"Fear" of men

[ComradeJing]

I have a question that relates to two recent threads so apologies for thread about a thread.

Allhailtheaubergine (hope you don't mind - it's your thread I'm referring to) said that she was worried when she walked on the beach and when a man came between her and her exit she became nervous.

Another poster in AIBU said she was unhappy about a male nursery worker taking her daughter to the bathroom.

The OP in AIBU was completely torn to bits over this. Allhail was given support and most people (including myself though I didn't post) agreed that they would have felt scared and validated her response.

Now my question is why is one response valid and rational and the other one not? Is it because one is a person in a job and the other could be "anybody?" I would imagine you're more likely to be attacked by someone in a job (ie taxi driver, gas man, builder or someone else you would invite into your home) than just some stranger off the street but I could well be wrong.

I suppose I was thinking that if one is a feminist issue then the other one must be too as they are both about a fear of men and what men can do to women.

"So how on earth do you know which men are secretly watching it and which men aren't?"

how do you know which women are secretly watching it and which arent?

in the workplace you have to have some belief in the system that checks all workers if you decide to leave your child in their hands. if you fear all men are paedophiles, for example, then you would surely place your child in a female only environment, eg sp childminder who only has female mindees (is that even legal???). Obv you also have to check on the checks, but then tat is was we have ofsted etc isn't it? And mistakes do happens but they do anywhere.

with random male on dark night i'm gonna say that because it is totally out of your control it may be more understandable to feel fear. But it is totally true that most attacks, abuse, murder is committed by those known to victims, friends, family. Very very sad but true. Media has a lot of responsibility in the way it manages perceptions.

"I have walked around city centres and country lanes at night and never felt afraid.

However, I have often been told - mostly my men - that in doing so I am placing myself at unnecessary risk. I accept that they are well-meaning and it's possible I am, but they wouldn't say it to a woman would they? But if I refused to go anywhere by myself after dark I would probably be accused of being silly and OTT. "

Ditto!

Well I did feel a little nervous sometimes but it didn't stop me wandering all over the place in all sorts of states when I was a young thing

I agree with overthemill. If it is a complete no-no for you to have your child changed by a member of the opposite sex in a childcare setting, you will have to make other arrangements (nanny, childminder, or even look after them yourself).

You cannot expect or require workplaces to break the law by not treating their employees equally when all necessary and proper checks have been carried out.

Either you trust that those checks will have weeded out the vast majority of people who should not be trusted around children, or you make other arrangements.

You have no such safeguards or awareness of random men you might meet in the evening/ when walking alone etc and instinct combine with imagination and media inspired anxiety is very powerful.

And actually I can't believe that something else has been found where women are in the wrong.

Lots of men commit violence on the streets - muggings, beatings, sexual assault, rape, murder. It's a minority of men, but it's still thousands and thousands of them that are or have been worth fearing at some point.

And we are constantly told to "be vigilant" or get a taxi (but not an unregistered one because it's "just a stranger's car" ) or just damn well stay home, because it's dangerous out there.

Yet fear being alone with a strange man and somehow that's your fault and also nasty to the poor man.

Madwoman - thank gord for that! You have said what I think and feel.

I refuse to live in any kind of fear or raise my kids with any. Other folk can do what they like, fear what they like and instil that in their kids as much as they like. I don't.
Maybe I've been lucky but I am mow in my mid forties and have walked alone across parks, beaches, roads, streets sober, drunk, in the dark, in the daylight and hitched numerous times and no man has threatened or hurt me.
I've also stood up to a man beating a woman in the street and one kicking a young lad. Both backed down and fucked off when I confronted them.

There are some situations where fear is the natural, physiological response, though.

What triggers that response varies from person to person but I think that for many women if they feel fearful in certain situations that is not the result of bad parenting () nor irrationality, but because they have it drummed into them all the time by the media and many have had experiences that make them more wary.

Whether people feel anger or fear in certain situations isn't the point, is it? Surely the point is that someone is doing something to make them feel that way in the first place.

Is this an extension of the idea that women should "laugh off" minor sexual assaults, and if they display fear or anger they are told they are over-reacting?

That any woman who feels apprehensive when in certain situations, is doing it wrong? Yet at the same time we say that women should trust their instincts more. And also if they are in the "wrong place" in the first place, then they have to bear some of the blame if something happens. Women can't win really, can they.

Sardinequeen - slight twisting of my words, there!
Sometimes people have fears when no one or no thing is doing anything to make them feel that way. These are irrational and I do think being on a beach with A Man On It is irrational, yes. especially as he was doing nothing but being there.

I would have been cautious about the man on the beach because as a man I am quite likely to be attacked by other men. Allhailtheaubergine was right to be cautious.

