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

So women are encouraged to put distance between herself and someone following her, quite right. But when a man does the same thing it's suddenly horrendous and he's done something wrong? It's like some women don't expect men to protect themselves the same way a women would. Horrendous.

Message to all men. If your hair is long cut it short and do not go walking anywhere. Men need to be in their homes at all times...🤔

? I am slightly struggling to picture it as you turned and followed him. He might have stopped to fumble in his backpack to let you go on ahead and show you he was busy with that and no threat to you?

The OP is perfectly clear on what.
That all men should be aware that due to the high instances of attacks by men on women, some women may feel unnerved by encountering a strange man in a secluded spot. So could they be mindful of this and take actions to demonstrate they're not a threat.
The fact that the man in this case probably couldn't have is actually neither here nor there to whether men should do this in general.
There are men on this thread who understand this perfectly and have agreed with the principle amd described the actions they personally take. Which is great. So I can't for the life of me understand why there are women so anti the idea. What harm does it do you if men are considerate and thoughtful that you're so invested in discrediting the idea?
Why are you so obsessed with this one man, who has no idea he's even being discussed and has not been harmed in the slightest, that you can't engage with the wider point?

"There’s something suspiciously aggressive about this thread. It doesn’t read right. I’m thinking bots"

Why the fuck would anyone spend time and money programming computers to respond to this thread ?

Is it Iran, Russia or the deep state manosphere ?😂😂

Except the man in the OP was considerate. He waited and let her pass. It shouldn't even be a thread

"That all men should be aware that due to the high instances of attacks by men on women, some women may feel unnerved by encountering a strange man in a secluded spot"

Plenty of women on this thread have said they don't give a fuck about making men feel uncomfortable. It should not be surprising that some men have the same attitude about women's feelings.

You think that high volumes of average Joes are sitting on MN getting upset and cross that some women don't care about them, and have decided as a result not to be thoughtful or considerate of women?

You don't think we should have a thread where we talk about the sort of things decent thoughtful men might do to help women feel safer and more comfortable? Why not?

What high instances?

We've established that women have a greater chance of being hurt & killed in a road accident than being attacked by a male stranger.

It's like saying, you shouldn't go into the water because of shark attacks - yes they do happen but highly unlikely. Don't fly because of plane crashes, etc... Ditto. Fear mongering.

The OP has perceived a threat that is in her head. As documented, the man didn't actually do anything wrong.

Back to my analogy about the women in the hijab could be a terrorist bomber, then again, she could not. In all likelihood she isn't. She's just another woman from a different culture going about her business. The assumption that all women in hijabs are terrorist bombers is based on prejudice, much in the same way this thread implies that all men are out to attack women.

Nasty.
I suggest that if you think men are never a danger to you, you are pretty uninformed.

" have decided as a result not to be thoughtful or considerate of women"

No I think men and women are not a homogeneous group. Both groups contain a proportion of inconsiderate people that are not concerned with the feelings of other people regardless of sex.

Mumsnet makes very little difference to the real world, and am incredulous that some people apparently believe bots post on here for" influence"

I don't think anyone has said that men shouldn't take steps to alleviate fear in relevant situations such as dark, isolated, approaching from behind etc. However, this particular op has used a situation which was was none of those things...it wasn't isolated, it was right near a school, there just wasn't anyone in view for those few moments and from her description there was no one thing he could have done that 27 pages of comments can agree would have been right.

The general premise of the thread is sound, but the extreme opinions about the danger men do by simply existing in a public space is OTT and feeds both a narrative of fear and an unhelpful dynamic that there is an anti-man bias that should be resisted (see Manosphere).

Yes you can have a thread about that. Just don't victimize a man who has done nothing wrong, and carnt defend himself. I would hope someone would defend a man in my family who has done nothing wrong online, which is why I'm defending him.

The high instances that Sir Mark Rowley, the most senior police officer in the UK referred to as 'a national epidemic' that was 'beyond the scope of policing' and posed a risk to 'millions of women'. The high instances you can see in numbers if you Google the stats.

If you think MN makes very little difference to the real world you might want to have a word with the advertisers. You might also want to familiarise yourself with some of the campaigns and direct action that have been born and gained the necessary traction via this site.

There’s two distinct possibilities here in my mind but neither of them involve the guy wanting to attack you. 1) He realised you had turned around and started following him and got freaked out so stopped to pretend to dig through his bag in order to let you past- people feel safer when someone isn’t following behind. 2) He stopped to get something out of his bag and just hadn’t registered you whatsoever because the world doesn’t revolve around you.

He didn’t do anything dodgy at all. Your instincts kicked off because you nodded and he didn’t do it back so this kickstarted a sense of anxiety for no real reason. You have no idea what’s going on in the guy’s life. I walked past a colleague in the street without registering he was there this week. He cornered me the next day and asked if he’d offended me! I hadn’t even noticed he was there. People have a lot going on.

Op, should be embarrassed at feeling a bit scared?
Ffs, trust me, its better to feel a bit scared and be aware of your surroundings than the potential alternative.
Op, you have nothing to be embarrassed about.
I worry how many women seem to think they're perfectly safe all the time.
Wise the fuck up. It's not about being a man hater, it's about awareness.

I don’t get it. A man was walking the opposite direction to you. He passed you and kept going. You turned around and followed him. What on earth was this man meant to do instead? Cease to exist?

I am very aware of my safety and if unsure will walk with keys in my hand as a weapon, but honestly this guy did nothing wrong.

Yes it is about awareness. The man was aware he was being followed so took action to prevent this, by letting her pass. The man has awareness, for his own safety. Men are allowed to do that, it's not always just about the women.

But he was all of those things?

Statistically women have a greater chance of being killed by their husbands or sons than by a male stranger. We established that earlier in the thread.

On one hand they talk about this epidemic of violence against women and children and on the other they decide to release prisoners early due to prison over crowding... Don't even get me started on the police. As a 59 year old London women who travels home late at night due to her job... I can tell you that I rarely see any police on the streets these day.

It's fair to ask men to be aware of women's discomfort. But the example that OP has used is ridiculous, because SHE was the person acting in a strange and somewhat unnerving way, not the man!

The reason I now park my car at the station instead of walking when I get the train to London and will be returning late, is because once a man did exactly what OP did. It was nearly midnight, he walked towards and past me, and then changed direction to walk behind me. It freaked me out, especially when I crossed the road to lose him, and he crossed too.

So yes, this thread is all over the place. I appreciate men being considerate, but OP is absolutely unreasonable in illustrating her point with an anecdote about a man doing nothing wrong, and her acting strangely.

I'm guessing that those who voted in get favour were simply responding to her asking been to be considerate, and didn't really read what happened.

"If you think MN makes very little difference to the real world you might want to have a word with the advertisers".

Making money from Visitors to the site is not the same as making a difference.

Will OP never feel uncomfortable when following a random man out walking alone again then?

Do you honestly believe that lots of men are reading this thread and will moderate their real world behaviour going forward?