'Walking home at night is not the same for women' - study

[MarieDeGournay]

https://phys.org/news/2024-02-visually-captures-hard-truth-home.html
Interesting study, though it seems to have involved virtual rather than actual walking home.

It’s a useful study because the results are so clear cut and stark, plus easy to grasp just from the images. However, I’m surprised the findings are so much of a surprise to the lead researcher. Well, I’m not these days but still. Some people (men) have no imagination whatsoever.

Is it that clear cut? I thought it was a bit of a leap and assumption?

'Women focused significantly more on potential safety hazards—the periphery of the images—while men looked directly at focal points or their intended destination.'

How have they decided the periphery is always about safety hazards?

Interesting research, anyway.

In other new, the Pope is a Catholic. At least this is measurable for men who don’t believe it I suppose.

This reminds me of a rule of thumb to distinguish prey animals from predator animals: eyes on the side, run and hide; eyes on the front, time to hunt.

Can't remember it if was on MN or not but there was something about a lecture about walking home at night. The men and women were asked what precautions they took whilst walking home. The men's side of the sheet was empty and the women's side was full of the usual stuff we do.

'Women focused significantly more on potential safety hazards—the periphery of the images—while men looked directly at focal points or their intended destination.'

This might be because most men walking around late at night are completely shit-faced and are simply focused on the next recognisable landmark.

I used to teach and when we studied The Handmaid’s Tale and discussed women in society the boys in the class were always gobsmacked at the things the girls said about feeling unsafe, precautions they took walking home etc
Every woman knows this is true don’t know why we need a study to prove it.

I always thing of things like this when men identify as women. This kind of ingrained, life long from birth, automatic and unconscious response to our environment is such a part of what makes us women. How do trans women assimilate information like this? Or don't they?

‘Walk like you have three men walking behind you’ - Oscar de la Renta

Men have no clue.

I read similar here, but the more general question of what you do to keep safe. For women it permeates how they dress, travel, plan their day etc. It really shocked me because I hadn't realised men don't do those things.

They don't.TW are not women.

“I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other. Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they've been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, 'I stay out of prison.' This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, 'Nothing. I don't think about it.'

Then I ask women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine. Here are some of their answers:

Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don't go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don't put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man's voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don't use parking garages. Don't get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don't use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don't wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don't take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don't make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.”

― Jackson Katz, The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help

https://www.endviolenceagainstwomen.org.uk/new-data-women-feel-unsafe-at-night/

• One in two women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a quiet street near their home, compared to one in seven men.
• One in two women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a busy public place, compared to one in five men.
• Four out of five women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a park or other open space, compared to two out of five men.
• Two out of three women aged 16 to 34 years experienced one form of harassment in the previous 12 months; with 44% of women aged 16 to 34 years having experienced catcalls, whistles, unwanted sexual comments or jokes, and 29% having felt like they were being followed.
• Disabled people felt less safe walking alone in all settings than non-disabled people.

https://today.yougov.com/society/articles/22754-women-safety-sexual-assault-awareness

'Research shows that 59% of women who ever walk down an alley alone always or often feel unsafe doing so, while 50% feel similarly about walking alone at night. Women are at least twice as likely as men to always feel unsafe going to a stranger’s house alone (23% of women vs. 6% of men), taking a trip to a foreign country alone (24% vs 12%), or getting a taxi or ride-share by themselves (13% vs 4%). Data also suggests roughly one in five (21%) women say that they always or often feel unsafe when going on a first date. Only 9% of men experience similar feelings about being unsafe on a first date.'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reclaim_the_Night

1977 was the first 'reclaim the Night' march. Post Jack the Ripper, when the police suggested women stay at home.

If you haven't already heard it, this is the Reclaim the Night song that Peggy Seeger wrote in 1979 and recorded again here on her mobile phone for the FiLiA conference in 2022. This still hits so hard, made stronger by her singing it a cappella at the age of 87. (Trigger warning).

I constantly risk assess. If I take my car at night should I use the deserted car park which no longer has an attendant or park on the street. Should I take the night bus or a cab? I avoid short cuts. I don’t cycle at night or in deserted places. I always have a plan for getting home.

@ArabellaScott

That's it!

A study is useful because, while most (not all) women know this, many men (and a few women) do not.

The recent Twitter spat that’s been discussed on many threads here contained a post from a woman who said she believed that the question of men in women’s toilets was, for her, mere hysteria or hype.

This kind of study can be used to dispel that. If many women are nervous walking in the dark, that demonstrates that a significant number of women go through the world feeling wary.

