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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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

859 replies

solidgoldbrass · 08/01/2012 23:34

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...'

OP posts:
MJinSparklyStockings · 09/01/2012 14:09

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by Mumsnet.

Haziedoll · 09/01/2012 14:14

MJSparkly - I fail to see how the OP is speaking from a feminist viewpoint anyway. How can berating women for choosing not to walk alone be remotely feminist?

MJinSparklyStockings · 09/01/2012 14:18

Sorry prior knowledge of poster - and I have seen this view posted before on feminism - although not quite so bluntly.

willselfless · 09/01/2012 14:27

I see what SGB means but shame it is worded in a way to stir up emotions and detract from the argument.

I will quite happily walk on my own at night. But I live in a quiet and pretty safe area, and I take sensible precautions (no shortcuts at night, no ipod). When in the past I have lived in less nice places, my behaviour was different and I would take taxis/buses as necessary.

However, aside from minor incidents (groping/flashing), I haven't been attacked. I am sure my attitude would be different if I had. So, SGB's post is very unreasonable if it doesn't take personal experiences into account.

everlong · 09/01/2012 14:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MarthasHarbour · 09/01/2012 14:37

No problem everlong it is worth reading as it puts the OPs ridiculously-put argument into context. The thread didnt start as a feminist issue but certain SGB turned it into one.

kerala · 09/01/2012 14:40

Also walk around at night but admit I am on alert when I do so (phone at the ready looking who is around etc). But then years ago I opened the door to my flatmate who had walked home from work at 6pm in November through a very nice part of town was grabbed and sexually assaulted in someones driveway. Obviously she was in a total state and has struggled to get over it. Having witnessed someone having that experience takes away the "it will never happen to me" feeling.

lovelydogs · 09/01/2012 14:52

It's obvious SGB has been lucky enough that nothing unpleasant has ever happened to her and she doesn't feel fear like some women do. How short sighted of her.

yellowraincoat · 09/01/2012 14:55

Think you could have put it better, OP. Calling people pathetic is bound to get their backs up.

I do agree though. I will walk anywhere on my own at night. Would rather take a small risk than spend my life in fear of what MIGHT happen.

That said, I do have anxiety issues, so don't always open the door if I'm not expecting someone, and there is a lane by my house that I avoid if I'm alone.

Hullygully · 09/01/2012 14:55

I went everywhere at night on my tod if necessary, including night buses etc etc and then there was great unpleasantness and now I don't. Once bitten.

There is no great general point to be extrapolated, just that there are oft reasons we know not of.

Hullygully · 09/01/2012 14:57

Come come, there there

yellowraincoat · 09/01/2012 14:57

Thinking about it, the only time I was ever flashed was on a main street with loads of people around. The only time I've ever been seriously sexually assaulted was in my place of work.

MrsBovary · 09/01/2012 15:03

I don't know. I definitely wouldn't walk alone at night through some places, but would also expect (hope) dh and other male friends not to do so.

MissCoffeeNWine · 09/01/2012 15:10

I think SGB means if you won't walk alone at night purely because you are female. As she says in the title of the thread. Doing so purely because of being female (or owning a vagina) and purely because it is dark outside IS a distortion of risk, IMO.

I have been sexually attacked by a stranger (who turned out to be a repeat offender) at noon in a busy street on my way to work. I have been followed home after dark at least three times that I know of, I walked home at midnight every night on a predictable route. I had my own stalker for over a year, which was vaguely entertaining. I have been flashed at on a bus in the daytime. I have been physically attacked BECAUSE I was with a man outside a shopping centre, a gang of lads decided to start on him and there I was too. I have had someone kick the window of my car through whilst I was in it. A man attempted to assault me at twilight when I was on my way home from the supermarket, bags in each hand. I was raped in someone else's flat. I've been physically assualted several times in my own home though never by a partner.

There really isn't a common denominator in my experiences. With a man, without, in the day, in the evening, in the night, indoors, outdoors, sustained interest or one off attacks, people I knew, strangers. On foot, on buses, in my car. As a child, as a teenager, as an adult. Some of these people were prosecuted, some weren't.

