Guardian article on street running in the dark

[funnelfanjo]

Well written article by a journalist describing how she switches to running on a treadmill in winter because of the risks in running in the dark. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/19/women-unsafe-running-in-the-dark-outside-without-fear

Right on cue the highest rated comments are all “what about the menz”…

ffs

Reading the comments, it is still very much "women! Modify your behaviour!" Rather than "let's stop men attacking other people".

And the argument of "well men get attacked too" being wheeled out as though the entire population just has to put up with the fact that some men like to violently attack others, some men like to flash women, some men like to be verbally abusive. Like it's a hobby or personality trait.

I submitted a comment but it didn’t make it past the moderator. I related my own experience of street harassment and pointed out that things have got worse, not better as a) women can no longer trust the police and b) we can no longer rely on single sex spaces for refuge. I guess the latter point ensured it didn’t make it through the screening.

Guardian comments have always been awful for any posts about street harassment of women and girls. Lots of left wing misogynistic men like Ally Fogg and right wing misogynistic men who go there to argue with them.

I do wish both sides could be a little more nuanced in this.

Obviously "women! modify your behaviour" is wrong.

But on the other hand, for women to do what they want safely, the options really are -

(1) Ensuring every single dangerous male is in prison for life, including those who have never been convicted of a crime.

or

(2) Ensuring that all police officers are absolutely amazing, and there are one hundred times as many of them, and they are out every night enforcing a curfew which keeps all men indoors overnight so that women can exercise their rights to walk safely at night.

Women have a moral right to be able to walk the streets safely at night, just like someone with extremely serious asthma has a moral right to live anywhere in the country without being harmed by exhaust fumes. Women and people with asthma are perfectly at liberty to exercise their moral right, and society should do as much as possible in order to ensure that moral right becomes a practical right that can be safely exercised. But in the absence of an incredibly difficult, expensive and long time to implement fix there is an argument that modifying one's behaviour in the short to medium term makes sense.

I am someone who thinks too things are both appalling. The idea that a woman in a short skirt was asking for it is absolutely appalling, but encouraging young women to look at and interact with the world as it should be not how it is, is almost as bad.

I did this too back in my running days but mostly because it’s far more likely to slip on some ice or be run over by a car than attacked by a man. Plus it’s often raining in winter and running in cold winter rain is miserable, and your trainers never properly dry out between runs.

This is a straw man. The answer is to create massive disincentives to men to behave in antisocial ways, via better policing and prosecution of this kind of behaviour.

It's always possible to change behaviour on a large scale (e.g. drink driving, seatbelts etc), but only via meaningful legislation and real follow-through by authorities.

@TheLeadbetterLife
The answer is to create massive disincentives to men to behave in antisocial ways, via better policing and prosecution of this kind of behaviour.

Not sure that is the answer. History has shown us that even the death penalty is no deterrent to antisocial murderous behaviour. So not sure what “disincentive” could there be that would actually act as a deterrent?

I agree completely with the MUCH MUCH "better policing and prosecution of this kind of behaviour."

The problem as I see it is that "this kind of behaviour" is everything from very serious crimes (which have been a "top priority", allegedly, for decades yet things go backwards), to low level harrassment which would be very hard to criminalise let alone prosecute (how do you prosecute a man for staring at your breasts as you run by)? How can (in practical terms) you stop unwanted approaches without criminalizing speaking to strangers?

Even if misogynistic street conduct were criminalized, and significantly dealt with, and even if rape conviction rates became ten times higher and rapists got 30 years minimum, there would still be crime. And I suspect that there is an argument to be made that rationally women should ignore the risks and just go run if they want to run, but that in the real world our risk assessment is far from perfect and even with much much higher conviction rates and better laws plenty of women would be saying just the same thing they are now "I know I'll probably be OK, but I am not willing to take the risk".

Interesting that both of your examples involve cars (which have number plates, and are much more heavily regulated than pedestrians or cyclists) and involve changes that almost certainly benefit the driver as much if not more than other people.

Can you think of any examples of where government has massively changed behaviour in a way that is unrelated to cars, and which is unrelated to personal health and safety? The only other example I can think of is smoking, but the behaviour of smokers has only been changed because of the massive health benefits in not smoking, and the high and increasing cost of smoking.

The idea that low level street harrassment can be made completely socially unacceptable seems very difficult to acheive, not least as plenty of it goes on with alone males who have no friends there to judge them for their behaviour, and other behaviour (a small group of teen boys approaching a small group of teen girls on the street, for example) which could be 100% or 0% welcome, or anywhere in between, dependent on the circumstances.

