To be so annoyed about the dangers of being a woman?

[Givemeanamethen]

I like to run or go for long walks. I ususally listen to music or books or whatever.

There are some lovely long circular routes near me through woods and along streams. I do do them, but am always slightly on edge because it’s so big that you can go a while without seeing anyone, and if I pass a man I can’t help but think ‘if I was attacked here no one would hear’. I try and do these at busy times, be finished before it starts getting dark and I’d never do it in the rain because of how quiet it would be. It irritates me that men, of course, won’t have to consider any of this.

Tonight, I didn’t have time to go there so did a four mile route from my house. It’s pretty and got a ruralise atmosphere but the roads are relatively busy, for a Sunday night, and there are plenty of houses. I don’t ususally worry at all on this route.

But this evening, some fucking dickhead cycled up behind me, on the path instead of the road, and shouted right in my ear, clearly to try and frighten me and embarrass me, then he and his friend cycled away.

I’m so angry that I can’t even go on a walk without men getting a buzz out of harassing me.

Not even really sure what my AIBU is but I’m so angry that I could cry.

I think it is very clear that the kind of attacks women are predominantly frightened of are of a sexual nature, so those citing that men are more likely to be attacked are entirely missing the point.
Women are frightened we will be raped. This is not a fear that men live with.

Exactly. Some fucking awful things have happened to me, but the worst things have been done by men I know well.

Sure, but one risk doesn’t negate the other.

2/3 of women reported but harassed, stalked or flashed whilst running in a study I previously linked.

…consider the statistics and manage risk and awareness differently

This is coming across as pretty bloody patronising and the equivalent of patting those expressing concern here and saying ‘there, there, don’t worry your pretty little heads about it’.

Have you stopped to consider that these women have already had something bad happen to them and you want them maybe to reframe their trauma?

And we’re still going ‘but what about those poor men?’ FFS.

Be careful. You haven’t centred men or tried to explain there is no risk to women because you’re not afraid/nothing has ever happened to you/you went for a walk at 7am in broad daylight/lots of men are domestic abusers (but also don’t be afraid of these abusers unless they’re in their own homes - they are absolutely no risk to other women, obviously)/more men get into fights and so they should be frightened and not women. Probably try and throw in ‘statistics show’ if you want credibility.

Bit concerning. Try and do better 😉

It’s not clear that the kind of attacks the OP was exclusively referring to was rape. Not at all.

To borrow words of pp invalidating women who aren’t especially afraid because no attack has ever happened to them, to those of you who say pffft it was obvious the OP was only referring to razor- It must be nice to be so lucky to fear rape and not even have a tiny fear you might be murdered.

I survived both rape and a knife attack that was attempted murder, so when I read an OP about women out alone, in rural areas and the fear of an “attack” rape isn’t the only kind of attack that comes to my mind.

I and other posters were citing the fact that men are more likely to be attacked by strangers outside their home than women and so they DO feel the fear of being attacked.

After all that was the OP.

We haven’t missed the original point. It just seems that certain posters want to avoid talking about attacks that are just as bad as rape to worse than race which also happen to women and men.

It seems odd to deny men feel fear when out alone in remote places on the basis of one sort of attack that almost exclusively affects women while ignoring the vast majority of other attacks, including murder.

The point was attacks by strangers and how much fear we feel. We are at less risk than men, but apparently many women fear attack more than men do. People can do all kinds of contorted thinkings but the thing is when a fear is disproportionately high compared to the risk, then there’s a problem with anxiety or PTSD. Both of which can be helped so that women are not constricting their lives or living in exhausted hyper vigilance and fear.

I don’t see anything patronising. It’s standard methodology to assess risk using statistical data, and then manage the risk by matching your awareness and mitigation to the probability and impact of the actual risk. The poster said to “manage risk and awareness differently” in response to scenarios where a small risk is being treated like a high risk and the risk is being managed by extreme behavioural modifications and the person is suffering significant life impacts when it is all unnecessary. The risk can be better managed.

There isn’t any “don’t worry your pretty little head” in there.

It has been explained several times by posters why the statistical data does not tell the full story about the level of risk to women. Because, reasons: mainly, that the routine sexual harassment that many/most women suffer goes almost entirely unreported as women know it is pointless to report it. It often falls below the level of being a crime, but the underlying threat of violence is there; the men responsible know this, it is the reason why they perpetrate this.

I know that a lot of men are targeted too and for various spurious 'reasons'; but it is women who are targeted just because they are women.

My own life experience tells me that the risk is high. I won't bother going through all the things that I have experienced in my 60+ years, there is no point as none of them will be a surprise to many on here. And out of them all I reported just one - being aggressively stalked across town - and the police's response was dismissive.

TBH I find it very hard to stomach other women - on this site which is intended to be supportive of women - telling women like me that they have got it wrong, that we should disbelieve what our own experiences are telling us. I don't take kindly to that at all, I find it even more offensive than hearing it from oblivious men. And yes it is really patronising.

