Changing YOUR behaviour to keep safe

[knightlight]

Up late feeding the baby and just thinking about the running route I'm going to take later today and I've just come to the horrible realisation that despite me living on a lovely coast.....I take a horrible road route just to stay safe!

I got in from my first run in a long time this week and was complaining to DH how I felt I was breathing in car fumes the whole way as I stick to busy routes along main roads.

It occurred to me that I live near a lovely long footpath set above the road which runs downhill to the sea. It has a gorgeous sea view the whole way down and is flanked by two fields of greenery ...why don't I run that way?....because for long parts there are hedges that cut off the view from the road below which would leave me isolated and out of view and to be really frank I'm worried about being attacked out of view.

It's made me quite sad to think I have to change my behaviour to not put myself at risk. My DH wouldn't think twice about taking this route.

I also used to have the choice of two car parks in town but now only use the non sheltered more expensive one after an incident where a man hopped in the lift with me last minute, stood really close to me and was asking me lots of questions about my shopping habits (not a crime I know but still made me break into a sweat).

Does anyone else feel like there are scenarios where you miss out or you have to change YOUR behaviour just to keep safe?

Yes I love walking in the country but there have been times when I haven't gone places I want because I feel too vulnerable as a woman alone. My family don't help saying things like I don't think that's safe etc. I do still walk alone in the countryside etc though And weigh up the risks and I have often crossed paths with lone males and they have never been any threat so I think the risk is very minimal really. I carry a personal alarm and have read up on self defence. If you regularly run the same isolated path at the same time of day that could put you at risk of someone noting where you are.

I thought basic risk assessment was human nature.

This is an interesting topics. It's human nature to carry out risk assessment, but objectively our assessments are often wildly wrong. People fear things that are extremely unlikely, like their kids being kidnapped from a parked car, while they have no fear about things that are most dangerous, like driving in said car.

Our risk assessment seems to be messed up by a few things, one is exposure to stories in the media, or even in fiction on tv. Because our brains seem to perceive what is depicted as examples of dangerous things really happening around us, even if they are stories or happen on another continent. And we also tend to get messed up where we perceive the possibility of control, so we overestimate the risks of things we think we can control in some way (getting attacked on a path, we can avoid the path) while we underestimate the risk of things we don't think we can control (getting killed in a work accident, say.) We also tend to underestimate the risk of things we do often.

Lang “ We're all indestructible at 18 and I didn't think anything of it then but now I know that I could never fight off a man and that thought is scary.
I thought basic risk assessment was human nature.”

I never thought I was indestructible.

My eyes were really opened when I was working in a particularly rough area and a member staff had acid thrown at them so the thief could get their laptop. (She was okay btw)

The police came in and gave what I thought were good instructions on safety, some of which hadn’t occurred to me as I don’t drive. However, one member of staff was furious. She said they should not have come to the office and should not make “ludicrous” statements, the ones about safe access to a car particularly enraged her.

I was baffled by her anger.

I think we need To really think about the sort of things we’re saying on here to the OP!

As women we know we have

a) more natural awareness of danger due to our ‘actual’ vulnerability,
b) enhanced awareness of threats during the part of our life when we’re looking after small children (I was ‘always on’ and vigilant when mine were toddlers even if not with them)

and most importantly - c) we are conditioned into this fear of the ‘stranger danger’ - by news stories, by teachers and family and important people we trust!

We must not seek to minimise another person’s genuine fear or unease in a situation! Fear is fear, you can’t switch it off.

What you can do is seek to learn what’s actually risky, to contextualise that risk in relation to ourselves, to push our own boundaries to desensitise ourselves to risks we’ve learnt aren’t high (or with high consequences).

Telling the OP she’s being silly or overly scared ain’t gonna help anyone.
Sisterhood.

We must not seek to minimise another person’s genuine fear or unease in a situation! Fear is fear, you can’t switch it off.

I really disagree with this. It's not always possible to modify fear responses, but it's not impossible. In some cases it's not even that difficult once you've decided the fear itself may not make sense or be as significant as you'd thought.

Also FWIW my DP is working in a very busy but high crime part of our city at the moment. Every time he goes out to get lunch he’s accosted. People have repeatedly tried to snatch his phone, people under the influence of various substances have tried to pick fights, and he has been physically attacked whilst someone tried to get his phone. If he wears anything at all atypical for a 50-ish man he gets confrontations.

