To think that if you are a man you shouldn't stop a school girl on a deserted street to ask for directions

[solosolong]

Just that really. DD is in year 7 (although she is tall so looks a bit older) and leaves for school early when there aren't many people around. She called on her way in this morning to say that she was feeling a bit nervous because a man had just stopped her to ask for directions.
I'm sure there was nothing dodgy about it but AIBU to think that as a man on your own it wouldn't take much imagination to think that a young school girl will have been told not to talk to strangers and may be scared if you stop to talk to her?
I am interested to know what others think.

I would encourage all DC to act on instinct when approached by people they don't know even if that instinct means they aren't "polite".

Realistically girls and young women get a shitload of crap off men from a young age and so I think it is reasonable for said girls and women to be cautious when approached by men they don't know.

I personally don't think I would approach a young child for directions irrespective of what sex they were, if they were by themselves.

I think it is good that OPs DD acted on how she felt and was comfortable with talking to her mum about it.

I think it is sad that even after all these years of all the stuff that goes on all the time, there are still so many people who would say a girl who felt uncomfortable being approached by a certain man was being out of line. Girls and women are forever going against their instincts in situations in order to "be polite" and then when things go bad at the lower end of the scale they are told to "laugh it off" and at the worse end are taught that things were in some way their fault.

You can bet that if OP's DD had been polite and the man had done something, loads of people would say "Why on earth were you talking to a strange man in a deserted street" etc etc.

Maybe it's too many years of urban living, but I have a policy of not stopping to answer strangers who address me on the street. I sidestep with a breezy 'sorry' before i can get sucked into their tale of how they lost their train ticket and they have to get back to their terribly ill granny and and and....

Occasionally I'd stop if they seem genuine and non-threatening.
To qualify as 'non-threatening', it helps to be female and sober. And to look like I could 'ave you in a fight if it came to it, I suppose. So you might be OK, gruntfuttock, depending how much you drink before your country rambles

Oh, or bleeding. I'd stop if they were bleeding etc.

As young girls, we are socialised to beware - "don't do this, don't wear that, stay with friends, don't walk on your own." It's ingrained in us from an early age.

Perhaps Aga, you should ask yourself why a young girl may be nervous at being approached by a man on a deserted street for directions? Rather than demanding a 'safe' age to approach a girl...

Blame the creepy men, I say.

yes, Boulevard, that is the key

would i win in a fight?

Boulevard I'm the same (after many years of experience).

Not mockery at all. It was just seeing the mentions of Rose West and Myra Hindley made me realise that women aren't less threatening at all. Having been told in no uncertain terms that, no, it would not be OK for me to speak to a child/teenager in the circumstances I described, I'm afraid that my wandering mind thought about all the times I walk with my daughter and whether that would be more or less frightening. Then, I thought, well, if we were dangerous if we spoke, we'd be dangerous if we didn't speak, logically.

I didn't intend to sound mocking with the (in hindsight) ill-advised psychopath remark. It was just that I was gradually being made aware of how a seemingly innocuous question could be regarded as frightening if the person speaking was unknown to the child/teen and then I went on to think that someone with ill-intent doesn't need to speak to be viewed as a threat. It made me feel as though just being there would be the wrong thing to do, hence the "I think I'll stay in" which could be construed as petulant, but wasn't meant that way.

I apologise if I've annoyed with my questioning. As a mother I'm only too aware of how parents fear for the safety of our children. Even when they're adults we don't stop worrying because reaching adulthood doesn't make you impervious to harm.

I know this is a very long post, but I hope that it has been read by some, because I really don't mean to annoy and have tried to explain my thought processes.

The above was to sanfairyanne btw. Will try very hard not to post again on this thread as I'm too long-winded and I'm annoying myself!

thank you gruntfuttock. i appreciate your openness.i did read something into it that you didnt mean and i apologise if i was a bit abrupt because of that.

sanfairyanne thank you very much for posting that and no need to apologise at all. I feel a bit better now.

A bona thread.

As a man in childcare I've always been careful to remember that a decent proportion of people will look at me and think paedophile. At college I was told it was a matter of when I would get accused of inappropriate behaviour, not if. As a result I've always tried to bear that in mind in all my actions.
I would not approach a young child on their own like the OP talked about. People jump to conclusions and I do not want to be a victim. However, most men do not have a little internal voice in their head that says "Don't look like a sex attacker" all the time. It's not really a nice thing to have to remember. Sometimes you just want to go get a paper in the morning rather than go get a paper in a non sex attacker way.
I suppose it could be because thinking other people thinking of you as a nasty person isn't a very nice way to think about them. You would walk round thinking "she thinks I'm evil, and that person thinks I'm evil, and so does she..." and it feel like you're thinking "She's horrible and mean to me, and that person's mean to me...". The men Know they're nice people so find it hard to take into account the perception of them by other people.