Agree op and it's the natural way I, and many others just live with a constant threat. Vanessa feltz did a good phone in on it.
Pepper spray maybe good to carry

Oh cry me a river! When their sex stop RAPING women like MYSELF, then maybe I'll care (after I've recovered from the trauma of being raped, which I NEVER WILL). When their rapey, predatorial, murderous sex stop raping, preying on, stalking, assaulting and murdering my sex, maybe then I will care.

Besides, I didn't say I didn't care at all, just that I don't care about it on this thread. This thread is about the FEMALE SEX. Maybe create a thread for male on male violence if you want. Funny though how none of you ever do.

And no, I am not the one who should be ashamed of myself. Look in the mirror!!

The black Mumsnetters board is for black Mumsnetters. One small space on an enormous site.

i respect that by leaving them the hell alone and not commenting in that space. They requested one small area for themselves alone and should be entitled to that. They don’t need other input.

I don’t see anything patronising. It’s standard methodology to assess risk using statistical data, and then manage the risk by matching your awareness and mitigation to the probability and impact of the actual risk.

Doing it again. And Ignoring the many many posters talking about their experiences of aggression from men in the process. Are you incapable of restraining yourself? No need to answer. It was a rhetorical question. I think you’ve posted on this thread more than anyone else by a multiple of ten.

Yes. That variety of poster has made a beeline for these threads for years. It’s very noticeable.

Not one of the variations of this theme I’ve posted on - and it’s an issue I feel very strongly about so have posted on a lot - has ever been missed. Always there will be posters crawling out of the woodwork to tell women off, inform them that their experiences don’t matter, that men have it as bad or worse, and that we’re all a coven of ‘misandrists’.

Tedious.

I absolutely do care about Men’s and Boys experiences, but sometimes it’s ok to have a thought about something related to women without considered the men. Sometimes we can just focus on the effects to women, we do not need to factor men into every single discussion.

This is a thread about the dangers of being female.

I am not sure that is a good analogy. I think we would have to ask why the accidents were happening. Is it because the road is inherently dangerous because eg an adverse camber/blind bend? Is it because everyone drives too fast on it? Or is it because some other car users purposely ram into other drivers?

I can take responsibility for myself, and drive more carefully, being aware of the dangers. But if some drivers are purposely causing accidents, I can't do anything about that, and I would certainly go a different route unless I knew they were caught and arrested.
Unfortunately, men who offend in this way don't just do it once. They do it over and over and over again.

My first (sexual) assault was age 7 on the school playground when a group of male classmates grabbed me at the end of the day, pinned me down on playground on my hands and knees while the ringleader pulled my pants down. Fortunately my mum came to look for me caught them and threatened to set our large dog on them.

I was assaulted mid-lesson at 12 when the teacher left the room. I was knocked to the ground pinned down and kissed on the face.

Stupid comments, light touching and not taking "no" for an answer in pubs/ night clubs was too numerous to recount. I wanted to socialise with friends and dance, not "pull".

The worst one was sleeping at a house party and waking up to find a male aquaintaince's hand in my pants having a play. I think I came perilously close to being raped and woke up just in time. Fortunately I managed to kick him hard in the face. I hope his neck hurt.

My route to/ from work as a student involved tracing the final walk of a teenager who was followed, raped and murdered by a stranger a few years earlier. The murderer was still at large at the time, several years away from a DNA match for a petty crime. It was a significant extension to walk by any other route. I thought of her on every journey, and not just because of passing her memorial close to where her poor body was left abandoned.

I don't hate men. I just don't know which men are the minority capable of committing these crimes on victims chosen purely because they were female and an opportunity presented itself.
I don't know which men are pleasant. I don't know which men will make innane comments. I don't know which men could be opportunists with violent desires.

When there have been assults and near misses on my running routes or surrounding areas, I often swerve for a while in case there is someone escalating to repeating. But I can't avoid forever because there's not enough places to enable that.

Some years back there was a repeat offender responsible for rapes and assualts on women in parks and nature reserves in the local area. When he was finally caught, it turned out that I ran past the end of his road.

Last year DM told me off for running solo. That would basically mean giving up running and all its positives in my life. If I ever became a victim of a crime so severe it was actually worth reporting, it's nice to know she'd victim blame me for having the audacity to run alone. She wouldn't blame the man.

As the classic book title says, "feel the fear and do it anyway"
But the fear is based on far too much reality and experience, both my own and of other local women/ girls.

And there I am tending to think that on the whole I've come off fairly lightly with my clubbing days being short and long ago; I don't tend to attract much catcalling. I only get a couple of inane van man comments per year, although I trail run a lot which reduces it.
It's only really on threads like this where I think about it and realise how much of it there is, and how young it started, but it wasn't recognised in the same way in schools when it happened to me in back in the 80s & 90s.

Men might experience higher levels of actual violence, but they are not persecuted in public - and therefore frightened

Being made to fear the risk of violence is assault, and being shouted at sexually is shit, but I’d rather be shouted at than punched to the ground or actually stabbed.

