Walking a woman home

[damnedgrubble]

My friend and I, both feminists, were discussing this last night. She expects that my Ds (18) walks her Dd (17) home when it's late at night; they are in a relationship and have been for 18 months. I agree that it's the appropriate thing to do. However, last night over several a glass of wine we were questioning how this fits in with our feminist selves.
What do you think? In the cold, sober, light of day it seems very different.

Amy yet again. It happens to women and it is awful.

That does not negate the fact that it happens to men and they struggle with it as well. In my experience girls are much more open to suggestions of counseling and girls often arrive with friends who they have already told and who are supporting the victim.

It is awful for both sexes.

Women are weaker in general that's why there are separate rules in sport etc so what ? Women are generally stronger some other areas. Why try to deny women are weaker they are smaller on average with less muscle mass of course there's exceptions but the worlds strongest man would be stronger than worlds strongest woman, most men and women I know believe in equal rights for both in pay etc but why try to deny women are physically weaker it makes us sound silly as it's difficult to deny biological fact. Women are amazing in many ways as are all human beings, my son would protect his gf if necessary but they have an equal relationship , it's more her that makes the decisions really. I would not want to be with a man who didn't make me feel protected, fair enough if you don't want that kind of relationship but why make it taboo for men to be protective of women , some women love to me with a man who is protective and strong. If you are in a relationship with someone who does not fit this bill and your both happy that's great but discourse which suggests this is taboo or masogonistic is a shame IMO. I know I'm going against the grain on mums net but I don't think my view is that uncommon among women in rl.

Is the expectation that he will walk her home emphasising the view that women need to be looked after by men?

No, I think it's the acknowledgement of the fact that there are a lot of shitty men out there.

Amy, yes, same as Breck Bodnar, a 14 year old boy who lived in my town and was sexually abused and murdered a couple of years ago. It's not a competition.

Not by someone unknown to him entirely at random just walking in broad daylight. If you're going to go into that kind of case there are far, far more girls who are victims of it such as Kayleigh Haywood. But then I see that here we have to accept boys are more at risk as obviously I need to learn to accept how lucky I am to be a girl at far less risk. I'm so angry.

No, groomed by a stranger on the internet, so that's ok then.

Do you really think there are degrees of suffering and death? Dead is dead, violence is violence, nobody deserves that, male or female.

Gendered violence happens to women and girls continually and is a risk we perpetually face. Violence against us purely for being female. It was you who was talking about how the "only people you knew" who had suffered violence on the street were boys, as if girls don't run the risk of it daily simply for being female.

Tried to have a conversation about this with DH. Didn't go well... He has never (well once) seen gendered violence, apparently, despite high levels of public transport usage. So it's not a big problem.

Blimey Pickle, does your DH use public transport with his eyes closed? Or is he merely so used to seeing it that he no longer notices do you think?

Not criticising your DH btw, but I don't think in all my years of commuting there many journeys where I didn't see or experience some form of gendered violence.

Do you think your DH means something different from you by "violence" pickle? If he's thinking attacks where someone is physically injured i could believe he's not seen that. Unlikely he'd not ever have noticed harassment or intimidation though unless he has his eyes closed. Though I've seen a lot more in the evenings than on commuter trains.

Very true Evergreen, most of the stuff that happens on commuter trains is sexual violence, whereas the stuff that happens in the evenings is more likely to be harassment/intimidation.

IME whoever is most vulnerable is walked home, so most commonly that's a woman being walked home by a man.

But I've walked a male friend home because I was sober and he very much wasn't.

IAmAmy please do not misrepresent what I have said. I have never said or implied any of the things you accuse me of.

I am very sorry for the loss of your friend.

I read that before I read your threat to report me for sending you private messages about this thread and your comments in it. I'm responding here because you said you'd report me if I sent another one which rather makes it difficult for me to feel your last post here was meant. Anyway, I've asked for my last two posts here to be removed as I've derailed the thread and allowed it to get to me far more than I should have.

IAmAmy you are having a hard time. Anniversaries are always distressing and bring painful memories to the surface.

I am not going to respond further as you are obviously in pain and I don't think any form of discussion will help.

Once again for your friend.

I'm a man and I'll often try to walk women home if required, or more often nowadays a lift. The crucial element is to make the offer in as innoucous a fashion as possible, so this might involve making a general offer to everyone after a night out "anyone need a lift home?", but making that offer open to everyone.

My reasoning is if anything untoward happened to anyone in my orbit I'd feel terrible, so honestly it's as much about me as anything else. I am 6ft tall and reasonably well built so I don't usually cop any flak when I'm out and about, and whilst I did get stabbed once (and I got very lucky in that I got only a very minor injury) as a teenager although I avoid violence at every opportunity I'm not particularly phased by it.

