All men should be aware of this

[mildlysweaty]

I went for a walk in the sunshine around the back of my child’s school before pickup today. Usually the odd dog walker passes by but it’s pretty remote/foresty. I do this walk often but never go fully into the woods bit alone - because I’m female.

I was walking towards the woods and a person with long hair was walking my way - wrongly assumed it was a woman but when I passed them I realised it was a man in his 30s. I’ve passed plenty of men before walking their dogs, generally they give a nod and carry on. I started to feel a bit uneasy so rather than continue in that direction, I stopped a little further then turned around and started walking back (same way bloke was going).

I was a few feet behind him when he looked back over his shoulder back at me, then he stopped (with his back to me) and started opening his backpack. I felt bad vibes, there was no one else around. I managed to speed walk past him and pretended to phone my husband and had my car key ready to use if needed but all was okay in the end, I then passed some women walking.

In all honesty it could’ve been totally benign but any decent man should know that this sort of behaviour is intimidating for a woman, who’s alone, especially with nobody else around.

To get to my point: ALL men should understand how women need to be programmed to be wary of them, and how they can help is by ensuring they aren’t doing anything that could feel intimidating. They don’t know what it’s like to be a woman, but any decent man should be aware and conscious of how their behaviour may impact. I have reminded my husband of this today. It took a while to shake the feeling from this afternoon.

if voting I guess YABU = men don’t need to know this
YANBU = yes they do need to know this, it’s a way they can help

Perhaps his phone was ringing? I keep mine in my bag and my watch vibrates when it rings? Perhaps the man was trying his best to not look at OP because he thought that might make him look ‘leery’. Perhaps he’s just a fucking human being and is allowed to open his backpack without some woman, who followed him, getting the heebyjeebies over nothing. It’s not women I hate, I am one, it’s the ridiculousness of your illogical argument that I despise.

I was playing devil's advocate and you've actually proved my point. I'm GC and agree with everything you say. But I get irritated by women belittling other women who feel uneasy about a "man in the woods" for example. I think women have every good reason to view men with suspicion and to be on their guard.

And it’s your complete lack of empathy for viewpoints that differ to your own that I despise, and why I think you clearly hate women. How dare they ask for understanding and empathy! They’re clearly just objects for men’s attention who should never ever behave irrationally or have fears because god forbid a little man’s ego will get hurt.
get a grip. Why do you have such strong feelings about women with trauma?

It 's not "some men", it's a lot of men.

1 in 4 women in the UK have been raped or sexually assaulted since the age of 16.

It's not just a handful of men who are doing this.

Pretending that is the case is part of the problem.

"Normal" men are doing it.
Fathers, husbands, brothers and sons.

Men are saturated with porn nowadays, often even before boys reach puberty.
Porn is violence against women.
It normalises the sexual objectification of women and it's everywhere.
According to YouGov, 76% of men watch porn.

I have strong feelings about lack of thought. I don’t have to agree with anyone, man or woman, when I believe what they say to be wrong.

Through the course of this thread when asked directly, you have failed to come up with any reasonable actions this man could have done to adjust his actions, because they were none he could have made. All because we’re supposed to ‘empathise’!

When you purposefully and illogically fail to do anything other than claim ‘just because’ you purposefully and illogically fail to achieve anything to educate men, the good ones, about what they can do to minimise the intimidation of women. You are achieving nothing.

I mean come on, this man did nothing to suggest that he saw the OP as an object for his attention. You’ve just made that up.

Ha! I see. Actually I haven't belittled the OPs concerns. That's the last thing I'd do.
If pushed though, I think be more comfortable with the man in the woods than the one in the changing room, even though the woods give greater means and opportunity for harm. Because odds are the man in the woods will just be a bloke having a walk in a place he's entitled to be. Whereas any man in a woman's changing room has already by his very presence told me that he's a wrong 'un.

