make things more or less likely (i.e. if you live in a high crime neighbourhood you are more likely to get attacked than in a very low one, also people who are violent are usually consistent offenders so if you are unlucky enough to come into their radar either at home, or on the street, your chances of ending up assaulted or murdered is much higher than if you are near someone with no such history etc).

I think framing this as a gender divide: women vs men on the streets is quite misguided anyway. What I notice when I go abroad to Mediterranean and Eastern European countries is that all types of people go on the streets at night, so families with children, elderly people sit out and play chess, communities use their streets and are not afraid to sit out eating meals in a local square, or celebrate New Year with a public concert at midnight in a public place (including again children). They have not given up their streets to the young and alcohol fuelled like we have. (I have been in a few dodgy poorer parts of Europe so this is a generalization). But in normal everyday towns, people will go out after dark for a stroll with their families and no lads bump into them, call them names, are leery, have the sound of smashing glass around them, try not to catch anyone's eye, get threatened and all the things I've experienced pretty much every time I go out after dark in town centres in the UK.

I'm not a small person - I am 5'11" and reasonable fit. I wonder if that has something to do with never having felt at risk at dark out of the home. Suspect the fear to do with size/strength as much as the sort of genitals we have?

Perhaps to some extent, but I'm pretty small and haven't felt the same fear that many posters describe here, and I don't think I'm alone in this.

I just showed this thread to my DH.

His response "it don't matter who you are you at risk if you walk round our area alone at night, even me" Now that might seem a strange response from a 6 foot 7 well built man who is very into martial arts. But then he knows the risks very well and has the scars to prove it. We have both been attacked in our area and both try and minimise the risks where possible. The last time I was attacked it was by a 9 strong gang of 17 and 18 year old girls who hospitalised me for over a week. And the time DH was injured it was by 2 men who decided to jump out of a car and hit him with a wheel base. I have been followed, had abuse shouted at me and even man tell me he was going to come rape me.

But of course I'm just pathetic for trying to mitigate those risks arnt I SGB?

DH and myself always ask the other one to text or call to say we have arrived home or at destination safe and sound. Is that also pathetic?
Or the fact that we tend to drive out and pick the other one up if its late at night. But of course when he picks me up it a sign of ownership?

But of course I'm more at risk from my very gentle giant of a husband who has never raised hand or threatened me in any way in 15 years ( must be true cos SGB said so?).

I think the crucial word implied but not there in SGB's post was "just", as in "if you won't go out alone at night JUST because you've got a vagina".

It's clear that there are many people who are fearful about being out alone at night because of previous bad experiences, and it's clear that there are areas where either a man OR a woman might be fearful for their safety being out at night. But in the presence of neither of those factors, there are many, many people who wouldn't think twice about "letting" a male friend walk home alone, but would endlessly hassle a female friend and tell her she was being irresponsible if she did likewise. I have lost count of the number of times I've been out with friends who've said "did you walk here? by yourself? " when referring to a small market town at 8pm in the evening, and it's boring and disempowering IMHO.

Bramshott. It's a shame that it has to take 18 pages of dissection when one thoughtfully worded OP would have got the message over

I'm the Op off the other thread about my friend who walks home from work late at night. I've avoided this thread like the plague but I have to comment to put the record straight.

I asked should her DH pick her up TO DO THE DECENT THING AND HELP HER OUT BECAUSE SHE'S KNACKERED and struggling and a number of other things - it has nothing to do with whether she has or has not a vagina. It has to do with doing the right thing by the person that you share your life with and are supposed to care about. I've said a load of times on the other thread I'd do the same for my BF, go and lift him, it's not about the sex of the walker homer, it's about doing something because you care.

And I thought a thread about a thread was bad form?

It is.

Totallyscunnered - I wasn't aware there was another thread. I do think though that there was a need for this one. The number of posters basically denying the truth about women's safety in our society is pretty chilling to me.

totally I didn't read the original thread. But you dont need to explain it. Any decent man would do the same.