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?

Sometimes you really wish you had the ability to gift people with self awareness so they realize how they're coming across.

“I am having a problem believing that as a female you have never encountered any of the above or more, yes.....definitely. You'd be the first I'd ever met or encountered, and I've been on this earth for quite a while.” Ditto - to the point it makes me wonder if that poster is really a woman

I am a woman, advance search me if you want. I haven't gaslighted anyone who has a different experience, nor have I denied or disbelieved anything they have said. I would nice if people didn't do it to me.

I think that you don’t even have to have been a victim of assault to be wary. My male colleague couldn’t understand when I expressed concern at parking in an out of the way unlit car park which backs onto fields. But we live in ‘pleasantsville’ he said. I pointed that men who assault women aren’t limited to big cities. I also pointed out that a woman had been raped walking home from a village next to pleasantsville the previous year. He was astonished but took my point. He genuinely had been completely unaware of why a woman might feel unnerved.

I think there is a fundamental lack of understanding in many men, especially nice men, about how unsafe a woman can feel in the most benign situations. I guess it’s only down to education that men can even begin to understand because let’s face it, they are rarely the prey in a predatory world.

Men definitely get this. The6 either don't care, or relish the feeling of power it gives them.

Funny How men aren't prone to displays of this kind of violent temper when they are angry with larger/stronger men than them, isn't it? Somehow it only happens around women.

I think the thing to pay attention to is how men react when it's pointed out that their belief that a particular situation carries no risks is not true based on the experience of the woman they're talking to. Bafflement suggests they genuinely didn't know. Anger at the women pointing out the problem suggests that they did.

Sometimes you really wish you had the ability to gift people with self awareness so they realize how they're coming across

I know that is a dig at me but believe me there are other posters it applies to. The insistence that anyone who doesn't love constantly in fear must be lying is tedious.

Ditto - to the point it makes me wonder if that poster is really a woman

And this gets trotted out. It's vastly amusing seeing in any trans thread the inevitable list of "masculine" things which posters like but which don't mean they aren't still women yet not falling in line with approved FWR behaviour and responses means you must be a man.

Gaslighters, eh?

Won't give up will they?

All this must be fun for them

I don't know what they're hoping to achieve. Do they hope most women will go "oh I must be imagining it all" as a result of this gaslighting?

Therefore, I can only conclude that they are doing it for fun.

And to derail threads of course. So...

Back to being alone with tradesmen. Yes, I feel uncomfortable in this situation too.

I don't know what they're hoping to achieve. Do they hope most women will go "oh I must be imagining it all" as a result of this gaslighting?

Not really. We are being told that all women experience these things.
All women.
Those of us who post that we haven't are disbelieved.
What happened to "I believe her"?
It only goes one way?

"It's never happened to me"

Subtext: you must've imagined it or are massively exaggerating.

Either way I'm going to dismiss what you say.

Cruel, mean, gaslighting monsters.

Empathy bypass or what?

Thread title: can men really grasp women's reality re safety?

Answer: NO

..as has been amply demonstrated on this thread; thanks for taking the time.

The gaslighting in this thread is astonishing. It started as a general discussion about whether men understand how women feel about risk and turned into men telling women how to feel about risk. And how our current feelings are all wrong. Plus ca fucking change.

And on a personal level, I noticed something on the train a few weeks ago. As the train came into the station, the women in my carriage had their car keys and ticket ready, jumped out and walked very purposefully through the barrier and to the car park and got straight into their cars. No mess no fuss. The men were less purposeful, didn’t have their keys ready, etc. Could be that the women had shit to do and no time to waste or could be that they were nervy in a dark station and pitch dark car park.
On a similar note, one of my brothers commented about how great the car park was at Gunwharf Quays as it has a direction system to get you to an empty spot. When I said it was incredibly well lit, no dark corners or spaces and I thought it had been designed with safety in mind he was stunned. It had just never occurred to him.

I was also wary of showing viewers round my home a couple of years ago if I was on my own.

Having grown up with the Suzy Lamplugh case, it really highlighted the dangers for me.

In my first post, and others, I said "I haven't experienced these things so I don't think I truly get it, so it's not surprising that men don't".
Others have said similar.
Nowhere in that is there any subtext that people who have experienced it are lying or exaggerating.

.. It's vastly amusing..

Interesting to see that you can find something "vastly amusing" on this thread where women are opening up about some terrible things they have experienced. How monumentally insensitive of you.

I'm going to suggest that those of us who have been through a lot at the hands of men have also undergone periods of denial and minimisation, and I know that I wonder if the "well it's never happened to me" are in denial, because I've been through that denial myself.

