Can men really grasp women’s reality re safety?

[Ritascornershop]

I have a 19 year old son who is very compassionate and left-wing (I mention that as he’s been indoctrinated in TWAW) but who can’t grasp the discomfort many women feel at men in women’s private spaces.

And recently a friend was telling me that a family member of his (who he has quite the blind spot over) broke up with his girlfriend. The gf had, before she met his family member, been sexually assaulted. She was naturally quite traumatized by the rape but trying to heal and met this guy and got in a relationship with him. The way my friend tells it. his family member broke up with her after a few months (during an argument) & family member “got so uoset” he punched a hole in the wall and broke a chair. She called the police and called friends. My friend seemed to feel she over-reacted! I think any woman would be frightened and that a woman who’d been sexually assaulted would be particularly terrified.

It does not seem a tricky concept to me, but both these men seem to not be able to wrap their heads around how frightening it can be to be vulnerable around larger, stronger, angry males. Is this something most men don’t get or are these two not trying very hard?

Yes. Some men get it. It's hard to truly understand because we aren't women, but if you read enough about the constant shit some women go through it becomes understandable to a large degree. Many of us also have some degree of perception of violence and threats towards us as men, but by and large we deal with it differently, mainly because we are expected to. There's a requirement as a man to face up to these threats, and there's little sympathy if you don't. But the more you read, the greater your understanding of a woman's perspective. It's not a subject that crops up in conversation, and it isn't something that most of us would feel able to ask about.

Have to sayI just don't believethat you have got to the age of 60 ( which you say you are) and never experienced any level of physical or sexual threat from men while out in the world......

Carry on not believing. You are wrong but nice to have it verified that "we believe you" means "only if it's what we want to hear".

Sorry blibby I read the wrong user name. My point was to whoever said they knew no women who this has happened to.

Women are at greater risk of rape, assault or murder in their own home from an intimate partner or male relative than any random strange man out in public.

This really isnt the gotcha you think it is. It demonstrates that men are most likely to harm the person they profess to love the most, but only when they are confident no one that matters can see them do it.

Studies repeatedly show that men are prepared to act in abhorrent ways if they think they will get away with it, and the reverse is also true. they are least likely to be violent if they think people will find out and disapprove.

Drink driving was reduced mostly by making it socially unacceptable but we just don't seem to be able to do that with male violence.

As for the homicide figures, they are 58:42. That's not such a huge disparity.
If you feel completely safe in public your sense of security will make you appear confident, which is likely to reduce an unplanned assault.

''Women killed by intimate partners or family members account for 58 per cent of all female homicide victims reported globally last year, and little progress has been made in preventing such murders. ''
www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/GSH2018/GSH18_Gender-related_killing_of_women_and_girls.pdf

You are seriously suggesting that you have never been the subject of unwanted sexual attention either as a child or as a woman. Or never felt at all anxious when walking alone to come across a large male, or several? Or has comments shouted at you across a street? Had your bottom slapped, or your breasts groped in a crowd......Never been exposed to a flasher, or a 'heavy breathing' phone call...so many circumstances...you really have never felt at all vulnerable down to your sex?

45 year old woman here and I have also never experienced any of the above. I have a vague memory of being wolf whistled once many years ago, and I do feel a bit intimidated by groups of teenage boys if they are being loud, mouthy and obnoxious. But I haven't experienced any of the things mentioned.

I have lived a pretty normal life so far - went to university, have been in full time employment for over 20 years in workplaces with many men, own my own home, regularly holiday abroad alone, travel on UK public transport day and night.

I do have the unusual experience of not having had a relationship until I was in my 40s, and when I was a 20-something who had never had a boyfriend or been on a date, I actually sometimes thought that the fact I had never experienced unwanted male attention was further proof that i was ugly and awful and that no man would ever want me (I realise that this was a screwed up thing to think).

I do completely understand that other women have different experiences and have had things happen to them and do feel fear, but I am finding it unexpectedly quite upsetting to see someone with a similar experience to me not being believed.

Yes, unfortunately the report you linked showing that 58% of female homicides were by partners and family members does not state that the remaining 42% of homicides were by strangers. So it is not 58:42. You just jumped to that conclusion (wrongly).

Look at the U.K.,

33% killed by partners, but only 17% by strangers.

From the UK ONS
“A third of women were killed by their partner or ex-partner1 (33%, 63 homicides) in the year ending March 2018. This is the fewest number of women aged 16 years and over killed by a partner or ex-partner in the last 40 years.”

