Male privilege: How can I explain to a man why some women are afraid of men?

[IvyBush123]

A make friend of mine talked about male privilege a few months ago or I was trying to explain it to him - but I don’t think he got what I was trying to say.
He was walking down the street in the evening, it was getting dark and there was nobody else in the street but a unaccompanied women who hurried and gave him fearful looks.
My friend is a harmless person, very nice, would never do anything bad to a woman. He was hurt by the fact she seemed to fear him.

I tried to explain to him that most men aren’t rapist but some are and women like to be on the safe side. Don’t think he got what I was trying to say.

But I ask again, why are you othering and seeking to insult me based on my protected characteristics?

Nobody is othering you except yourself @StreetwiseHercules.

And stop fooling yourself - you're not being insulted for your protected characteristics, you're being insulted for being a patronising bellend.

I was thinking about male privilege today. I’m 2 inches shorter than the average female and live in a house where the shower is built for the average sized man (I can’t adjust it low enough), my feet don’t touch the floor when I sit on my toilet or sofa, I have broken veins on the back of each knee from a lifetime of sitting on chairs designed for the average sized male... Even my kitchen countertops are all set too high for comfortable chopping, but the one that really gets me is the security peep hole in the front door is set higher than I can reach even on tiptoe. No-one that tall would need to use it! Went into the ladies toilets in a pub last week and the bottom of the mirrors were set higher than the top of my head. As is the card slot at petrol stations.

Feel like I live in a world designed for someone else. Because I do. And don’t get me started on the car layout...

I suppose I was anxious, not scared. You know, like before you go skydiving, but you still do it. Whereas I'm actually scared of scuba diving and would never do it, not even if you paid me. It's a bit different. Anxious, but not terrified to the point of being unable to walk home by myself, or making sure my drink is never out of my sight, or crossing the street to avoid etc which a lot do. Last time clubbing every time I wanted to piss my friend insisted on coming with me, wouldn't let me go to the bar to order drinks on my own, because "you never know what could happen", I just didn't see the big deal and thought she was making a fuss.

jesus forgot to put your name on last one

I think I'm more scared of spiders than of men. I would never seek out an situation involving spiders.

Yeah, I tried talking to DH about this need to be on guard. He doesn't get it. He's 6 ft 3 and built like a brick shithouse. He just shrugged and said I'm over reacting. Large men will never really understand what it feels like to be female / smaller than others.

Skysblue......how tall is the average female, I have no idea?

Average female height is 5ft 4

@HuskyloverI do you have children with him? If you do ask him what if he your 3YO got lost, who would he rather find her a man or a woman?

If you were lost in the woods while jogging, who would he rather you encountered for help, two men or two women?

I don't believe he doesn't 'get it', my uncle used to say that but then say his daughter couldn't date until she was 21 (she was about six but he's already thought about it!) or said his wife shouldn't 'go out dressed like that' why not if there's no danger? He also kicked off when one of the nursery staff his son went to left and a man replaced her, why? He didn't want a man taking his child to the toilet/changing them/being alone with them but when I asked why because he's told me men were not a danger he just stomped off.

I also struggle to believe that most grown men don't get it.

But why do they always take it as a personal criticism?

And why aren't they doing more to raise the next generation of boys better? (I don't mean each man is individually responsible, but you'd think there'd be some sort of effort being made)

Maybe it's just human nature to not care that much about the struggles of a group you're not part of.

I'm one person, I have very little influence on how other people are and I'm not responsible or accountable for how other men behave.

A virtual shrug.
Things will never change because it's nothing to do with men that men are violent.

You are condemned to feel your little bit of sadness at the injustice of it all forever surplus

Men have the luxury of “not getting it”

That’s privilege.

Our biology has determined much of the societal bullshit. Our smaller size. Our capacity to grow and feed children. Men’s larger size. Their different hormones.

That’s where it started. Then it suited men to keep us in the metaphorical (and literal, often) kitchen. To keep us in our place.

So of course they see it. But the privilege of generations allows them to shrug and say “I don’t see it” or “I don’t do that” or “But men are disadvantaged too”.

I have said quite recently to my dp about the daily fears of men that women experience, in the context of not wanting female spaces to be shared with self ID trans women.

He gets it. He hadn’t realised it before but he understood my point of view when I said it.