Certainly, anyone who can post on this thread to the tune of "well it's never happened to me so I don't see what your problem is" is utterly tone-deaf and devoid of empathy. There's a big difference between "I've never been through this, I had no idea how bad other women have it, flowers for you all" and "I've never been through this so I'm going imply that you're all overreacting".

6 of my classmates tried to rape me.

for everything you've been through. I fled to the safety of an all-girl secondary for that reason. The local mixed secondary would have meant being in the same school as the boys who had already sexually assaulted me by groping my vulva.

Something I'd like to do, once we've stopped the attacks on the EA2010 definition of woman as "a female of any age", is to ensure that every girl has the right to choose to attend an all-girl secondary. It's not the job of girls to pacify boys. 300 boy-on-fellow-pupil ("peer-on-peer" my arse, name the agents of violence) rapes per year take place in schools and are reported to the police. There will be hundreds more per year that are hushed up. Girls deserve better than being confined in a building with rapists every day.

We are socialised to be anxious and fearful outside our homes by the patriarchy.

So it was just the patriarchy socialising me the three times I had to take evasive action last year out walking the dog because some strange male behaved in a way I found threatening? The third one, who rode his bike ahead of me to the entrance of the underpass, got off his bike and leaned in the entrance waiting for me for example? Probably just wanted a chat, right?

Except I discovered before I was eight that a female person alone may be suddenly approached by a male stranger who will feel entitled to touch and use the female biology they're in possession of. On the bus when I was twelve, another male stranger who saw walking female biology in a space where no one else was looking to inhibit his wanting to use that biology for his own satisfaction. The multiple rapes on my university campus so that the police issued all female people with blast horns and rules about paths and going everywhere in groups after dark? All irrational being scared of nothing for silly reasons, just 'patriarchy'?

As for the 'well it's never happened to me and if it did I'd just tut at them and they'd run away'...… how jolly lovely for you that is. Now I'd like to introduce you to the millions of other women in the world, and this thing called theory of mind. Other people may have experiences and knowledge you don't share. They'll be very glad for you that you haven't shared them and they'll hope you never will, but your innocence isn't something they've been able to keep themselves.

The insistence that anyone who doesn't love constantly in fear must be lying is tedious

And you've been told, to the point, of utter tedium, that it is not, necessarily, about living in a state of constant fear. That would be an extreme condition for most people.

to the point of utter tedium

Haven't you made you one point very clearly already? Or your two points.....? " It's never happened to me, ever, in any way at all.....", and something about " Living in a constant state of fear" - even when told that this is not the case.

Ways to post disagreement with the concept of women fearing male behaviour in daily life.

Option 1: I have a different experience from you, but I understand that your experience is common, and I understand how it makes you feel. I’m glad that my experience is better, I’m sorry that yours was not good, but I realise that I am, statistically, fortunate.

Option 2: I have no idea what you’re talking about because I haven’t experienced it, it seems like you’re exaggerating, and I can’t understand why you want to live your life like that.

I am paraphrasing, by the way, rather than using exact words. The impact of version 1 is to kindly, thoughtfully disagree. The impact of version 2 is to make women who have had terrible experiences feel like shit. The first encourages, the second belittles.

I’m a confident, outgoing, successful woman in spite of the decades of street harassment, inappropriate behaviour and sexual assaults that have been part of the tapestry of my life. When I read posts from women who haven’t had the deal with that I want to feel happy for them, but the undercurrent of “so what did YOU do wrong to bring this on you, Sophocles?” makes that quite hard. I’m glad you didn’t have that. But spare a thought for how your posts come across to those of us who did. The feeling you conjure up is like the ones I felt when I was 12 and was first harassed in the street by adult men- that I had caused it, and must learn to put up, shut up, not encourage it and learn to cope.

The insistence that anyone who doesn't love constantly in fear must be lying is tedious.

Perhaps some posters are accusing you of lying but certainly not everyone.

Some women have said they live in constant fear. Most of us don't but almost all of us do have a general wariness due to our lived experience that we may have to deal with unwanted attention and occasionally are in situations that make us fearful, so while we may not live in constant fear we do understand why some women may.

For me it is surprising to find women who cannot even understand that position because they have never, not once, had unwanted sexual contact from a total stranger, despite it being so common for most of us. I don't disbelieve you - every bell curve has its extremes - but I do have to decide to believe you intellectually because you say this is true although it isn't an experience I or anyone I know has had, whereas with the other posters I can corroborate their experiences with my own.

I'm actually very interested to hear why you think your experiences are so different (is it just the bell curve thing or do you see a reason), but I haven't asked because I think you'd take it as challenging your truth.

A lot of words but I hope that clarifies that not everyone is calling you a liar.