I was apalled and saddened by the male nursery worker thread as he was in a supervised environment and CRB checked. As I said on that thread, it is because of people like that OP that men including myself increasingly avoid contact with children. I have to have a CRB check so I can have contact with adult students as do women lectures do too. I would be extremely angry if the local university decided that me and other male lecturers were not allowed to interact with female students without a chaperone or if female students were allowed to choose a female lecturer.

Two entirely different threads in my view

But people need to listen to their instincts, surely?

If you are somewhere and a man is making you feel nervous, then I would advocate proceeding with caution, rather than telling yourself not to be so silly IYSWIM.

A big problem for especially younger people is that they don't get out of situations that make them feel uncomfortable as they don't want to appear rude. So they put the feelings of the other person (not wanting to offend them) above their own (acting on their fear).

Yep, many's the time someone's been attacked because they overrode their instincts and told themselves not to be so silly...

Can you all come over on the AIBU thread please? It's directly relevant to this thread.

there used to be a few risk gurus on here. where are they? the threads used to be very good.

statistically, if 1 in 4 women will be attacked during their lifetime, and between 70 and 90% of those attacks are committed by someone known to the victim, why on earth are we living every day in fear of something that is statistically unlikely to happen? is it really worth spending 60 years of adult life in fear? to get to your death bed and go 'woo, well it wasn't me, then.'

we have all been massively conned by the ridiculously large amount of fictional sex attacks and murders on crime shows that our conception of risk is waaaaaaay out of whack? we are told every day we should be afraid. of course our instincts are kicking in. our instincts have been highly honed by everyone from our parents to the papers, to csi flipping miami. there's nothing left of instinct. not in an animal sense. it's all been co-opted.

HB, i'm sorry i didn't post on the other thread. i was just in shock that sensible women, who i greatly admire, were choosing to uphold that this fear is rational.

of course an attack, any attack is devastating. but that doesn't mean that an attack on you (or any of us) personally, at any given time, is likely enough to spend our every moment in fear.

yes, campaign against vaw. yes, campaign for better support for victims. yes, campaign for better prosecution rates. all of these things.

but don't use the fact that it does sometimes happen to convince everyone that a state of fear about the opposite sex is normal and enshrined. don't encourage it.

there is no way that any feminist fighting for equality should be afraid. how can you hope to achieve anything from protecting a position of institutionalised weakness?

but i'm going to have to step away from this thread, or i'm going to spend all day raging, and i've got things to do.

Surely you can see that there is a difference between being afraid, and understanding that others might be afraid.

People need to do something (what?) about this message from the media all the time that women are prey.

And society needs to change - a woman doing something like walking home alone after the pub will be told by pretty much everyone not to do it, wait for someone else, get a cab, oh dear oh dear oh dear.

And all this with a backdrop of the fact that stuff does happen all the time. Not stranger rape but all of the more "minor" stuff, stuff that never gets reported. Once you've had a couple of blokes wave their nobs at you, and a couple of blokes follow you, and a couple of blokes say creepy/scary things to you, then you learn that actually this stuff does happen and it happens quite a lot.

Telling women they must not be afraid is pointless, the source of the fear needs to be reduced and the perception of risk needs to be altered.

I was never too fearful to go around all over the place in all sorts of states when I was young... But I would never judge a woman who was. She is responding in the appropriate way to all the messages she has received. Women who say "fuck that" and get in an unlicenced cab or walk a few miles home through dark and isolated areas are considered outrageously reckless.

I find black people and muslims scary as well, is that ok?

Are you serious happytourer?

You think it is totally unreasonable that a woman who has had a few incidents of sexual assault and is exposed to the messages from the media that women are prey, (ie most women in the UK), feel nervous when eg walking through a deserted area at 3am and realising that she is not alone and there is a bloke walking towards her or behind her?

You think that women who are frightened in those situations are guilty of hate?

What about in places like the refugee camps in Haiti? Are they guilty of hate and bigotry too? Because they are scared?

I was (99%) making a jocular remark. If you'd had bad experiences with men, one is bound to be a little scared, but at the same time, in most cases it's largely unreasonable, as well it would be to think every black man is a mugger, or Muslim a bomber, and to act as if they might be.

Was a black person wrong to feel nervous when they realised they were about to walk past a group of men with skinheads? Even if they had no way of knowing whether the skinheads were fashion skinheads or national front supporters?

I would say not. You may have a different perspective.

How is that remark "jocular"?

The fact that lots of women are frightened a lot of the time isn't very funny really.

I also think that most of the time the woman is reacting to the situation.

Put her in the vicinity of a man in the middle of the night in a deserted area and she might be apprehensive.

Put her in a lift at work by herself with the same bloke and she probably won't be.

The first situation has been drummed into women as "danger" - the second not. The media have a lot to answer for.

Given most attacks are by someone the female knows, then out of the two situations mentioned by the OP....the nursery worker is more of a risk. Tis logic