The death penalty / murder is another straw man. Are you suggesting that laws are no deterrent to any antisocial behaviours? That everyone's going around doing exactly whatever they want?

Behaviours can be and are changed by legislation that has real teeth and consequences. That's how societal change is produced.

The problem at the moment is that we have a system which is enforced by and legislated by men, for the most part. Of course there's no incentive for them to punish these behaviours.

If rape stats are anything to go by, a considerable proportion of the police, lawyers, judges and juries will have themselves raped a woman. It's no wonder that so few rapes are successfully prosecuted.

Of course this isn't easy to change, but it doesn't mean that there's no possibility. Having more women running the show is what will change things.

Culture needs to change. Men need to learn from birth not to be shits. And yes it is unlikely we can eradicate this problem completely, but that doesn’t mean we should stop trying or that women should have to change themselves. I think education and culture change are the solution.
I’ve also wondered why we don’t have literal safe spaces around the same distribution as telephone boxes used to be, where women (anyone actually) can go and lock themselves in and ring the police who are the only ones who can open it from the outside. As a child I always thought that was the point of police boxes because it makes sense to have points of safety and to focus on protecting victims as much as apprehending criminals. Then when the discussion around safe spaces turned up, I thought this is what was being planned, but it meant something totally different. How many women can’t get anywhere safe to call for help?

I stopped reading Guardian comments as i found them so utterly depressing - what about the men, namalt and repeat for any article that centred women. And then of course i came to see that the guardian itself hates women.

And being the case that causes rapists and murderers to be summarily hung, drawn and quartered (or something more in keeping with this century, at any rate) would be of zero comfort to the victim or their family. Because she'd still be dead/raped.

There are obviously a range of disincentives that would be effective, just as there are with drink driving. Not 100% effective, guaranteed to resolve all issues and deter everyone. But enough to make an improvement. Measures against drink driving deterred many people, but not committed alcoholics or sociopathic antisocial people. Starting with the law change in the 60s, the hard hitting advertising in the 1980s, police stops to breathalyse etc etc, it all had an impact and contributed to a reduction in drink driving related injuries and deaths.

The PP described what could be done - "via meaningful legislation and real follow-through by authorities." That requires a real commitment to the safety of women and girls.

@YouSirNeighMmmm

There already are street harassment laws, and they have massively reduced cat calling by builders, to give one good example. Building companies take it very seriously.

That's the type of thing I mean - the companies have an incentive to self-police their staff, because the consequences are real for them.

If the consequences of anti-social behaviour by drunk lads on the street were more real, you might get a cultural change whereby it becomes more acceptable for the sensible lads to discourage the others.

Well, first you need to criminalize the things that are currently legal which are part of what keeps women at home.

Then you need to do a combination of two things to reduce crime - make it much more likely that criminals will be caught and successfully prosecuted, and make the penalties more severe when they are. The former would cost a lot of money, as would the latter (unless of course you impose very large fines on people instead of imprisoning them, but that has the disadvantage of not getting the criminals off the streets).

But, of course, a significant chunk of crimes are committed by people who through one or more of horrid personality (eg psychopath), upbringing, drink, drugs, desperation, absolute lack of hope or desire to live, really don;t give a shit about being caught or punished, and indeed some might want to be sent to prison for the food and roof, or because they need a bit of discipline in their lives and prison is the only place they've had it.

Ultimately this is one of those issues which needs to be addressed in every single possible way in the hope that as much as possible sticks.

It’s not a straw man. What else do you mean by laws and prosecution and “disincentives” or “real teeth” or “consequences” if not punishments/penalties?

Behaviours can be and are changed by legislation that has real teeth and consequences. That's how societal change is produced.

No, it’s really not how societal change is produced in regards to interpersonal crime. The fact is that history and sociology have proven that prison terms, fines and even death are not effective disincentives (deterrents).

If rape stats are anything to go by, a considerable proportion of the police, lawyers, judges and juries will have themselves raped a woman. It's no wonder that so few rapes are successfully prosecuted. and Having more women running the show is what will change things.

Then how do you account for the fact that majority female juries acquit accused rapists in trials more frequently than do majority male juries and female judges hand down more lenient sentences for convicted rapists than do male judges?

