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

She was following him and he looked in his rucksack. Word of advice if you find people looking in rucksacks traumatic -don’t follow them.

So people can’t look in rucksacks- okaaay.You can not like it but you can’t demand others don’t do it. That is what is crazy.

Yes it's true that women are more likely to be hurt by a known male. But it's really important to understand the logic of this statistic. It's a fact that gets used against women as a reason why they ought to let their guard down or for why single sex spaces aren't important for safety.

The men that know you are the ones who have the easiest access to you: by sharing your home or a different space; by having a relationship with you (personal or professional); by knowing your routines. A wholesale relaxation of safeguarding against unknown men would simply even out that statistic by giving abusive males easier access to vulnerable women they don't already know.

Men who go on to hurt strangers - through rape, murder, terrorism - tend to have committed domestic violence in the past. Unfortunately DV is historically dismissed as a less important crime, so many opportunities to stop the progression of male pattern violence are missed.

Absolutely women deserve to live free of fear. For those who have already experienced violence from men the threat they feel isn't hypothetical or within conscious awareness. Traumatic reactions keep one living in the past to some extent. Dismissal of concerns and social pressure doesn't change these women's reality. Psychotherapy and EMDR can. But they're bloody expensive. Perhaps some of the posters here would like to start a support fund?

Men being told they can’t look in rucksacks is not going to help that in any way at all.

Always, always follow your instinct.

You are so fixated on this bloody rucksack. Sweetie, its not about the bloody rucksack. Its not even really about this bloody man. Youre just dismissing her testimony and fixating on his rights. In a discussion about feminism. Do you identify as a feminist? Do you have daughters? Please fgs if a woman discloses something in real life just say ‘I love you and I believe you. How can I help you?’

it’s not hard

Reread the OP- sweetie!

I have - many times my little dumpling 💛 I think we just interpret things very differently.
lets jsut agree to disagree now

No one is calling our sons predators!

I have two adult sons, both of whom are sensible enough to know that women feel vulnerable when walking somewhere quiet with a lone man and to act accordingly. They were taught this by their dad.

You can tell the weaker arguments and position by the hyperbole.

OP acknowledges, "it could’ve been totally benign". Confusedbydating? describes it as an "uncomfortable vibe that harms no one". Meanwhile, Laser represents the same as "accusing an innocent just because he is a man" with the potential to "ruin lives".

OP suggests men "should be aware and conscious of how their behaviour may impact". InconvenientlyMaterial offers an interesting observation about "gut instincts" and "research on the different ways women and men navigate public spaces". Yet Th30G describes it as: "men can’t go about their business now without being accused of being a predator".

OP reflects, understatedly, "It took a while to shake the feeling". Meanwhile, PPs are engaging in bizarre allusions to knives, logs and woodchippers! I mean...

There's a kind of hysteria in these reactions that is absolutely fascinating (And deeply ironic, in that this is exactly what these posters are accusing OP of. To them, our words on a chat forum are inducing a far more disproportionate response than OP's instinctive reaction, on getting a bad vibe, to change direction and "speedwalk" past someone on a woodland path).

I've seen this strength of feeling before in contexts like this - this determination to reframe regrettable truths about physical difference as a perverse kind of sexism (an attack on men / a misrepresentation of women as weak). But I've rarely seen it expressed to such an extreme degree we're seeing here. It really does show how complex and difficult to address sexism is. Women are the only oppressed group bound to - who love - their "oppressor"*, and it creates such a difficult, distressing dynamic in conversations about it. Absolutely bloody fascinating.

*To attempt to preempt the inevitable accusations... you'll only prove my point if you home in on this term. It's entirely apt in the context of our having had the vote for less than 100 years, freedom from marital rape for about 30, and still being injured 70% more in car accidents because the design ignores our physical differences. (And that's before we even get into other countries. We see it most clearly in Afghanistan - dynamics which would be seen as slavery or apartheid in any other demographic - the kind of dynamics a war was fought to end in the US and global campaigns changed in South Africa - are in the large part quietly ignored by our leaders and media: man and wife, innit?)

I agree. Which I always tell my boys to be vigilant about women who follow them and get out of the situation by allowing the women to pass. Which is exactly what the man in the OP did.

Yep I've taught my son's the same thing. That dosent stop certain women of accusing them wrongly of things

"When I go out in a dress I tend to avoid men actively, and clutch my handbag a bit tighter in certain situations."

but

"actually classifying us all as threatening is a bit unreasonable"

I'm confused, Feelingthebreeze.

It's not confusing if you actually read the post

But you do it. You don’t think they’re all threats but you know they have the potential to be. We do this in child safeguarding. We’re told to assume all adults are potential child abusers until proven otherwise to protect the kids. No one has a problem wit this. So why do you have a problem when we apply the same logic to men?

I literally quote from the post! The intervening words I don't quote don't in any way address the quite explicit inconsistency.

As PP says, "But you do it. You don’t think they’re all threats but you know they have the potential to be."

If you'd like to explain the subtle distinction I'm not seeing here, please do. As you know, I'm all for subtlety... 😁

I just think some of us want to know what they should or shouldn't be doing - that OP wants to make them aware of? Unless we bring in an all-day, all-male curfew, men are going to be out and about and doing normal everyday things - just like women.

Nobody is denying the terrible fact that women always have to be vigilant and on their guard around men, as there's usually no easy way of knowing which ones are the bad ones; but what do the good ones actually need to do to mitigate that?

Even if you asked men to stay away from certain public places so that women could feel safer, it would only be the good men who would actually consider doing that; so what would that actually achieve in promoting women's safety?

"I literally quote from the post! The intervening words I don't quote don't in any way address the quite explicit inconsistency."

They really do. Perhaps you should take the time to more carefully read through those words again

By leaving out the middle part of the post you are deliberating altering the meaning of the post.

They weren’t IN the woods. Back of child’s school and OP decided not to head into the nearby woods.

She also decided to follow him. Bit difficult to keep your distance if you’re being followed.

Because SHE was the one who turned round and followed HIM. He never changed direction.

Did you read it right?

I am not sure what to say to this really. What would you have preferred the man to have done?

Because he did absolutely nothing to warrant her being uncomfortable! So it was a false accusation.

SHE was the one who did something disconcerting. She passed him in the other direction, then turned around to follow him. If she was uncomfortable initially, why on earth would she follow him, instead of continuing on her way on the opposite direction?

And if a man passed you in the opposite direction, and then turned to follow you instead, I'm going to guess that you'd be more then uncomfortable, you'd be freaked out.

The guy in the OP did absolutely nothing wrong. But OP acted weirdly, and so it seems he took action so that she would go past him. Men are allowed to be unnerved, too