How is this ok? For anyone involved.

[dollywobbles]

This evening I went out for a few drinks with some female friends.
So far so normal. However, at the end of the evening, as we were all leaving the pub, the landlord called out to 6 of us 'make sure you get this one home safely'. He had his arm around the 7th member of the group. I said ' really? You're asking all of us to make sure one of us gets home safely?' He said 'she tries to walk home the long way and it's not safe'.
She is a 37 year old adult. Landlord has no idea where anyone else lives.
I was properly enraged by this, as were a few of the others (all of the others after we all discussed it), the suggestion we should protect one of our number, but not the others, from (I assume) being attacked by men.
It's ridiculous, infuriating and so bizarre: if she's at threat, how are the rest of us safe?
Even when I said how weird what he was suggesting was, the landlord showed zero recognition.
It's just a normal event isn't it?
Made me so angry.

one how are you supposed to all get back home together if you don't live together?

Well when I'm out with friends we go as far as possible with each other and if a friend who lives further away than everyone else is particularly drunk whoever lives nearest to them will ride the taxi to their house first to make sure they get home safe and then double back to their own place. It's just how it's always worked when I go out no matter who I'm with. I've had friends walk me home to my house before doubling back and going to the opposite side of town to their own houses because I was really drunk.

And similarly I've done the taxi "babysitting" to a drunk friend's house before doubling back to my own.

VV

"Tries to" implies she does it a lot, though. Like my mother telling me to walk back along the main road from the station, not the shorter but unlit route. (I am older than the woman in this anecdote and it's dark half the year by 1800 when I'm back from work).

"She says she's going to" would be more spur of the moment worry for a particularly drunk customer.

Might be splitting hairs!

Yep so you have decided that one person was more vulnerable and the less vulnerable have gone back home walking in their own. Again the Police advice to stay together....
That's what I mean by not possible to do in practical terms. Someone IS left to,walk in their own, albeit maybe a shorter distance.

I agree with the comments on 'tries to' and the paternalistic comment.
It is only acceptable of the person who is making the comment is very close. I can't see the pub owner being that close to that woman, even she was a regular customer.
Besides, why the idea that the people who were with her, her 6 other friends wouldn't be intelligent enough to spot she was very drunk or ready to do something maybe dangerous that he had to make the comment?
What made him above all the other women to be able to judge better what sort of help that woman needed?
He isn't just putting himself in the role of the protector towards one woman, he is also putting himself above all the other people present as knowing best than all what she needed.

Maybe the landlord could have kept his mouth shut Vestal rather than telling grown women what to do?

Oh get a life - really this man was showing concern for a customer's safety - what the heck is wrong with that?

You do not know that he has never said the same thing to a group of male friends about one of their number - it is you who is being sexist by making that assumption that eh only shows concern for women. Not that I can see anything wrong with that.

It is possible to put an arm round someone in an avuncular way.

Feminism is set back by these over-sensitivities as it holds us up to ridicule.

The OP's outrage must either have dimmed or she has spontaneously self-cumbusted as we haven't seen her again.

I really hope she hasn't self-CUMbusted Lass...

Sorry. Childish. But that was one hell of a typo...

"avuncular"

Avuncular is paternalistic - both mean "acting like a protective elder relative."

Sometimes I think men can't win, they are famnrdnif they do and damned if they don't. If he had sent her way with not a care for her safety he would be flamed, if he says take care of her...how very dare he! She's a grown woman, would he say this to a man? Why didn't he show concern about all of us? How dare he put his arm around her and be concerned!
You can't have it all ways! What is it, about his actions, that left you so annoyed?

"If he had sent her way with not a care for her safety he would be flamed, "

That would be a straw man.

'Wimmin' looking for something to be angry about do all womankind a disservice. What's wrong with kindness and concern? More important things to get upset about.

I don't understand

I've certainly seen landlords behave similarly to the drunk man in a group.

What's a straw man?

this really is the sort of complaint that gives feminism a bad name- reminds me of some of the women I knew way back when, the sort who wouldn't tolerate a male dog visiting their house...

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
(arguing a different argument)

But in my head it became Wicker Man so I was at the thought of it being flamed.

Wimmin?

HOUSE!

"Tries to" implies she does it a lot, though.

Ah. I'm not a native speaker, so didn't notice that.

What I find inappropriate is the arm around the woman in question, and OP doesn't even mention that.

The drunkness, or lack thereof, is also not mentioned, that would also make a difference.

Telling people things they know already because one wants to be extra sure is not male exclusive.

(Wasn't there an article in The Onion on a man who had an accident because his mother had failed to tell him to drive carefully?)