You are slating me and op for saying what - that a man made her feel uncomfortable and she finds it frustrating that there isn’t more understanding - which you’ve clearly demonstrated here.
i think your argument is illogical - that that man was inherently more important than her and it should all be about his feelings. Why?
im not here for men. My life does not revolve around men. Im here to support a fellow woman who chose to trust her instincts and wants to vent and defend her from women like you who find something about that offensive. Why is it ridiculous and illogical and offensive that women are scared of men and would like them to be empathetic and not do things we find intimidating like forcing us to pass them at close range in remote places? Why are you spending your time hurling insults at other women when you claim to be a feminist? You can’t even argue respectfully.
internalised misogyny or what?

@ainsleysanob "When you purposefully and illogically fail to do anything other than claim ‘just because’ "

Men are women's greatest predators and sometimes "just because" is enough. Women have every reason to feel uneasy about a male presence whether justified or not. Should they hang around to find out whether their instincts are right or worry about hurting his feelings?

She followed him. He didn't force her to do that. He could have had a million reasons for stopping including thinking it was a better option. They were behind a school at mid afternoon not the middle of nowhere. Its not a him vs her and who is more important, its just a set of specific logistics in which NOTHING this man could have chosen would have been right according to some posters. The op suggested she would have preferred him to carry on but a) how could he know that and b) what if he did have a perfectly good and valid reason to stop? Why does her fear, unknown by him take precedence over him doing x? It was an open path, she could have stepped off and walked wide if she was really that worried.

If a man was following a woman in the woods everyone would be saying how horrendous it is and up in arms. A woman followed a man and everyone is ok with it and the man should think about the women's feelings. Hello, the man was followed, he feels as fearful as a women would be. Where's the compassion for the Man OP? If you where followed you wouldn't like it, so why should this man be ok and think about you? Double standards springs to mind.

"Absolutely spot on.
This thread is unhinged."

It's completely mad. I don't know any of my female friends in real life who see any man they pass as a potential predator.

I do accept that just on basic physical strength its not an exact like for like if the sexes were reversed, but I agree that the lengths some posters will go to to defend a irrational level of anxiety around the mere existence of a man in a public, open environment is concerning. By endorsing this and saying its reasonable feeds the unhelpful narrative that women should sequester themselves to be safe or that men, no matter how harmless should somehow do all sorts of gymnastics to accommodate these feelings.

You still haven't explained what you think this man feared OP would do to him. If you could maybe explain why he was scared rather than keep saying he would have been, it might be easier to empathise.

Im trying to be objective but I’ve seen what happens when men are left unchecked with too much power over women. The more you leave the Uk and speak to women internationally, the more you realise what a privelege it is to not be fearful of every man you meet.
i don’t have a high opinion of men. I don’t agree with ‘the majority of men are lovely.’ The majority watch porn, which is full of child and traficking victims and shows unbelievable violence towards women which is being normalised. I am a proud crazy feminist. And I’m probably the person you’d want around if it happened to you because I’m one of the few who hasn’t victim blamed, has kept perspective and kindly explained the man’s perspective to a traumatised woman.
but sure, I’m the man hating unhinged one. You guys come across as women hating and unhinged to me.

I've have said in a previous post that the man could have thought the women could have a knife. It was irrational behaviour from the op. Changing direction and walking at speed behind him . Men have fears as well, not just women

Some of these responses are pretty disingenuous.

Try this.

Which man, below, feels instinctively more threatening, and which feels safer? 1 or 2?

1) The moment I approached him, he abruptly hunkered down right in the middle of the path and started fiddling about at length with his rucksack. As he did so, he twisted his head slightly to look at me sidelong, with an expressionless face.

2) As I approached him, he stepped out of my path to the side of the road, and began to search for something at the bottom of his rucksack. He was intent on what he was doing, head down, and slightly angled away from me.

We all know which, and we all know why. So what's the difference? They're both doing pretty much what OP's guy did, after all! It's all in the exceptionally subtle physical cues. And those above are the ones I can clumsily put into cliched words - most of those we use in our interactions are far, far more subtle than these (we call them "non-verbal" for a reason).