I have a male friend, who was sexually harassed (physically picked up) in a gay bar once. He spoke about it in a mixed group of DH's friends and I said, yup that's what going out is often like for women. He couldn't get it. When I pointed out that being sexually harassed by someone bigger and unwanted was the exact same it wasn't. For reasons. When I pointed out I've been chatted up in a lesbian space and was meh and didn't feel the slightest bit scared, it's clear it's not sexuality that's the issue, but the threat of violence.

His mate had an epiphany though. Proper OMG that's true moment.

“Op, the more you type the morecyou sound like a massive handmaiden” have to say I agree.

Especially:

“Telling him to dress differently? I think it would be a good idea if he choose to dress differently... but I don’t know how to tell him. I don’t know if I am in a position to tell him - the way he dresses alongside with some physical characteristics he has make him look like a thug.”

Him regaling this incident was actually a perfect opportunity!

“Well I have to be honest, if I didn’t know you as well as I do and I had been that woman your appearance and your behaviour, I’d have found them intimidating and it would have made me be on my guard”

And then you could have expanded as the conversation went on.

Those clothes are intimidating/thuggish BECAUSE they are the preferred clothing of men who act intimidating ways.

“I think the issue is that very few men are rapists” no - I think the problem is very few men BELIEVE they are rapists - but ARE rapists!

I genuinely do not believe rapists and abusers are the tiny minority it’s often claimed - if that were true then nowhere near as many girls and women would have the experiences they do.

The first time I was assaulted was at the age of 9 by an older boy. Since then (rough adding up here as it’s SO common I’m sure I’ll forget some of the less traumatising incidents) I’ve been assaulted by approx 25 different boys and men. And some of those did so more than once, more than a few times actually. Sexualised bullying at school REALLY needs to be addressed.

And I’m not particularly good looking, I wasn’t dressed particularly provocatively, on one occasion I was wearing baggy jeans, ugh type boots, several layers of warm clothes inc a huge parka style coat, hat, scarf and gloves! I wasn’t always in situations where I would consider I’d made myself especially vulnerable indeed many times I was in places/situations I really should have been quite safe - home, school, college, public transport in Daytime, play parks in day time...

But I strongly suspect (in fact in several cases I know) that these boys & men did not believe they had done ANYTHING WRONG!

One of them contacted me FLIRTATIOUSLY (despite being bloody married too!) last year on Facebook! (We’d been at school together) - instantly blocked of course.

If any of you had read that reddit thread or the study or articles on it where men when asked in such a way as avoids using the words rape or abuse you’d see the denial spouted by those men and they are no different to the men we interact with all the time.

If you were VERY brave op, you could ask your “nice guy” friend if he’s EVER touched a woman when she wasn’t expecting it, had sex with someone who was intoxicated, had sex with someone when he had pressured them to do so, continued having sex with them when they’ve changed their minds...

Because ALL of these make him a sexual predator and several make him a rapist.

If you’re less brave you could simply ask him what he thinks constitutes true - not coerced or pressured or assumed - consent.

“but I must admit some of the responses here aren't easy to read.” Try living these experiences! Damn sight harder than just reading about them!

“I'm not responsible or accountable for how other men behave.” Actually to a point you are - partly in the way we ALL are responsible for creating a safe society but also because the misogynists are more likely to listen to another man.

Women cannot do it alone, everyone needs to take their part in creating a safe, comfortable society for everyone.

Men abdicating this responsibility is insulting, pathetic and lazy!

You are responsible in your own way for perpetuating rape culture if you don’t ever challenge those creating it.

Women couldn’t get the vote or abortion rights or equal pay without the support of men too.

Because men have the power to effect real change in a patriarchal society.

Unfair, unpalatable maybe - but true!

Please continue to do what you have been but consider doing more. We can all do more.

Speak to your Mp, sign petitions, discuss consent, share things like the tea consent video - these are not difficult things to do.

“Clumzy please don't imply that the others on this thread are simply 'shit scared of men', it's insulting.”

Yep!

Especially to those of us who are abuse and rape survivors!

Really offensive post. I’ve also reported I’m quite shocked it’s still standing now to be honest! Mnhq?

@anarrestableoffence - if what those people said/did was bad enough to negatively impact their careers then clearly it was bad enough they shouldn’t have done/said it in the first place! You say paranoia I say hopefully you’ve learnt better behaviour than they displayed but your thought patterns still need quite some work

Until men ACKNOWLEDGE their responsibility to ALSO challenge the patriarchy and misogyny of the society we all live in we will not improve things.