Men of all types are targeted if they are alone and ‘vulnerable’. Some are targeted pretty much whenever they leave the house just as some women are. They can also have taunts and verbal aggression - if they’re short, tall, ginger, have a visible disability, are wearing something ‘controversial’, are an ethnic minority, gay.

More women feel unable to visit isolated places alone than men and are definitely sexually abused more - physically and verbally, but the physical risk to men in certain situations is also higher

edited for typo

Tell that to the 12 year old girl raped in Nuneaton by 2 illegal migrant men or the 8 year old girl raped in Lambeth by an illegal migrant. Those children will NEVER be the same.

When you allow undocumented fighting age men from medieval cultures to invade our country and be secretly dumped among us what can you expect?

In those countries women are still stoned to death.

Do you want to live among those animals?

My point is that many women - probably the majority - experience this multiple times a week just walking down the street. It's not true that many or the majority of men are assaulted multiple times a week. The level of harassment that women face is ALL. THE. TIME. All of it a threat of violence. What are you getting out of downplaying what women go through so much?

I've been thinking the same OP. You can't control others but you can make yourself a difficult and inconvenient target.

Strobe light or pull pin alarm seems to be the best legal solutions but they could be used against you too. Alternatively, get a dog.

Yup I've been grabbed between my legs on a London Underground platform, subjected to curb crawling and almost forced into a ditch by the haters (men of course, often BMW drivers), cat-called and abused, all when I'm out running or on my bike. I won't ever stop though, I do have to pick my times of day, I used to run at night but won't do that anymore.

It is anger-inducing but I'm not spoiling my life for them. It is very much the luck of the draw, I also come across decent men who will give me a wide berth or give me adequate warning of their presence so I don't feel threatened, but they are fewer and further between.

More women feel unable to visit isolated places alone than men and are definitely sexually abused more - physically and verbally, but the physical risk to men in certain situations is also higher

I've been conditioned from such a young age not to be in isolated places unaccompanied, it's just second nature, when I first started running I must have been more fearless and would run through woods without a care, but over time with so much in the news about violence towards women, and I've adapted out of fear. it shouldn't be thus, of course it shouldn't, but survival instinct is strong and we learn to adapt to protect ourselves. I know I should be able to go out at any time of the day or night, but the reality is I can't. There's no point getting frustrated and unhappy, that isn't going to change anything.

Yes about the cycling.
Middle aged man? No problem at all, nobody bats an eyelid.
Middle aged woman People staring at me, turning their heads to look back and nudge one another.
It takes roughly less than 800 yards before kids (lads usually) start to shout comments, or if they are on their own bike, cycle up to me and surround me.

Cycling uphill?
Words of 'encouragement' from fat arsed blokes:
"Go on luv! You can do it!"
It's a mountain bike not a Spaceship and I dress completely appropriately.
Twats.

I'm sorry to hear of what happened to you, that shouldn't happen at all.

However, you're basically insinuating that because violent crime is committed by men, you don't care about male victims?

If that's the case, that's disgusting.

Ah yes, I get that too @nopiesleftinthisvehicle . I grew up in a hilly area, the slopes where I live now aren’t exactly challenging.

If you look on blackmumsnetters the exact same thing happens if a white women dares to make any sympathetic or allying comment.

That's because black women are also allowed to talk about their experiences, which will be different to the experiences of white women even if there are some overlaps or apparent (to white women) similarities without white women getting involved.

I know a couple of women who are very knowlegeable about/into black feminism but won't discuss it with white women because they don't want to explain/justify it/deal with the potential tone deaf responses and white women just aren't included and don't need to be. They don't want to hear my white woman interpretation or my white woman solidarity or my white woman experience or my white woman sympathy because their experience is valid without my approval or recognition.

So black women who have specifically chosen to post on the black mumsnetters board probably don't want the sympathy of white women either.

Nor do they need white women coming along to validate their experiences or the need to talk about them or shutting down their specific experiences by saying, "That's awful, I had no idea!" or "It's just the same for white women." It might be done with the best of intentions but they're crashing a party to which they haven't been invited.

In much the same way as men might also experience male violence and men need to be part of the solution re male violence, women are allowed to talk about their specific experiences of it without input from men who want to say it is just the same for them when it isn't or that they 'get it' when they don't, black women are allowed to discuss their issues away from similar input from white women for the same reasons. And white women have no place getting upset when they're told their input isn't welcome there.

I appreciate men who acknowledge it are 'sympathetic' and (think they) 'get it' or who want to understand and i appreciate men who want to be part of the solution but that is a different conversation.

So, since this question and comparison has been raised a few times on this thread, that is why men aren't welcome in a discussion about the female experience any more than I'd imagine white women are welcome in a discussion about black women's experiences.

And, yes, I'm aware I've said all of that and it's still only my white woman interpretation of it. But that's my best guess as to why black women wouldn’t want white women shoehorning themselves into their conversations about black women's experiences any more than women in general want men shoehorning themselves into their conversations about the female experience.

Which is probably why "the exact same things happens."