I think refusing to do something arbitrarily because of certain factors when the statistics do not support those as particular risk factors is a bit daft - and I certainly resent being told what to do by others, because of these imagined factors. So I do have sympathy with being told you shouldn't be scared, I hate being told I should be!

ThisIsANickname · 09/01/2012 15:18

It never occured to me not to go out after dark by myself. Blush

I am happy to walk anywhere at any time, including two and half miles through a "bad neighbourhood" in London. I literally wouldn't give it a first thought, let alone a second.

GoingForGoalWeight · 09/01/2012 15:38

NO person is pathetic for carefully considering their own safety, walking alone at night. It's easy to make things up to prove a point also which is a bit daft.

Gonzo33 · 09/01/2012 15:43

YANBU. I have lived in a lot of countries, travelled in a lot of dodgy areas too, and never been attacked, apart from when someone nicked my handbag and was disappointed to find nothing but 50p in a small purse in it!

MJinSparklyStockings · 09/01/2012 15:45

It's this sort of bollix that gives feminism a bad name.

SoupDragon · 09/01/2012 15:48

How do you judge whether the people are staying in purely because they are female and that they wouldn't do the same if they were male?

Personally, think it's pretty pathetic when people judge the actions of others and belittle them because of what they have chosen to do.

AmberLeaf · 09/01/2012 15:54

Where are you SGB?

Do hurry back and see the upset you have caused.

Prolesworth · 09/01/2012 15:55

Various bits of research have been conducted into fear of violence and found that women are significantly more fearful (measured in terms of the precautions women take) than men, even though men are statistically more likely to be victims of stranger violence than women. That might be to do with types of violence as someone already posted about upthread: male on male violence being more likely to be 'social violence' and male on female violence being more predatory and more likely to involve sexual violence.

hobnobsaremyfavourite · 09/01/2012 16:03

See this is the OP's modus operandi, find something you disagree with e.g religious beliefs, personal beliefs about sex/relationships, in this case personal safety and instead of politely disagreeing with them and offering well thought out reasoned arguments you mock and belittle. "imaginary friends", pathetic", etc etc repeat ad nauseam.

oikopolis · 09/01/2012 16:04

AIBU in thinking people who sneer at women for being afraid of being assaulted are actually a bit pathetic?

I've been sexually assaulted more than once.
...if taking whatever precautions I can makes me pathetic, well then, I wear that badge with pride. I am not physically strong, and I don't own any weapons. So I do the next best, sensible thing: I travel either in a car, or with another person.

OP not everyone lives in a safe neighbourhood, or even a safe country for that matter. What a shitty shitty thing, to try to shame a woman for making a choice. It's feminist to exercise the power of choice that you have available to you. It's unfeminist and downright vile to pour scorn on women who do so.

I know many, many men who follow the same rules because they live in dangerous areas. Are they a bit pathetic too?

Jesus it must be nice to live in such luxury that you can sneer at people who live in nightmareish circumstances

solidgoldbrass · 09/01/2012 16:28

No, I'm not going to apologise. But it is the culture of 'Women, stay indoors and accept male ownership' that I object to more than individual choices. It is a big tool of the patriarchy, connected to the idea that women must accept the ownership of one man as the price of being protected from all the others.
And I have been mugged twice, beaten up once and followed quite a few times. And have always gritted my teeth and gone out the next night so as not to let the fear take over. Living with partners is far more risky than going out alone, it's a pity so many people insist that it's the other way around.

OP posts:
squeakytoy · 09/01/2012 16:29

I am happy to walk anywhere at any time, including two and half miles through a "bad neighbourhood" in London. I literally wouldn't give it a first thought, let alone a second.

You would if you or someone close to you were harmed though, surely?

Complacency does not reduce the risk. It may be a small risk, but is it really a risk worth taking when there is avoidable action that can be taken to minimise the risk even more.

A person can only be murdered once.. and saying "well it has never happened to me", clearly not, but there is fuck all you can do about it once it has. Many women have thankfully not been assaulted or raped while walking out on their own late at night, but that does not mean it will 100% not happen to them. We live in a society were crime is no longer punished severely enough to be a deterent as I mentioned earlier. Material greed and feral teens have also increased the chances of street crime.