“Men were most likely to be killed by a stranger, with over one in three (35%, 166 victims) killed by a stranger in the year ending March 2018. This was an increase of 51% compared with the previous year (110 victims). Women were less likely to be killed by a stranger (17%, 33 victims).

Among homicide victims, one in four men (25%, 115 men) were killed by friends or social acquaintances, compared with around one in fourteen women (7%, 13 women.)”

Then you are in a minority of women Memorial

Most women feel unsafe and we need to talk about this.

'YouGov research shows the extent to which everyday Britain feels less safe to women
Most men would never consider that simple acts like walking around town or calling a plumber could be dangerous. Yet a new YouGov Realtime survey reveals that the majority of British women have felt unsafe undertaking these everyday activities.'

yougov.co.uk/topics/legal/articles-reports/2019/02/14/one-three-women-consciously-take-steps-avoid-attac

Most men would never consider that simple acts like walking around town or calling a plumber could be dangerous

It has never occurred to me that calling a plumber could be dangerous. Nor for that matter- walking around in town.

I won’t have tradesmen in unless my son is home. I guess I’ll have to get over that when he moves out.

So in other words, I agree with the OP. It makes more sense for a woman to be afraid when her partner is punching holes in walls and breaking chairs than for a woman late at night on a train travelling alone to be afraid.
The risk to women is from the men we know, and in our homes.

I don't always feel unsafe walking around town, but a woman I visit is terrified and insists (tries to anyway) I must drive not walk after dark...even if it's not late. I prefer to walk for health and environment reasons.

It's a 2 mile walk from town centre along one of the main residential routes towards the hospital, passing a couple of small shops ( Tesco's, pharmacy etc), no pubs

Being me, I have been counting people. For every woman walking I am seeing 5 to 8 men. And typically the women are with a man, whereas men may often be alone. Solo women are very rare. Which then makes me worry what people will think of me walking alone after dark.

So it doesn't matter what individuals have experienced, there is clearly something going on that is affecting behaviour

Of course there is a risk but it is far smaller than the risk of being in a car accident and yet we all still get in cars.

Actually, you are far more likely to be raped or sexuallt assaulted than you are to be in an injurious car accident.

However, I think if it's a common problem it's most likely due to the women affected being raised without a strong male role model in their household.

Do you have any journal papers or similar evidence for that? How is not having a father around supposed to make a woman scared? And how do you explain women like myself, whose parents even after divorce had joint parental responsibility and I spent 50% of my time with my dad, yet still I am scared of male violence? Perhaps my experiences at the hands of unrelated men and boys might be the cause of my fear?

the chances of being attacked while just innocently walking along

That's not the threat model women face TBH. The issues are things like sexual assault in mixed changing rooms, date rape, and spousal abuse, not "stranger leaps out of the bushes".

would definitely be wise to seek professional help

1. The fear I have now is after professional help. It's also after a rape, a vulval sexual assault at age eight, and more non-vulval sexual assaults than I can count. I was cat-called in school uniform. I insisted on going to an all-girl secondary because by the end of primary school (before my parents' divorce, so don't blame my parents splitting for my fear) I was already traumatised by boys committing physical and sexual assaults against me.
2. Telling women that their structural fear of male violence is all in their heads is gaslighting and misogynist.

This being frightened is a problem that you have to deal with rationally.

The rational thing to do, when men are the principal murderers of women and children and the sole rapists, is to keep the sexes separate under circumstances where women and children are especially vulnerable. The rational thing to do, for woman individually, is to stay away from the sex class that can force them to become pregnant. The rational thing to do is to get men to all stop raping and battering and murdering.

It's not for anyone else to change the way they act unless they're being inappropriate.

If men stopped being inappropriate, that would be a great start. For example, a stranger of either sex talking to me on the train is an unjustified invasion of my time, before you even consider the fear caused by a man chatting me up with obvious sexual intent in an enclosed space that I cannot leave.

I don't think any 'structures'suppirt aggressions.

Yes they do. Examples:

• A new building at work has transparent balustrades on the staircases and balconies, permitting upskirting of women using the stairs and balconies by men standing below them. The workplace women's network have called this issue out. My employer won't fix it because it will "spoil the architectural feel of the building".
• Lifts are installed without CCTV, putting women at risk of sexual assault if traveling alone with a man in these confined spaces.
• Evidence shows that women are a much greater risk of sexual assault in mixed changing rooms than single-sex ones, yet councils continue to install mixed changing rooms. The original Universal Credit payment method was to pay the entirety of a joint claim into one account. In abusive relationships, guess whose account the money was paid into? And most abusers are male. It took a lot* of pressure from feminists to have that changed.

