"Women and non-binary people feel unsafe walking home alone"

[MimiDaisy11]

I turned on the BBC news channel to hear one of the guests on the panel say this. It was obviously part of a discussion into the kidnap/death of Sarah Everard and the wider implications. This statement bothered me though as it illustrates the problem with being "inclusive" - in that it changes the dynamics and reasons about why women are scared alone at night and why they're vulnerable. It's nothing to do with my subjective view of myself, it's because I'm in a female body. I hate this implication that it's some mental difference/weakness. What confuses me is why more people can't see it?

Should have said ‘Many people are scared walking home at night particularly women’

Well it's the same as saying "women and men feel unsafe walking home alone" or "people feel unsafe walking home alone"

Fine. Except of course it means we are no longer talking about male violence against women. We are talking about people's violence against people.

Again, fine. Except, of course, it also needs to be OK to talk about specifically male violence against women. Women have a specific type of risk from male violence that is different from the risk men have. Even gay men, or men with a gender ID.

Men are actually more likely to be attacked. But women are physically weaker, are never the aggressor, risk rape, and pregnancy from rape.

Crucially women are also socialised to weaken their boundaries against men and are structurally disadvantaged in society. And what is going on here, with the relentless insistence that we must not be allowed to speak about the crime that happens to women yet is never perpetrated by women, without also including some men, is a great example of that.

I'm amazed at the confidence of these people campaigning against male violence who simultaneously advocate for children to have no boundaries and who force open the door to women's prisons and rape crisis shelters to some males.

What amazing idea do they have which will suddenly end male violence I wonder? If only those stupid bigoted women before them who won the vote and who created women's shelters had ever tried to tackle this!

I'm dismayed by the their selective attention, that some women deserve protection, but not society's most vulnerable.

Sam Smith is non binary

He is also a six foot two male

My daughter is at university and she says there 'non-binary' seems to be used as shorthand for a non-feminine woman.

thats a bit sad, these tags are just making it harder for people to be individuals

So do all non binary people feel unsafe including those who are born male and why then are male non binary people considered more vulnerable than other males?

@NonnyMouse1337

What a dumb headline. If they are that desperate to look 'cool' and 'inclusive', why not just say "Some people feel unsafe walking home alone"? Surely that's the most inclusive headline possible as no one is left out.

What's all this nonsense about women and non-binary people? Are they saying MEN can't experience feeling unsafe when walking home? How exclusionary!

Some people feel unsafe walking home alone

That's the only logical statement and headline. Anything else is exclusionary and gender-phobic.

This sums it up for me.

From what I've read/encountered (I'm a cis woman and in my mid 30s so it's a little limited), they seem to fall under the same umbrella as things outside of binary gender stuff

Apologies for quoting a comment containing a banned word, but if that is the correct definition of "non binary" would that not include many posters on here who present in a gender non conforming way?

If so, does that make you doubly at risk - being women and non- binary compared to boring, feminine conforming me?

( btw as there's no sarcasm emoji I am being facetious. Even on this short thread it's clear no one knows what "non binary is supposed to mean)

A non binary person can be a male who presents in a masculine way.

I don't get what they are trying to say.

Women (would include trans women I assume however they present) and non binary people (male or female and how you feel inside so presenting in a standard way for sex is perfectly fine obviously) feel unsafe.

How is the experience of a man who presents as a man different depending on how he feels inside and that no one can see?

MissBarbary not quite..

Non binary is how you feel inside.

And male or female people can be non binary.

It's nothing to do with what you wear etc.