I’m scared for him because one day one of them will have a knife.

This doesn’t happen to me in that area.

Yes @goosefoot we can override the fear by training ourselves and arming our selves with knowledge - but that has to be done before or after the trigger and not ‘during’ - no? It’s the primitive Fight or Flight part of the brain we need to override with the more recently evolved logical and educatable part of the brain. Controlling those impulses are what makes modern humans what they are - but only with awareness

Men certainly do think about the dangers and take steps to avoid them, the bar is just higher usually.
When I met DH at university he used to avoid the short route home through a dingy underpass and walk further round because it was safer.
Also, I run and walk through local woodland without fear, and meet other women (and men) doint the same. Not all of us live in fear.

I agree with others, it's about how we assess risk as individuals. Clearly some men, are oblivious to risk, as a PP's DH not considering where is safe to park. My DH avoids parking in certain areas in town as they are "dodgy", just as women do.
Like others have said, getting into a car and driving is the riskiest thing any of us do, yet we all do it happily, while some of us avoid scenic walks because of some very low risk fear.

I'm glad to see so many women (and men) aren't affected by the same level anxiety as me.

@missproportionate I certainly agree that having a child has made me feel more vulnerable in situations now then ever.

I completely agree that the risk is minimal but cannot shirk the felling of uneasiness.

I've been followed from an atm before and the guy got so close I could feel his breath on my neck which made me whip my headphones out and disturb him. I was also followed back to my car after staying for a drink after work in a quiet area, so whilst I accept on balance I probably would be safe on my coastal run, I still won't risk it.

I'm most definitely am influenced by hysteria in the media, it's hard to ignore headlines about assaults on women and not feel it personally.

Yes @goosefoot we can override the fear by training ourselves and arming our selves with knowledge - but that has to be done before or after the trigger and not ‘during’ - no?

Yes, I guess so, I mean it would maybe depend on what sort of thing it was? If I am thinking I could walk home from the movie, or pay for a cab, I can think to myself, I know that my feelings about this aren't really sensible, and maybe avoid the cab. For another person with more anxiety it might require more time to reframe or build up confidence.

But in terms of a discussion, we can talk about it I think. My impression of the OP was that the OP was assuming that clearly certain things were fairly risky. Now, it could be they are risky where the OP lives compared to where I live, or the OP is simply willing to accept less risk than I am. But it seemed reasonable to a few people to say that they wouldn't consider the risk of being attacked in a scenario like that particularly high compared to other normal activities.

Sometimes conversations like this can be really useful because you realise something you perceived one way, others have a totally different perception of.

My little dog panics when a man is walking behind us, he can always tell!

I don't habitually modify my behavior, and as I've always been a night owl have been out late at night, often alone, since my teens. Some of that time was spent in large cities, others in most medium size towns (have never really been in a village other than for a couple of hours).

If I have a specific bad feeling, otoh, I always act on those. So there was the one time I was about to head over to the local shop for some food late at night and got a feeling that something terrible was going to happen while I was putting on my coat, so I didn't go. Found out the next day that someone (a man, not a woman) was stabbed in the area I'd have been walking in.

I think there are a lot of different factors that go into risk perception and the person making the assessment is usually the best qualified to do so. Even if the risk is technically low that doesn't help much if you're going to be worried the whole time you're out and about.

I would never walk my dog at night, I live in a little cul de sac and to get out of it you have to walk along a mini Forrest. It gets dark here in winter at 4pm. Dh always walks the dog in the evenings, if he had to work late I walk the dog in the afternoon instead then just let her out for a pee in the garden.

I make sure when I go to shops at night I park close to the shop. I wouldn’t park in a multi story in the evening.

I lock my doors as soon as I get in my car. Bum on seat and hit the lock button.

A man asked me at the park, in car park, if I would help him jump start his car. There were other cars there and I said no. I was by myself and just didn’t feel comfortable.

A man asked me at the park, in car park, if I would help him jump start his car. There were other cars there and I said no. I was by myself and just didn’t feel comfortable.

I think all women should say no in that kind of situation. It just sounds like classic predator behavior. Normally a man would default to asking another man, so if he's asking a lone woman instead that just pings the up to no good alarm.