I fostered a dog once. It was scared of men- whether this was because it had been (alledgedly) beaten up by a man when it was a pup, or whether after that it had been kept by a single woman who never really took it out and had therefore never been socialised to trust men, I don't know.

It was OK with me but the first night I had it, when my husband came home it practically shat itself and hid under the kitchen table. DH loves dogs, and dogs love him, generally. He is a dog magnet, pretty much. He chatted to me quietly for a while, ate dinner, then crouched down sideways on to the dog across the kitchen. Talked to it, offered food, all the rest. For an hour. Nope. Wherever he moved, the dog would manoeuvre to keep the table or some chairs between DH and itself. It carefully pivoted to stay face on to DH the whole time, never exposing its flank, never relaxing one iota.

Well, DH- the nice guy, the dog guy- was pretty hurt by this. The dog would let me touch it, but not him. He felt a bit crap. The next night, he tried again. Same result. He got a bit exasperated, muttered "stupid fucking dog" and sloped off to bed. It wasn't his fault. It wasn't the dog's fault. The dog didn't know he was a nice guy, and an hour of DH trying to "prove it" didn't wash against that dog's upbringing. It did get to trust him, and even like him, eventually. But you can't argue logically with years' worth of conditioning in ten seconds and you can't really argue logically with your amygdala or sympathetic nervous system at all.

Your friend's clothes and haircut are a bit of a red herring. It's mainly the fact that he is a male over the age of about 12 that is pushing lone women's fear rev counter up. Whether it only increases to "slightly tense" or blasts all the way up into the red where her hairs are on end, her heart rate doubles, her blood pressure skies and her brain is roaring ALERT ALERT FUCKING ALERT depends more on that individual woman's life experience and social conditioning than on him. Same as that foster dog would have acted the exact same towards a dog hating man in the kitchen as it did towards my dog loving husband.

@Graphista
@Graphista
If you were VERY brave op, you could ask your “nice guy” friend if he’s EVER touched a woman when she wasn’t expecting it, had sex with someone who was intoxicated, had sex with someone when he had pressured them to do so, continued having sex with them when they’ve changed their minds.

This is what confused people. I'm sure I've touched a woman when she hasn't expected it, for example tapping someone to get their attention.

I also think it's very common in our society for the first sexual contact between two people to be under the influence of alcohol. Healthy or not, plenty of people get drunk so that they feel less awkward having sex with relative strangers. It seems a bit silly (and patriarchal) to put the onus on the man to police a woman in that respect.

If what those people said/did was bad enough to negatively impact their careers then clearly it was bad enough they shouldn’t have done/said it in the first place! You say paranoia I say hopefully you’ve learnt better behaviour than they displayed but your thought patterns still need quite some work

You don't really need to say something "that bad though". You just need to offend someone and you have zero control over whether someone is offended by what you say. The specific occasion I'm thinking of wouldn't even raise an eyebrow between friends, it just happened to have struck a nerve with a particular girl and because it was related to relationships, it was treated as #metoo adjacent.

I'm completely happy being seen as a robotic cog at work and I'd like if everyone else felt the same, but that's just not how it works. I had a team meeting last week and as an ice breaker everyone was asked what the "naughtiest" thing they had done was. This sort of expectation of openness is the norm everywhere I've worked (large financial institutions) but you can't be honest without risking offence (I lied, obviously).

Just today I was looking at a Twitter thread. A woman was trying to get a response from a man's employer because he had sent her a message on a dating app saying "are you one of those hot girls that look retarded?"

A bit silly, but probably shouldn't be a fireable offence. In the current climate, I wouldn't be surprised if he ended up being publicly reprimanded (more than he already has been).

@GroggyLegs
*A virtual shrug.
Things will never change because it's nothing to do with men that men are violent.

You are condemned to feel your little bit of sadness at the injustice of it all forever surplus*

This is exactly the type of thing that's hard to read.
I'm not responsible for anyone else's behaviour but I do constantly challenge toxic masculinity. Where did I say it has nothing to do with men?

I'm not 'a little bit sad' about male violence against women, I'm outraged by it.

I'm sad that I can't walk along the street without having to be aware of whether I'm unintentionally making someone else fearful.

Thanks for your response @Surplus2requirements. I appreciate it's hard to read.