Any poster who thinks women are just being silly and should get over having to share any small space with men should be reminded that there are many women, probably the majority in fact, who do not feel as they do. This can then be extrapolated to the more extreme cases, where women, for various reasons, can actually no longer use that space.

I know when I first came here, that I thought objecting to those men in toilets was perhaps not worth doing as I personally, thought women could probably put up with a few men “for the greater good”. It was soon pointed out to me that it wasn’t my call to make and why I was being unfair.

Any study that can demonstrate that this is a genuine phenomenon, widely experienced in the general population, to men or women who believe only silly women would be bothered, is another piece of evidence that they are in a minority believing that.

This is for those of us who can't hear the wonderful Peggy Seeger well enough to get the lyrics.
I have to put on record that I disagree profoundly with the verse that equates low wages, poorer schooling, etc with rape, I was really shocked and upset by that, and I think it merits a 'trigger warning' ** for rape/sexual abuse survivors.

Though Eve was made from Adam's rib
Nine months he lay within her crib
How can a man of woman born
Thereafter use her sex with scorn?
For though we bear the human race
To us is given but second place
And some men place us lower still
By using us against our will

If we choose to walk alone
For us there is no safety zone
If we're attacked we bear the blame
They say that we began the game
And though you prove your injury
The judge may set the rapist free
Therefore the victim is to blame
Call it nature, but rape's the name

CHORUS: Reclaim the night and win the day
We want the right that should be our own
A freedom women have seldom known
The right to live, the right to walk alone without fear

A husband has his lawful rights
Can take his wife whene'er he likes
And courts uphold time after time
That rape in marriage is no crime
The choice is hers and hers alone
Submit or lose your kids and home
When love becomes a legal claim
Call it duty, but rape's the name

And if a man should rape a child
It's not because his spirit's wild
Our system gives the prize to all
Who trample on the weak and small
When fathers rape, they surely know
Their kids have nowhere else to go
Try to forget, don't ask us to
Forgive them -- they know what they do (CHORUS)

**When exploitation is the norm
Rape is found in many forms
Lower wages, meaner tasks
Poorer schooling, second class
We serve our own, and, like the men
We serve employers -- it follows then
That bodies raped is nothing new
But just a servant's final due

We've raised our voices in the past
And this time will not be the last
Our bodies' gift is ours to give
Not payment for the right to live
Since we've outgrown the status quo
We claim the right to answer "No!"
If without consent he stake a claim
Call it rape, for rape's the name.;

Your risk assessment can't be very good if you don't realise that as a woman you are much less likely to be murdered than a man. Murder rates in Britain are low compared to other countries, fewer women are murdered than men.

Sarah Everard was murdered in 2021, there hasn't been another white middle-class woman murdered in the open since then. Two black women were murdered in a park the previous year but nobody seemed to be interested in that. Lots of women get murdered in the home by their partners, and that includes lesbian partners. Lots of men get killed, especially young men in south London.

Quite. That drip, drip, drip of what it is to be a woman starts at birth and never stops....all the 'don't walk alone at night' and the 'keep your knees together in a dress' and the wariness of male strangers. You can't assimilate that with surgery and lipstick. This is what I don't understand.

What about sexual assault and rape? that's the biggest rusk on my mind late at night, not murder.

How have they decided the periphery is always about safety hazards?

I wondered this. I am as likely to be looking for cats (though by the town centre, more likely to see rats,) or currently under street lights, see if the crocuses are out yet to come and see them in daylight. And sometimes there's new graffiti, much of which is dull, but there's occasionally something which makes me smile.

I look round more in daylight, too - I look at wildflowers and birds and things - I just spot a lot more than male colleagues I've walked with at lunchtime do, because I was brought up to look for signs of wildlife and plants and so on, and they're there even in an urban environment. I am most likely to be the one saying, "look at that!" (And they'll respond, "how do you know what that is, what's interesting about it?") Some men do do it more - a professional ornithologist I knew often spotted more birds than I did - because he was looking for, and recognised more signs of them than I did.

But also, don't women have better peripheral vision than men on average? So we're more likely to notice movement and will turn to look at it - partly as an instinct to check it's not a threat but just a leaf moving in the breeze, but also we fo just see more peripherally.

I have not read the report, so they will cover this, and I am not saying women don't pay more attention when they walk home - we all know we do. It might not be the only reason - it isn't for me. I take note of the environment I'm passing through for interest as well as safety.

I agree @literalviolence
Men are victims of assault more, by other men, but women fear sexual assault in a life changing, it will ruin your life way. I would not like to be beaten up, obviously, but it's sexual assault that drives the real fear. And then there's that line from the song quoted "If we're attacked we bear the blame" which also I think affects choices about where to walk and where to go.