I've cared for a rescue cat. Whenever I engaged with her, it was natural to me to adapt my body language to reassure her. And fairly easy and instinctive to do so, too. I'd position myself so precisely relative to the furniture in the room as to leave several escape routes. I'd angle myself just so (even a little bit too face-on could seem confrontational - but a little too steeply angled away, disturbingly unnatural). I'd watch the position of my hands and even my fingers on the floor (as would she, with wide eyes). And it mattered. Get it wrong, and she'd spend the next 2 hours quivering under the bed in terror. Get it right, and maybe she'd let me stroke her a little.

She could understand this. I could. Awareness of the subtleties of body language is all part of being human.

I don't think OP's inability to put into words the subtle cues that led her to feel as she did is a damning failure on her part. I think it's understandable! And I don't think her failure to offer alternative suggestions for the man necessarily indicates there was nothing else he could have done.

Maybe there was, maybe there wasn't.

But I do think that all those posters so ruthlessly absolutist in condemning the OP as utterly irrational (in irrationally hyperbolic terms) risk making her point for her. Some posts here show that same lack of sensitivity to subtle human interactions that she's arguing we should encourage greater awareness of.

To which I say, QED - she has a point.

I would never walk in the woods aloneday or night 😳unless. I had a massive dog with me !!

The OP herself needs to show greater awareness. She needs to be aware that following anyone, regardless of gender will cause panic. The man did nothing wrong apart to secure his own safety by allowing her to pass.

confusedbydating
"The more you leave the Uk and speak to women internationally, the more you realise what a privelege it is to not be fearful of every man you meet."

I have lived internationally including Egypt and Oman, but I was certainly not fearful of every man I met even then.

What evidence do you have that men think this way? Because all studies suggest they do not fear violent attacks from unknown women.

I have teenage and young adult sons. If a women suddenly changed directions and followed them they have confirmed they would be fearfull. I have told them that if this happened their own security is their priority and should do what the man in the past did. Wait and let the women pass. Not all women are innocent. I don't care about studies, I care about my boys and their friends, If a women acts in this unpredictable way they should have their guards up and do what's right for their safety.

Even if men in general may not that doesn’t mean that wasn’t the case for this man. Nobody knows.

but either way it seems his crimes where having long hair and needing something from his bag!

Oh good lord so now you speak for the women of Oman?

I find this quite strange.

"Follow"? She turned around on a path to approach and pass him. "Cause a panic"? Really? A woman, changing direction on a wooded path, to walk in the same direction as a man? "Secure his own safety"?! Really?

It all makes a woodland meander feel a bit high-stakes Midsommar.

Her response may or may not have been rational. We don't know - we weren't there. But she felt uncomfortable, so walked towards where there were more people. Fair enough.

My response is, I hope, fairly rational. Basically, as a woman who's felt similarly threatened by subtle non-verbal cues in isolated situations with strange men, I'm giving OP the benefit of the doubt. It feels empathetic and respectful to do so, especially as she's a real person, out there, reading our words. Meanwhile, I also acknowledge above that I, too, dislike the whole "decent man" value judgement she made.

Your response, meanwhile, has a man who believe he's being "followed", understandably "panics" and rapidly seeks "to secure his safety"... In response to a woman on a walk appearing to change her mind about her direction shortly after passing him.

I mean, you can't have it both ways - it just doesn't work.

Woman (with recent experience of extreme violence in her locality) passes man (the sex responsible for 80% of violence and 98% of sexual assaults, and with 152% greater punching power than her), clocks him behaving strangely and reacts accordingly? A pathetic, selfish fool. Man, in a parallel situation? Quite understandably panicstricken, and needing to take shelter, now, NOW!

And it's this inconsistency I'm calling out on this thread. In short...

I think the OP's pretty easy to understand. She overreacted but may have had her reasons. She uses her story to make a wider point. Simple. In contrast, I find the more disproportionate, absurd and angry responses to her post fascinating.

confusedbydating
"Oh good lord so now you speak for the women of Oman?"

No. I speak for myself.