Exactly, punishment after the fact doesn’t stop the harm from happening in the first place. And there is evidence that if penalties are too harsh that this actually encourages worse harm. For example, too harsh a penalty for rape encourages rape and murder because the criminal knows it’s easier to get away with murder because you eliminate the only witness to your raping them.

It is possible to know that women shouldn't have to change themselves whilst also acknowledging that it is not necessarily a wise decision to ignore the real world whilst we go about our lives.

I am really not sure I'd want to be locked in a police box with an angry man outside and a 2022 police response time.

@RoseslnTheHospital
Measures against drink driving deterred many people, but not committed alcoholics or sociopathic antisocial people. Starting with the law change in the 60s, the hard hitting advertising in the 1980s, police stops to breathalyse etc etc, it all had an impact and contributed to a reduction in drink driving related injuries and deaths.

While this is true, drink driving is not an interpersonal crime. And much of the reason why such efforts worked is because it was in the best interest of the driver to not drink and drive. Most of the efforts were really to publicise and dramatise to potential drink drivers the likelihood they would seriously injure or kill themselves or loved ones in the car with them. So change came about out of self-interest.

When you’re trying to tackle stopping someone from attacking another person, there’s no self-interest motive to capitalise on to drive social and cultural change. The attacker loses their vengeance or self-gratification or fulfilment of depraved urges. There isn’t really a way we know of to motivate criminals towards altruism…as in sacrificing their own self-interest.

But the point is that there could be.

People didn't stop driving drunk because they felt altruistic, they did it because driving bans are easily and quickly enforced, which has massive consequences for the driver.

If street harassment more easily led to consequences such as a criminal record, ankle tags, and/or being put on the sex offenders register, this would have a huge impact on the perpetrator's ability to keep or find a job.

It's not about finding altruistic motivations, it's about real consequences that are quickly and readily applied.

I am absolutely sure that all you would propose I would support, and things can be made better, and hopefully long term we move in the right direction.

Ultimately, however, there is a cold hard truth - it is infinitely easier to ensure Mrs Harrison comes to no harm by having her limit where she goes, than it is to make sure she comes to no harm by making sure that none of the misogynistic men who live within 20 miles of her house are out and about when she goes for a run.

I don't know, I just think that one has to acknowledge the real world as it is now (being drunk and alone in public is more risky than being sober and alone, for example), and not simply the world as it should be.

I don't disagree, women have to respond to the world as it is now, that's unfortunately the case.

However I do think a government, if it wanted to, could do a huge amount to tackle these problems.

The issue is the institutionalised misogyny, which I don't think will change until there is a critical mass of women in positions of power and authority.

re: incentives to change, I also agree with @YouSirNeighMmmm that the approach needs to be many-pronged.

To use the example of the emotionally-charged anti-drink driving ads, a similar campaign could potentially have an impact on street harassment.

I expect there is a wide range of men involved in harassment, from psychos and perverts through to drunk wazzocks and the completely oblivious.

A well-crafted ad that really evokes the fear that women feel when shouted or leered at (or even just followed by a large man who is unaware of how unsafe he makes women feel), could help men be more empathetic.

Alongside other measures such as the penalties I mentioned above.

I am someone who thinks too things are both appalling. The idea that a woman in a short skirt was asking for it is absolutely appalling, but encouraging young women to look at and interact with the world as it should be not how it is, is almost as bad.

For me the problem is that people tend to take a very black and white view of “encouraging young women to look at and interact with the world as it is”. Women should do X, women shouldn’t do Y. And if they don’t stick to the rules and something goes wrong, they aren’t perceived as an adult who took a calculated risk but stupid or reckless.

Men seem to be more trusted to decide when taking a risk is worth it. I became aware of this phenomenon reading media reports of travellers who sadly died abroad. I’m of the view that we should make accurate information available and trust adults to make their own decisions. There are things I wouldn’t feel comfortable doing - like running at night - but I don’t assume that women who do are ignorant of the risks or too dim to comprehend them. Or are ‘asking for trouble’. I know this isn’t what you’re saying, but it tends to be how we as a society approach women’s safety.

I actually think this is one area where “think of the menz” can be helpful. Men ARE at risk from other men, but there is no prevailing societal message that men should do X,Y, Z to protect themselves and corresponding view that if they don’t, it’s because they are naive. I believe that individual autonomy is valued more highly when it comes to men, and that men are more likely to be viewed as having the capability - and right - to decide if they take risks.

(I haven’t read the article btw, just picking up on ideas in this thread.)