Police advising women not to walk alone at night

[Bubbinsmakesthree]

I’ve seen a lot of friends outraged at the Met police locally advising women not to walk alone at night in the days following the disappearance of Sarah Everard. I’ve seen a posts along the lines of ‘how about telling men not to attack women instead?’

I absolutely agree with the wider point that we should be asking the question “how do we make it safe for women?” not “how do women stay out of danger?”

But in this case, was the police’s advice not just the equivalent of advising people to stay out of the water following a shark attack?

I’m so upset and angry about Sarah Everard but I cannot get incensed about the police advising women to take precautions when an unknown attacker may have still been in the area.

Girls should be taught high level self defence at school. Best all women can incapacitate most men if needed.

@oil0W0lio and @AnyFucker

Exactly! The body count of domestic abuse doesn't corroborate the 'men are victims too', not to the same extend.

I've known men who have experienced DV, mostly psychological but also physical and they say they have to restrain themselves and fight their instinct hard not to respond. Very rare situation and never as dangerous as the ones many women don't survive.

The message that needs to go out to those men who harm, rape and kill women needs to be the law will make you pay dearly for any transgressions against women.

We shouldn’t need to defend ourselves, we just want to walk in the street wearing whatever we choose at whatever time of day or night we want (like men do) without feeling scared.

Place a curfew on men then. Job done

That's disproportionate. You can't blame a whole group for the actions of one person. Most men do not murder strangers.

Bollocks.

I'm so utterly sick of NAMALT. Tough shit. Its not "proportionate" that half the population has to live in fear.

How about for a short period men face some restrictions. They don't even have to deal with the fear, just the restrictions for a while. Because bluntly the majority of men do subscribe to the attitudes and behaviours that lead to assaults and abuse and excuse them.

Women have been visibly trying to reclaim the streets for half a century and men, including lefty liberal men who go the whole mile by clicking a like on twitter then unclicking it because the tweet wasn't by an approved lefty have done fuck all to make it any safer for my daughters than it was for me.

Another one sick of NAMALT. It's bollocks.

It's someone's husband, dad, brother, son, uncle etc. These people rape, abuse, murder. There's too many awful men to keep pining that apparently, NAMALT. Give me a break!

Because bluntly the majority of men do subscribe to the attitudes and behaviours that lead to assaults and abuse and excuse them

Bollocks

done fuck all to make it any safer for my daughters than it was for me.

^

Agreed again. No thing's changed. It won't, until men give more a shit about women. Which I don't think they ever will. Because it's not men.

@AjayChe

Because bluntly the majority of men do subscribe to the attitudes and behaviours that lead to assaults and abuse and excuse them

Bollocks

Agree. That's total bollocks.

It's sad that so many MNers have such awful husbands, partners, fathers and brothers, that they really believe this.

It's sad that so many MNers have such awful husbands, partners, fathers and brothers, that they really believe this

Not one man in your life has ever made an 'off colour' joke? They have never stood silently whilst their friends or colleagues did? They have never said "boys will be boys"? They refuse a pay rise if the women don't get one too? They ask their employers why so few women are in the top layer? They ask them how much they pay their cleaners? They never "happen not to hear" sexist jokes because its inconvenient?

Bullshit.

Pretending its all not in your backyard is exactly how these men are enabled.

@Mmn654123

Girls should be taught high level self defence at school. Best all women can incapacitate most men if needed.

This sounds like a good idea and yes women should be physically empowered Bear in mind though that if you do go to any martial arts/self-defence classes and have a chance to compete against men you realise that the strength and power difference which exists between untrained men and women becomes bigger with training The women get stronger but the men get MUCH stronger (broadly speaking) (Partly this is because of the initial difference.... a mouse that gets 20% stronger is still much weaker than a cat that gets 20% stronger)

@saraclara

Actually *@Bubbinsmakesthree*, to be fair to you, you did make those points. Apologies

Thanks - I was trying to be clear in my OP that it was local advice provided when the assailant was still believed to be at large.

The point of the thread was I was surprised at the degree of backlash that this caused, despite the context.

Well in some areas (e.g. Croydon) neither men or women should be walking alone at night (unless youre wearing body armor.)

'Girls should be taught high level self defence at school. Best all women can incapacitate most men if needed.'

This is another thing that feels positive to say but is essentially useless across the population.

Some women may be able to defend themselves well enough to get away, that's true.

However most men are simply that much bigger and stronger than most women to make it realistic.

There is also the point that women know that men who attack them could have the potential for really serious violence and fighting back may make the attack worse. That's a reasonable thought and a common reaction.

Many women freeze- again not uncommon and not a fault on their part.

There is also the fact that not all women and girls are physically capable. Women and girls with disabilities are at risk of abuse at higher levels than others.

What about physical disabilities? Women who are older or elderly?

I was 5'3 and 7 stone at 16 and have a physical disability. Nothing I can do about that.

If some women fight back better then men who want to attack will simply seek out more vulnerable victims. And/or learn how to counter those defences.

No problem with learning self defence- it increases confidence, is good for fitness etc.

But the idea that would actually decrease VAWG is a nice idea but not viable.

Girls don't need more martial arts, men need to to behave!

As a thought experiment we could say that one way to level the playing field would be that men and women both carried weapons🤔
I'm thinking there must be parts of the USA where similar numbers of men and women carry guns and so (in a sense) have equal propensity and means to commit violence?

It's sad that so many MNers have such awful husbands, partners, fathers and brothers, that they really believe this

^

NOT bollocks. Don't be so naive. Face palming 'not my daddy!' helps no-one.

Checked it. No mention of covid.
It was definitely there earlier. Must have been edited. There was no source for the comment, merely "it's been suggested that" or similar, which I thought was a bit .

@grassisjeweled

Girls don't need more martial arts, men need to to behave!

Certainly men (along with other humans) need to behave but I think that some women and girls would enjoy and benefit from martial arts training🤔

@SchadenfreudePersonified

By us I meant women being permitted to carry tasers, not men.

There are no figures given but I would hazard as guess that while some, maybe many, men are assaulted by female partners a good many of the men in that report were actually assaulted by male partners.

I'm not sure 'domestic violence' is just partners - it could be a father, grandfather, brother or son,

[quote Closetbeanmuncher]@SchadenfreudePersonified

By us I meant women being permitted to carry tasers, not men.[/quote]
Cue huge numbers of men identifying as women so they can carry tasers🙄
(for the record I feel alarmed at the idea that members of the public can carry tasers)

‘It's sad that so many MNers have such awful husbands, partners, fathers and brothers, that they really believe this.’

To be fair it isn’t just my awful ex husband, father and brother, there is also many of the men I work with.

[quote Closetbeanmuncher]@SchadenfreudePersonified

By us I meant women being permitted to carry tasers, not men.[/quote]
You really think its a good idea to be giving tasers to all women....?

I can just imagine the chaos on friday and saturday nights....

“I'm thinking there must be parts of the USA where similar numbers of men and women carry guns and so (in a sense) have equal propensity and means to commit violence?” Everyone in the US are allowed to carry a hand gun. It does t stop them though because 1. People are afraid to use their guns- afraid to be wrong accused of murdering and a lifetime of jail

1. People seeing you with a gun make other people want to defend themselves with a gun (especially officers)

So no I do not want to carry a gun. I use pepper spray and hope for the best

There's a bun fight going on on my local FB group. Someone posted a warning that there are men approaching women in the local park. A woman posted that men should police their own behaviour and stop attacking women - the amount of men piling on to her that namalt, we can do what we want as long as we don't rape women, it's only a few men etc etc etc. It's so depressing.