Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. Only the apps you allow.

Meet the Other Phone.
Only the apps you allow.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think all men who travel should call 777 and have their GPS tracked and location checked?

352 replies

SummersOverSeasideTown · 09/10/2021 12:51

As it says.
I'd be open to a curfew time, so men can travel during the day maybe, but at night they would have to log their journeys and expected arrival time.

IABU and men should continue to enjoy limitless freedoms and it should be women who have to call and be tracked.

IANBU and this is a reasonable solution to the alternative.

OP posts:
Claudia84 · 09/10/2021 16:21

Thank you posting this. I heard it on the radio earlier and was fuming that this is yet another responsibility laid at women's feet. The pride in which it was announced as well - oh don't worry ladies we've got your back - we'll just track your movements so that your safe... WTF?!

Original poster
SummersOverSeasideTown · 09/10/2021 16:23

@midgedude

It's quite common in our family &friends for people to text each other when they arrive safe home

Might be nice if it wasn't necessary, but wishful thinking never saved the world

That's what makes it worse. Most of us do this any way, a 50million GBP state sanctioned tracking app for women will not make any difference to women's saftey. If anything it would make them more vulnerable.
OP posts:
midgedude · 09/10/2021 16:27

Because if it's widely known that the app exists it's easier for a crook to cancel the trace , send I've changed my mind on behalf of the victim

Cantgetausername87 · 09/10/2021 16:35

As a woman, I cannot stand all these men hating posts! What has happenes recently is terrible and I agree everyone should have the right to feel safe. However it is not an excuse to bash men, it dilutes the cause and the point you're trying to make about safer streets! I believe in equality and cannot stand how all men are now labelled as bad!

Dhcfisssifjrsnxfjds · 09/10/2021 16:41

@Cantgetausername87

As a woman, I cannot stand all these men hating posts! What has happenes recently is terrible and I agree everyone should have the right to feel safe. However it is not an excuse to bash men, it dilutes the cause and the point you're trying to make about safer streets! I believe in equality and cannot stand how all men are now labelled as bad!
What are you talking about?
GoingOutOutNEVER · 09/10/2021 16:41

Track everyone, I mean who wants to voluntarily disappear from their parents/partner etc for a few hours to eat and drink by themselves

vivainsomnia · 09/10/2021 16:41

As a woman, I cannot stand all these men hating posts!
This! And not one post about the female vicar who sexually abused kids and was convicted last week.

Why not?

HalzTangz · 09/10/2021 16:42

@SummersOverSeasideTown

As it says. I'd be open to a curfew time, so men can travel during the day maybe, but at night they would have to log their journeys and expected arrival time.

IABU and men should continue to enjoy limitless freedoms and it should be women who have to call and be tracked.

IANBU and this is a reasonable solution to the alternative.

Yabu why should men that don't commit crimes not be allowed to go out. That's in effect keeping them prisoner at home or punishing them for crimes they don't commit
RufustheBadgeringReindeer · 09/10/2021 16:42

@vivainsomnia

As a woman, I cannot stand all these men hating posts! This! And not one post about the female vicar who sexually abused kids and was convicted last week.

Why not?

The OP is about the 888 BT thing

Start a thread about the vicar

RufustheBadgeringReindeer · 09/10/2021 16:44

So the 888 suggestion isnt women hating but the 777 suggestion is 🤔

Personally i dont like either but the OP isn’t seriously suggesting the 777 one…people are seriously suggesting the 777 one

CornishTiger · 09/10/2021 16:46

I had no idea about the 888 thing when I first read this thread and thought OP was bonkers.

Now I just despair of those proposals. Yet another thing a woman needs to do to stay safe.

Tracking men isn’t the answer either though. So what is?

lemmein · 09/10/2021 16:47

It reminds me of the 'if there's a nuclear blast hide under your desk' advice. It won't actually save you but we'll find your body quicker Hmm

Those saying women need to be 'sensible' to avoid being attacked. Sarah Everard was in a well lit, public area, she phoned her boyfriend on the journey - hell passers-by even witnessed her being kidnapped. No amount of sensible precautions would have saved her. Women cannot avoid being attacked - even in their own homes, no amount of 'safety advice' and '888' calls will change that unfortunately.

HalzTangz · 09/10/2021 16:47

It would be more sensible to force install an app on all phones (let's face it most people have smartphones nowdays) that automatically tracks GPS. All phones meaning male and female.

Set the app so it can't be turned off.

That would help solve a lot of crimes not just violence to women.

