Do any of you feel safer as an older woman than when you were young?

[Appalonia]

I'd always dreaded getting older when I was young, but now I am (58), it's so much better than I thought it would be. I really don't miss the random, vulgar comments from men, e.g. "Look at the t*ts on that" etc. I also feel a lot safer just walking around, and I like feeling confident and feeling that I'm more likely to be taken seriously ( despite the 'Karen' bullshit that is thrown at us)

Just wondered if this resonated with anyone else, or any experience s pp we like to share about this?

No. I certainly don’t get sexual harassment like I did
but, I’m now over 60.
instead I get sheer rudeness, contempt and aggression. It’s like when men decided I wasn’t sexually attractive all their latent misogyny came out. I have ended up in tears on more than one occasion after extracting myself.

I’ve experienced it a lot in car parks, a car wash once, shop queues, public transport, asking for directions etc. And I have, like many women of my age, been dismissed, spoken to rudely and even manhandled roughly by urologists, gynaes and gps. I simply did not have this 10 years ago, and it has got worse in last 2 years

I dare not ever ask a man I don’t know to do anything ( eg move along a bit, move his bag, etc) or make a complaint or respond to his complaint- I believe it is the “ Karen” effect: any post menopausal women showing any assertiveness is deemed a Karen and gives men the right to treat her with contempt.

add to that as a woman living on my own, I find male tradesmen treat me for a complete mug. A gardener tried charging me £10 a visit more than my brothers larger garden, ( he was already doing that garden- didn’t know it was my db and silo home) for instance. They tell me what I want, don’t listen or ignore , or tell me I’m wrong to ask for something that I know is what is needed. They are offhand, or tell me I’m micromanaging if I try to clarify exactly what they’re doing. I never had this when I was married. I hate , with vengeance, having to get work done in house and am putting off jobs as I’m actually fearful of the process.

sadly, I now basically go out of my way to avoid random exchanges with strange men. It just doesn’t feel safe.

That is infuriating and I’m so sorry you are having those experiences.

Fuck those people 😡

Oh God, I'm sorry to hear this. I've met men throughout life who are very rude and unpleasant to women if they don't find them sexually attractive. I've seen how they are with women they fancy (charming) and how they seem almost angrily rude to the women they don't fancy. Like they're pissed off these women even exist! I can imagine that as you get older you experience more of these men and their hostility.
I must add it's only a small minority of men who are like this. Most men I know are pleasant to everyone, not just nice looking women.

Oh yeah, there are definitely men like this! People who seem angry you have the audacity not to interest them sexually. I remember noticing very early on as a teenager that there is a whole cross section of men who would not give you the time of day if you were dressed down with no make up yet would be extremely nice to you when you were made up.

For that reason I was never self-conscious about going make up free in my 20s or bothered about impressing people – I knew I could look hot when I wanted to and you would see these wankers’ faces change when they saw you made up. And I always thought well who cares about those people. Better to weed them out by employing gremlin mode liberally 😉

As a teenager I was quite innocent - and protected by that. Most men were not shits and however they might behave with more worldly teenagers respected that. I got myself into some dubious situations in my early 20s but I was lucky. And the police gave me a lift to a taxi firm once and apologised for not being able to take me all the way home, now I wouldnt get in the car with them.

The world has become much more deeply and openly mysogynistic. Respect for women is much rarer and respect for the elderly even more rare.

When I was between 30 and 50 was best - mature enough to understand the risks, strong enough to tell anyone bothering me where to go..

I’ve never been scared of men.
I’ve always veen ugly, so I wasn’t ’worthy’ of that kind if harrasment.
I did get awful comments about my looks often and I actually stopped going and doing a lot of things because of I was afraid of bullying. Felt a lot shame and embarrasment about my looks.
Now that I’m older (late 30’s) seeing men only makes me sad. Sad because I’ve never been in a relations, actually, I’ve never even been on a date. I wish men weren’t that shallow, because even though I know that the only thing that matters to them is looks - believe it or not - I’m still romantically attrected to them.
So, being around men is though and makes me sad, because all I can think/see is that I wasn’t good enough.
But yeah, never been afraid of men, they never gave any reason to be.

I’m so jealous and baffeled to read so many comments saying they are glad to be invisible. I giess it’s different if you manages to catch a husband before it happened.

No, if anything, I feel less safe. When I was younger I knew women got whistled at, leered at, etc. But now, I feel the sense I could be assaulted at any moment. I was not aware, or maybe I was just naive, of how violent some boys and men could be.

There is a thread in AIBU where a mother of boys has the 'boys will be boys' disinterest in boys being rough with girls. Even going as far as calling this girl, a human being, an obstacle that was in the boy's (who shoved the girl and she fell of play equipment) way.

A girl. An 'obstacle'. Damn sure if some big burly man shoved her, she wouldn't say 'oh don't worry, I was just an obstacle in his way'.

Another poster asked what the girl did to provoke the boy.

If anything, I feel more dismayed than ever about the lack of care for girl's safety. And, because I am as an adult more aware of men's violence against women than when I was a relatively carefree kid, I do feel less safe. I fear, and feel, that attitudes against women are getting worse.

I wish I could go back to my ignorance is bliss childhood days where I saw men as just a male adult and didn't understand the power they wield or they were capable of violence. Even right up to my late teens, I really was blissfully ignorant.

I didn't see the thread but yes, it's shocking. It really bugs me that so many decent men can't see it. My late father thought I was anti men for no reason.

I like not getting the comments as I never felt I knew how to respond without provoking but I HATED men telling me:

• to smile
• to give them a kiss etc plus random unwanted comments about my appearance both "complimentary" and derogatory. Urgh.

I’ve never felt unsafe other than when my children were very young and there were a couple of horrific attacks on mothers and children. We still picnicked in the woods, but I made sure I had implements I could use to defend us if necessary. It seems somewhat over the top now.
I used to go out walking alone before I was ten, as a teenager and in every decade since. I’m 70 this year.