I believe the statistics are clear that outside the home, men are by far more at risk than women. They are much less at risk of being sexually assaulted, but even counting (known) sexual assaults and rapes, overall men are still more at risk. And they are hugely more at risk of being killed.
Inside the home, the stats are completely different.
So why do the majority of women 'risk assess' whenever they go out, but only the minority of men? It seems that objectively, men should be more worried when out and about. It seems that women should mostly be wary of close family members and friends.
I think a possible explanation could be found in a general victim blaming culture that applies only to women. Women learn, and everybody agrees, that they are responsible for keeping themselves safe. So when they get assaulted, there will be some reason why it was (in part) their fault - e.g. shouldn't have gone down that alleyway. Whereas when a man gets assaulted, the blame is put squarely on the assaulter/s (where it belongs).
I am not saying we should all start behaving 'irresponsibly' - from an individual perspective, it makes sense to avoid unnecessary danger.
But we should not be held responsible for the actions of someone against us, just because we didn't take the sensible precautions. Just like men aren't usually held responsible for being stabbed, even if the stabbing happened outside a pub.
Nor am I saying that men, objectively more in danger when out and about than women, should become more like women and do more risk assessing and behave more 'responsibly' by avoiding dangerous situations. Though yes, that might reduce the number of victims. But it would be a sad admittance of defeat: The non-perpetrators (male and female) should all adjust their behaviour to match the majority female current status of constantly risk assessing and being aware, in order to avoid becoming victims, whilst the perpetrators continue as they are.
No, in order to reduce violence (against men AND women), the perpetrators of violence need to stop perpetrating violence. The blame for violence must be on the violent person's shoulder and nowhere else.
Unfortunately male violence (on women and on men) is just a part of our toxic masculinity. It is way to accepted as something that men just do.
Unfortunately women alone cannot stop toxic masculinity.
And that is where male awareness comes in. I think men need to become more aware of the real objective risk of violence they are in every time they go out. Not so they start being more careful and 'responsible' - but so that they start contributing to a change in perceptions that will make male violence unacceptable rather than the norm.
But, sadly, both men and women falsely believe that women are in danger whenever they go out, and men are not. This suits men, violent or not - it restricts women, even if only by occupying their head space. Most of all it suits violent men. They can just continue as they are, and non-violent men never become aware of the need for change until they are randomly stabbed by strangers on the street and are dead, and no-one makes the connection with systemic toxic masculinity, instead it is just a matter of 'oh dear, wrong time wrong place' and the perpetrator is seen as a crazy exception rather than the result of general social attitudes that include that men just are violent and women are responsible for keeping themselves safe.
So, educate your men, old and young, that it is them that are most unsafe out and about. Then they might have an incentive to change things.
It is only by changing attitudes towards male violence that this can change.