People in power making decisions that put women at risk of male violence is pretty much the definition of structural support of aggressions.

women should manage their anxieties better

This is a silencing tactic, intended to shame victims of male violence into silence. Men who rape and grope and cat-call and batter get off the hook. If men managed their behaviour, I'd have no anxiety to manage. Tell men to stop raping.

I was sexually assaulted on holidays when I was 20.

It's obviously not helpful to anyone to view men just as potential rapists.

I don't view them as "just" potential rapists. It would be very helpful to me if I could do that. But no, I also have to view men as colleagues, plumbers, electricians. I have to invite a potential rapist into my house to service the gas boiler. I have to work alongside potential rapists, sometimes in confined spaces because of the nature of my job. I was working on a building site a few years back and the protective boarding in the lifts was covered in pornographic graffiti about what the men would like to do to the female site staff, and I had to work in the vicinity of those men who talk about their female colleagues as sex objects. I have to manage my anxiety every day until such time as I've repaid my mortgage and don't have to work any more. So don't lecture me about managing anxiety.

To say our fear is especially bad or so much worse than men’s fear is to paint women as the weaker sex according to the old damsel in distress gender stereotype.

Women are raped six times more often than men. And no man was ever left pregnant by his rapist. Damn right women should be more scared. The gang that put Robert Maltby in a coma killed Sophie Lancaster in the same attack, because she was weaker than him and her bones were thinner. Damn right women should be more scared.

You're talking about a small minority of badly behaved men who rape women.

A third of men don't think it's rape to carry on having sex after the woman has told him to stop. The law says it is. Around 6% of men are rapists and I don't know who they are. When I enter a confined space with a man, or start dating one, I am playing russian roulette with my safety. 6% are rapists. If I gave you a bowl of M&Ms and told you that 6% would give you food poisoning, would you dare to eat even just one?

There's nothing cwrong with aggressive or masculine behaviour

There's everything wrong with aggressive behaviour. When my ex punched the wall, I thought I would be next. I wasn't, but I feared it and that was part of how he controlled me.

Men do not view laughter as violence.
They fear the rejection and humiliation that accompanies the laughter. They imagine and dread asking a woman out and her saying "You? Date me? Not if hell froze. [laughs and walks away]" Even though no sane woman would react like that, she'd play along and give a fake number for fear of him hitting her. You might look up a guy called Eliot Rodgers, who really didn't like female rejection, for an indication of how badly men can take rejection. And any man could be him for all I know...

Women have a defence mechanism in that they can prevent anything from penetrating them if there's a strong will to do so.

It's called vaginismus, and it doesn't keep a rapist out. He tore me because I involuntarily clamped shut and he rammed it in anyway. I recommend that you don't take biology lessons from Republican party politicians. And frankly, we shouldn't have to develop vagina dentata or kegels of iron to "prevent anything from penetrating" us: the word "no" should enough to stop any man.

Women are at greater risk of rape, assault or murder in their own home from an intimate partner or male relative than any random strange man out in public.

50% of victims are raped by a current or former partner. That's what happened to me.
30% by someone else you know.
11% by unlicensed minicab drivers.
9% by strangers who are not unlicensed minicab drivers. My sexual assailants at school were strangers, they weren't in my year. We had a poster on here over the summer, she'd been sexually assaulted on a train by a stranger. I can reduce my risk of another rape by 50% by refusing to date nor live with men. I can't eliminate the other 50%, and I still fear them.

No. I have not. Do you have a problem believing what a woman says?

You are extraordinarily lucky to have never been subjected to cat-calls, groping, or rape. So lucky, in fact, that your luck is unprecedented amongst every woman I've met. I would love to know how your life circumstances have differed from mine so that I can try to reproduce your safe environment for myself.

It demonstrates that men are most likely to harm the person they profess to love the most

It also demonstrates that men will spend months or years premeditating a woman's murder, by identifying her, gaining her trust, isolating her away from witnesses, and manipulating her to the point that she perceives both resistance and summoning aid to be futile.

52 year old woman here who has never felt physically or sexually threatened by a man. Ive had a couple of men who've got a bit 'fresh' but telling them to back off in no uncertain terms has always worked for me and i didn't feel threatened just cross.

The risk to women is from the men we know, and in our homes.

You keep saying that despite the figures that show its a myth. The danger is from men who think they are in a situation where they can get away with it.

I completely appreciate that I am in a minority, but I don't appreciate the suggestion that my experience is unbelievable.

While I haven't experienced anything of that list of things, and don't generally feel unsafe (like a PP it never occurred to me that calling a plumber could be dangerous). I do risk assess some situations though, and probably take different actions to a man.