However, and I think this point is crucial the sort of people who go rushing into potentially dangerous situations to help other people are uncommon, and gender is by no means a predictor. I think we do women a disservice here as evidenced by this study here:

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/15222859/

What this 2004 study indicates that in lots of occasions women may actually be more brave than men are, but men are more likely to get medals or recognition for such behaviour. I think this is an important point as I think this men need to protect women narrative is inaccurate as I think women do a lot more protecting of themselves and others than they are given credit for.

I've known a fair few women who are perfectly capable. On one occasion I rushed out onto a street upon hearing a woman's scream. A man was was attacking her and she was in the process of effectively fighting him off by whacking him with her umbrella. I'm not sure I made a massive difference to that episode, besides giving him a little extra incentive to run off.

I won't be encouraging my little boy to think in terms of having to protect women. However I will be raising him to know there are violent people, more usually they will be men, and there is everyone else. People in the everyone else category need to work together to keep one another safe and the gender in that group is irrelevant. This framing that women need to come to us for protection is innacurate and wrong.

Dervel

Of course, what you or anybody else chooses to do is perfectly up to you or them. But, there's just no reason why anybody should be expected to offer themselves up as a shield against violence, (unless that's what they choose to do for a living of course).

I've walked boyfriends home to spend more time with them. I've been walked home to have more time spent with me, because they were worried (I lived in a rough area as a student) because they were predatory (I had an inkling, but a friend warning me confirmed it), and because they were well-meaning but patronising (assured him I would be fine, I'd done it hundreds of times, and there was no point him walking 30 mins out of his way for nothing), oh, and because they were hopeful (turned round and told me he was going back to the bar since I wasn't planning to do any more than kiss).

My sons, well, I would prefer that they paid for cabs(although there's a risk there too)/called me for a lift once they're old enough than put themselves, or their friends in unreasonable danger. I would be proud of them for standing up for those smaller/weaker and for making sensible risk assessments though.

I'm as surprised that pickle's DH has never seen gendered violence on public transport as I am that Xeno sees it on almost every journey!

My male friends always walked me home when I was in my late teens, early twenties. I think it really cemented our friendships, we walked and talked, sometimes they walked a long way out of their way. They were brought up to do this, and I felt very well taken care of, which is I guess the feeling some people feel is demeaning/anti-feminist. Getting everyone home safely was a huge priority in my friendship group, either by walking in groups, getting a taxi and calling (one ring) once the last person was home safely. Same when I lived alone in London as I did for over a decade, if out with friends, we would call to say 'home safe'. I did used to walk home by myself from the Tube, but it was a bit more of a run, and on one occasion I was followed and had to do a long running detour as someone hid behind a wall to jump out on me (I saw through the bricks, he wasn't the brightest luckily).

I think teaching everyone to take care of each other is the way forward, I have such fond memories of walking with my male friends and got to know them so well on those walks I can't bring myself to condemn their behaviour in any way and I would encourage my children to be equally caring of their friends on a night out: no-one left behind, everyone checked to see if they are safe (even if they went off with some guy/woman) that night, next morning.

By the way, this had nothing to do with sexual harassment, I was harassed day and night living in London as a 20 something, men in vans, men on the street commenting.

Is the expectation that he will walk her home emphasising the view that women need to be looked after by men?

No, it is reacting to the very real situation that women are at risk from men when on their own, on the streets.

My own feminist upbringing had me thinking "these streets are mine just as much as any man's, I'm not going to be stopped from walking down them"

The street harassment didn't stop me (that happened just as much at day as at night anyway) but being followed by some very aggressive and intimidating men at 4am who I was lucky to get away from did (I ran and hid behind a van and watched them slowly drive up and down looking for me until they gave up. They had a really nasty vibe and it was terrifying).

My BF had offered to walk me home but he was tired and I said "don't be silly, I can walk from here, it's only 5 minutes"

I hate to think what would have happened if they'd caught me.
Yes we should be able to walk down the street late at night, without fear of harassment. Until that point, I'll accept offers of walks home.

It's not anti-feminist, it's survival.

The street harassment didn't stop me (that happened just as much at day as at night anyway) but being followed by some very aggressive and intimidating men at 4am who I was lucky to get away from did (I ran and hid behind a van and watched them slowly drive up and down looking for me until they gave up. They had a really nasty vibe and it was terrifying).

I had that too. I was walking home from a friends house around midnight and a man in a white van played cat and mouse with me down a deserted road for about 5 minutes (it felt much longer). With hindsight I think he was just getting off on the thrill of frightening a lone teenage girl, because if he'd wanted to grab me he had every opportunity.

And unfortunately on another occasion shortly after that I was grabbed, while walking home from an evening stock-take at my weekend job. I was 17. And I know from various conversations over the years that I was not an isolated case.

And that's why I hate the sort of mental wanking I read on threads like this.