(Awaits wails about sexism against men)

I often go out walking after dark (without a dog, sadly) and don't feel scared at all.
I think it does depend on the area, and just luck I suppose. One of my sons was robbed at knifepoint when he was working an evening shift in a convenience store, but he and the other staff just had to get on with things really.

@TheProdigalKittensReturn see I doubted myself, it was day time, there were other cars and people may have been coming and going so I did feel bad. But then my DH said he would never have asked a lone woman, I’m quite small (under 5ft) and could be mistaken for a lot younger I think so he said he especially wouldn’t ask me. I got in my car pretty quick though and locked it, he didn’t approach anyone else, but I left quite quick.

I think there are a lot of different factors that go into risk perception and the person making the assessment is usually the best qualified to do so. Even if the risk is technically low that doesn't help much if you're going to be worried the whole time you're out and about.

Yes, I agree with this and also that if there is a specific gut feeling, it's worth listening to.

Where it's worthwhile to query your feelings is if there is a pattern that seems out of proportion, or is making your life worse ( or maybe that of your child, etc.) If you'd like to go out, but you can't, if you feel anxious in your home. I also like to ask myself with feelings about specific people, is it really more that I am uncomfortable with that person for some other reason, they aren't the sort of person I usually would spend time with, they have problems with social behaviours, etc. Because it can be easy to confuse the two, it's typically the same feeling.

I don't and never have modified my behaviour. In my experience men that have offered to walk me home have been the most predatory. Men can be creepy though for sure. I'm more upset that my teenage girls can't walk to school without being whooped at.

I wouldn't modify my behaviour if I caught one of them.

It’s not just about actually being attacked, it’s about not wanting to be in worrying situations regardless of how they turn out. I live in a city and travel frequently by myself for work. I’ve had way too many frightening experiences to dismiss the notion that women are somehow paranoid or silly for risk assessing their movements. I don’t want something to happen to me but I also don’t want the fear that comes with being in an uncomfortable situation that ultimately ends without physical damage either.

It infuriates me when I see women suggesting to other women that they just dismiss those feelings. Totally reasonable and justifiable feelings. It infuriates me that we have to live with and managed those feelings at all.

That is why we should raise our boys not to intimidate or encrouge. I do.

Heismyopendoor

I think that the doubting yourself is something women are taught to do, and predators take advantage of it. If something doesn't feel right, what's the harm in acting to protect yourself? Unless the man who set off that feeling is either having a heart attack or is literally on fire, he's not going to die if you listen to your instincts and walk away. Whereas there are all kinds of bad things that could happen if women ignore our gut feeling that a situation isn't right. Your safety over someone else's feelings, every time.

(Thinking of the other thread about The Gift Of Fear and the shark cage, that was one of the first bars my mother built on mine, and my father reinforced it at every turn. It's served me very well over the years.)

Except that as some of us have tried to point out, it's not your safety you're protecting. Choosing to walk or run or cycle along a busy road instead of a coastal path or a cycle track is choosing the least safe option. You're far more likely to be run over by a car than leapt out on by a random man.

We need to learn to over-ride irrational fear and carry out accurate risk assessments. I really don't think it's helpful to reinforce irrational fears if it ends, as we see demonstrated here, with women terrified of living on their own in a house or walking to the end of their cul de sac at 5pm on a December afternoon. The first thing any of us can do is stop watching all those true and fictional crime stories on TV where women are attacked and killed by strangers. It's as if the people who make these programmes want to scare women into staying at home behind triple-locked doors.

Tbh, I don't take any measures to 'keep safe'.

I was awoken and raped in my bed 20 years ago by a man I knew who climbed through my open bedroom window.

If I took measures to keep myself safe, that would include not having a home, not using a bed and never going to sleep.

It taught me that there is nothing i can do to keep myself safe - if I encounter a rapist, I might well be raped. If I don't, I won't.

I'm not going to live my life in fear of something I have no control over.

I used to run through isolated woods early in the morning; I go to pubs on my own; I walk in my local area after dark and never been raped in any of those scenarios. They are safer than my own bed.

we are conditioned into this fear of the ‘stranger danger’ - by news stories, by teachers and family and important people we trust

I wonder how much of this plays a role in the statistic that women are more likely to be the victims of violence by known individuals while men are more likely to be the victims of violence by strangers. In other words, are women at less risk due to other factors or because they're more careful?