Did not get me wrong, I am rightly or wrongly grateful to the men in my own life who on an individual level have stopped other men behaving horribly towards me or my friends.

But the 'what can I do?' shrug is just so tiresome & infuriating. Because if not you, then who?
Which group of men is going to come together, organise, volunteer & campaign to make things better for women? Make these allegedly 'unaware' men, aware? Give their time, stand up to the calls of 'cuck'?

Not you. Not my DH. Not any of our male MPs. Even the law allows women to consent to their murder. I've no doubt there is some rare male led organisation somewhere fighting for women, but I'm yet to see it making headlines.

So as I say, I completely feel your frustration that the opposite sex is being mighty fucking unfair to you.

www.moosehidecampaign.ca

One of the rare ones. And the specific background is epidemic levels of violence against women, who are the backbone of indigenous communities, including missing and murdered indigenous women.

I once read an item online where a man played in an orchestra and due to some reason or other had to walk home carrying his very expensive violin.
He explained to his wife what it was like walking through town at night carrying something so precious and fragile. He knew that most people in reality weren’t interested in it but he said he was frightened that anyone could just overpower him and take it. He told her that she had no idea what that was like.

She gave him the look.

*are you one of those hot girls that look retarded?"

A bit silly, but probably shouldn't be a fireable offence*

It's not silly, it's sexist, sleazy as well as disablist. Not on, and I'd defend any employer wanting to get rid of a twat like that.

@GroggyLegs I haven't claimed the opposite sex has been unfair to me just one poster who I see as having misconstrued my words.

Toxic masculinity is a problem everyone shares and it can be challenged to much greater effect together rather than by emphasising and exaggerating our differences and how it effects us.

Skysblue, this book addresses the evidence that we live in a world designed for men; that men are regarded as the 'default humans' and the far reaching implications of that:
www.theguardian.com/books/2019/feb/28/invisible-women-by-caroline-criado-perez-review

rather than by emphasising and exaggerating our differences and how it effects us.

Except rape and murder affect us quite badly. And aren't something we cause. Pretending it affects everyone similarly is maddening. Men benefit from toxic masculinity as much as they suffer from it. Women just suffer from it.

When I go into my child's primary school playground and watch the boys take up 90% of the space and how they behave when a girl or weak boy is somewhere they shouldn't be, it's clear that training is installed very young.

“This is what confused people. I'm sure I've touched a woman when she hasn't expected it, for example tapping someone to get their attention.” I honestly don’t see what’s confusing - just don’t do it, it’s not necessary, use your voice! Especially not necessary to do to women you don’t know.

“I also think it's very common in our society for the first sexual contact between two people to be under the influence of alcohol.” I said intoxicated - not merely under the influence! If a woman is clearly drunk leave her alone!

“Healthy or not, plenty of people get drunk so that they feel less awkward having sex with relative strangers. It seems a bit silly (and patriarchal) to put the onus on the man to police a woman in that respect.” Oh ffs! Talk about wilfully misunderstanding and misusing the language and ideas here. It’s NOT policing the woman at all it’s policing YOUR OWN behaviour in regard to not having sex with someone incapable of consent - because that’s fucking rape!

“You just need to offend someone and you have zero control over whether someone is offended by what you say” nonsense there are certain words and phrases and ideas you just don’t verbalise - frankly you shouldn’t even be thinking them!

Your example:

"are you one of those hot girls that look retarded?"

Is APPALLING. It is as pp said not only sexist but also disablist and honestly bloody disgusting! If I were sent such a message on a dating app it’d be an instant block AND report to the site mods. DEFINITELY a sackable offence if used in the workplace I would hope instant sacking.

“everyone was asked what the "naughtiest" thing they had done was.” again APPALLINGLY inappropriate language for a workplace! That would make me feel incredibly uncomfortable and LESS likely to be open not more!

Suggest your bosses get some further training regarding encouraging openness - the best way to do that is to make employees feel safe. Not pathetic schoolboyish “icebreakers” like that! Christ I thought (hoped) that crap went out in the early 90’s along with female employees not being allowed to wear trousers!

“But the 'what can I do?' shrug is just so tiresome & infuriating. Because if not you, then who?” Yes absolutely!

I’m sick of the excuses for why men cannot stand up to the misogynists, arses and rapey “jokes” and comments - simply not laughing isn’t good enough!

SHOW your disgust and contempt for such behaviour it’s the only hope we have of changing it.