I do cross the road behind women, or pretend to check my phone to let them get ahead. I would stop to help a bleeding child, but a crying one or a lost one would get pointed in the right direction, or I'd phone 101.

YY but it's not nice having to go around feeling as if you have a target on your back, that you are PREY, but women & girls aren't allowed to forget that are we, what with the emails and the TV progs and the adverts and so on everywhere not to mention the actual experiences.

It is very tiring and even if you try your best to ignore it (as I have always done) you still can't help but feel uncomfortable in certain situations as we have been so heavily socialised to feel this way not to mention had in reinforced by the catcallers gropers wankers etc etc etc

I wasn't saying it was right. I was saying what I think the reason was for many men not thinking about it.

And men do get The Fear. When you're an early 20s man, sometimes looking in the wrong direction will get you physically attacked. You get scared when you're on your own and have to walk past a group of youths. And obvious visible minorities get it too. And then they forget about it and cause The Fear themselves.

Some types of people are more likely to scare people I guess. A black guy wearing casual clothes is more likely to alarm people than a white man dressed in a suit carrying a briefcase. Groups of young women on a Friday night can be perceived as intimidating, the same women coming home from work in daylight might not be.

You can assume the black guy is going to mug you, and cross the road to get away from him, but he doesn't have to alter HIS behaviour compared with the white guy in the suit because you are scared.

Well, if he was going to abduct her, he wouldn't bother asking for directions first, would he?

ffs MarieSarah Asking for directions is an all-too-obvious way to get a child's confidence.

Don't be so bloody silly, Marie All abductors have to get their victim's attention somehow.

Yanbu to feel disappointed that, in the circumstances, it didn't occurr to the man that he should wait until he could find someone else to approach instead.

Aga depends on where you are maybe IME white blokes whether in suits or otherwise have given me much more reason to be wary than black guys.

And the point here is that it's based on people's (womens & girls) real actual repeated experiences of the behaviour of men & boys.

Why are women and girls continually told they must ignore their own experiences and those of others because it's not fair on men

I don't think YABU. Most of the men I know would actively avoid asking a young girl because they wouldn't wish to make her feel uncomfortable. It's not about 'all men are rapists'. It's about 'some men are' and young girls can feel vulnerable or unable to judge adult intention.

Who said women should ignore their experiences? Like I said, cross the road if you want to. The thread is about men not being allowed to ask for directions.

The other problem is that even in the event that a man isn't a predator or up to no good, a large number of them seem to take anything less than an outright blank from a female as encouragement.

So if a girl or woman politely stops and tells the directions this is seen as a positive "come on" and the man follows up accordingly. Actually a lot of people on the thread have spoken about that too. And when you're 11 it's hard to know how to deal with it if you have been heavily socialised ot be "polite". Blimey it's hard enough if you haven't and/or you're older!

Bottom line is, OPs DD felt uncomfortable, reacted accordingly, nothing bad happened to the man because of it, and OP was able to reassure DD that her reaction was fine - although still she felt she wanted to check that actually.

What an appalling attitude, OP. I worry for your daughter if you've projected this kind of paranoia onto her.

Whatever next? Black people shouldn't approach white people in the street because they might think they're a mugger.

I'm sorry, but you should be ashamed of yourself.

I'm not crossing the road

You think OP's DD should have crossed the road?

I don't think anyone here has said that they guy was going to abduct her. I think what people have said is that if a man wanted to be courteous, he might think twice about approaching a young girl on an empty street, as it is likely to make her feel nervous, and in general it's nice to not make people feel nervous.

Tiggy I admire your frankness and agree that as someone who works with children you're probably more than familiar with thinking about how your actions may look. But I do think it's important to note that the average woman probably isn't looking at you going about your business wondering if you're a sex attacker. It's only when you're behind me on an empty street at 2am, or in a car moving suspiciously slowly beside me, or (this wouldn't be you, I know) shouting obscenities at me from a park that I wonder a little bit. The rest of the time you are just 'miscellaneous human' to me!

I also agree that men get The Fear - I worry more about my DH's physical safety alone at night than my own, because I think the chances of him getting mugged/beaten up are far higher than anything happening to me. On the other hand, the average man can do more damage to the average man than the average woman can - so if something's going to happen to me, I'm not going to have a lot of say in it, and I think that's where the real fear comes from.