However, again this would only work if a perp was carrying a phone at the time of the crime

Staffy1 · 09/10/2021 16:52

The ones up to no good just wouldn’t do it though, so it wouldn’t work.

fashionSOS · 09/10/2021 16:52

I thought it was a good idea at first, for when I try to call a relative when I'm on my way home in the dark and they don't pick up, but then I thought about what happens if someone hacks the information.

I don't think I trust anyone to control the tracking information...

Dbank · 09/10/2021 16:57

Ridiculous idea.

RBKB · 09/10/2021 17:03

I totally agree. YANBU. Women have been limited since time began because a small amount of men like to fucking hurt us.

Maybe all the many nice men can spend curfew time at home considering how to stop this from happening to us. Since men generally hold the most power to change things...so...they have more responsibility in my view. Yes, even the vast, non violent majority. ENOUGH NOW

jacks11 · 09/10/2021 17:04

YABVU

It’s ridiculous to suggest all men be tracked in this way. The BT suggestion is one thing which women CAN CHOOSE to avail themselves of. Nobody, to my knowledge, has suggested this be mandatory for all women. And it might, possibly, make some women feel safer. Or it might not. I don’t think anyone is suggesting setting up this system is anything like a solution or the only thing that should be done- it’s merely something that might help some women, if they choose to use it.

There is, without a shadow of doubt, an issue with violence against women and girls. However, I just don’t agree that treating all men like criminals and invading their civil liberties is either proportionate nor helpful. It will not make the problem go away. It will simply cause division and antagonism. Tracking men will also will not solve the problem of the many women who we know are attacked by men they know- often partners whom they live with or another family member- and therefore a curfew/tracking system would not detect their attacker.

Clocktopus · 09/10/2021 17:05

As a woman, I cannot stand all these men hating posts!

Does every thread about problematic behaviour by men have to come with the disclaimer of NAMALT? Everyone always thinks "oooh, it's not my dad/husband/brother/son doing these awful things!" but the truth of it is that in a UN Women UK survey 97% of the women surveyed reported that they had been sexually harassed, the ONS states the 4.9 million women have been sexually assaulted or raped since the age of 16 and that overall 1 in 5 women can expect to be raped or assaulted at some point in their lifetime, 1 in 5 will be stalked, 1.6 million a year will be subjected to domestic abuse.

So clutch your pearls and insist "not my husbsnd/son/brother/dad!" but the statistics show that it is so widespread, some man that you know is a predator, probably more than one of them. Some of the people posting here will have a dad, a son, a brother, an uncle or whatever who assaults women.

It isn't man-hating to say that toxic masculinity and misogyny are problems, it isn't man-hating to say that 98.5% of sex crimes are committed by men or that 92% of domestic abusers are male, and it isn't man-hating to say that it needs to change and that men need to change.

Clocktopus · 09/10/2021 17:06

And not one post about the female vicar who sexually abused kids and was convicted last week. Why not?

Because this thread is about the 888 'walk me home' service and violence against women. If you want to discuss the vicar case then go start a thread about it.

DaphneDeloresMoorhead · 09/10/2021 17:08

@Babdoc

How does it help women, other than to reduce the search area for their dead bodies afterwards? Don’t perpetrators dump victims’ phones anyway? It takes three minutes to strangle someone, and mere seconds to cut their throat. How fast a police response are you expecting? How many extra police officers would we need to check on every woman who was late home? I can’t see how this would ever be practicable.
We can't even deal with the emergencies we know are happening, let alone ones where something might have happened but might not have.
FatBettyintheCoop · 09/10/2021 17:10

@Shewholovedthethebanhills

Oh OP. Rarely has a thread gone so far over so many heads! You’re right, of course.
Really?

Or is because the cool school girls prefer playing manipulative games as they’re so much more fun that having to engage in a serious discussion about the issues with the grown ups?

RBKB · 09/10/2021 17:11

Bloody well said @Clocktopus. Yes yes we know it's not YOUR HUSBAND, pp, but it is very frequent. Every 4 days in the UK, a woman is killed by a man. This is an ongoing pandemic of femicide. Nobody is pointing at anyone's 'lovely hubby'.

Thelnebriati · 09/10/2021 17:12

See the rage this suggestion provoked? Thats part of the problem right there.

Twelveshoes · 09/10/2021 17:13

Presumably it helps because some women are attacked but not murdered and the police might find you alive.

Unless you have an urgent response marker because you are at high risk of assault, they won’t come out to you as a property.

It would have an impact on DV as many women who are assaulted outside the home are assaulted by a former partner or other DV circumstance.

Whether or not it is a safe idea to track women is another matter. The current advice of DV charities is to turn GPS off and until that advice changes and they recommend 888, I won’t be using it.