For example, leaving a Christmas party at a pub a midnight, a couple of male colleagues set off for home on foot, I would never have dreamed of taking what would have been around a 30 minute walk alone at that time of night. Not because of anything that has happened to me but partly because I have always been told and read that it isn't a safe thing to do, and partly because I think walking alone in the dark for that amount of time could feel a bit eerie /creepy. I do know and understand that there is a risk of being attacked if I put myself in that situation, and I guess I would feel it if I did do that walk, so I do understand the fear that other women feel in many situations, even if I mostly don't feel it myself. I do happily walk 5 minutes from bus stop to home late at night.

I remember reading this Twitter feed about a woman selling a washing machine and when the man arrives (in his 60s or 70s) she has to assess whether or not he is a threat to her, being alone in the house with him.

twitter.com/tragedythyme/status/1049044475857788928?lang=en

It starts "A quick reminder for men: Common events for you can turn into really scary situations for women in a snap.

Case in point: This week I listed a clothes dryer on the Letgo app. Because it was a dryer, a neutral meeting location was impractical. I needed it taken out of my house"

It really resonated with me. I have been in lots of situations where I have to assess the danger to myself. I have been sexually assaulted in broad daylight, whilst pregnant, walking in a town at around 5pm. It came from nowhere. It shocked me that I didn't say anything or do anything because it was so unexpected. I was unprepared.

After that I felt totally on my guard at all times, it changed me.

in walls and breaking chairs than for a woman late at night on a train travelling alone to be afraid

I think women have every right to worry about being trapped in a moving confined space with a potential rapist. We had a poster over the summer who was groped on a train in broad daylight and she clearly isn't alone. Upskirting on railway station escalators has made the news and Ellie Cosgrave was wanked on on a train.

Yet Southern continue to push for driver-only operation, paving the way to remove the guard from trains. What I said about structural support of male aggression? Taking guards off trains would be it. derailtrainpervs was on a guardless train when she was groped.

It’s not just about partners - I’m terrified of any male raising their voice and being intimidating because of how my father behaved (40 years+ ago) I married the complete opposite but I have not unlearned the sheer fear you feel from being in that dynamic

I've never felt physically or sexually threatened by a man.

Lucky you. How's that relevant to the opening post of this thread?

Ive had a couple of men who've got a bit 'fresh' but telling them to back off in no uncertain terms has always worked for me

You don't get that option when you are outnumbered or when you wake up to find your boyfriend already on top of you. Do you have any idea how victim-blaming you sound?

The inebriati
“The risk to women is from the men we know, and in our homes.”

You keep saying that despite the figures that show its a myth. The danger is from men who think they are in a situation where they can get away with it.

Actually, the figures show what I said is not a myth. But you go on just making shit up. So, if male partners & relatives are not killing women in their homes (despite this being the #1 female homicide scenario worldwide), this is all a “myth” even though you linked a report showing that 58% of dead women were killed this exact way....it must follow...since it’s a myth.
That you think the OPs friend over reacted by calling the police then? She was perfectly safe because it’s just a myth. Ok.

The experience of a friend selling a TV really put me off gumtree and the rest. She had posted the ad in her real female name and once she had arranged pick up the man started sending dick pics which is obviously disturbing since he knew her name and address. There was a man convicted of this recently so it seems to be a common thing.

A post on a local motoring site made me realise how men don't get it. A young woman had posted to be cautious about a man wearing dark clothes walking down a windy country road and immediately men were jumping on her saying she should have picked him up. They just couldn't see why telling a 19 year old girl to pick up a strange man or even stop to talk to him was wrong.

I have four very unpleasant experiences in my life which are borderline sexual abuse, one of them borderline rape.

Women generally fear men...

If a woman walks through a subway tunnel in a quiet area, she will look over her shoulder a few times on the way in. Men don’t do this.

A woman in a pub won’t leave her drink attended just in case. Men don’t worry about this.

Women generally don’t go out on dark evenings alone. Again men don’t worry about this.

Men don’t have a clue that women fear them (as a class) so much.

This is partly why women are not heard on subjects like shared changing rooms and toilets

My own (6ft, strongly built) brother (I'm 5.3 and petite) refuses to accept that him shouting loudly and aggressively at me, while blocking the doorway, and telling me he won't stop shouting until I do what he wants, is intimidating and abusive. He absolutely refuses to accept it, and told me I was the one being abusive.
He thinks of himself as a nice, left-wing, caring kind of guy.

It is the same reason why loads of people are terrified of flying,

So unnatural isn’t it. I don’t know how those things stay in the air.