Sexist and dangerous Samaritans ad

[Meadowbird]

https://twitter.com/samaritans/status/1760599123923722266

A really bizarre ad - encouraging lone women to approach disturbed men on deserted train station platforms and ask them out for a coffee. What could possibly go wrong? They also will become sexier if they do apparently.

I asked because obviously it can be different - an elderly man asking after a distressed woman versus a woman striking up a conversation about coffee to a disturbed looking man (re the ad).

I’m so happy for you though that someone did intervene. My son suffered a very worrying depression last year and I was very concerned for his well-being so someone intervening on his behalf would be very welcome (hopefully will never need it 🤞).

Nearly all the comments on that twitter are encouraging. Everyone can see it for what it is

It's a bit concerning how many women responding on this thread think the woman in the ad is doing something safe.

When I was young, much less than the behaviour of the woman in the ad was taken as flirting on more than one occasion and nearly got me into trouble with men who were not mentally disturbed.

Men don't take kindly to being "led on".

the Samaritans have form for misogyny. Look up the Brenda’s Line when they used only women to staff a line for male fetishists. a lot of calls are from perverted males and e male volunteers do not appear to get much support

Female volunteers I meant

Perhaps you don't realise what goes into making adverts? Every single aspect is discussed in detail in meetings - camera angles, lighting, costumes, settings, the lot.
Have you ever noticed in toothpaste ads how the 'expert dentist' has clothing to exactly match the brand colour on the box? Same goes for any type of advert.

So someone, or a team of people, decided after much thought to make the 'kind' woman have hair down, lipstick, and a biker jacket, whilst the 'unkind' or 'scared' woman had hair tied back, no make up, and a cardigan.

Why do you think those decisions were made? What were they thinking would be the desired effect on the viewer?

I would be less likely to intervene after this advert and the discussions around it

People who volunteer for the Samaritans tell me it’s very common for male callers to make obscene comments to female volunteers, so if anyone should be able to see the problem with this ad, it’s Samaritans.

I think the big issue here is the ad hasn't tackled the point about why women don't ALREADY check if a man who looks distressed is ok.

Or rather the issue is why the ad hasn't tackled the point about why MEN don't ALREADY check if a man who looks distressed is ok.

Instead they’re relying on the ‘women are caring and it’s their role’ claptrap and are making women responsible for looking out for distressed men….
Why??

Which is why using getting a coffee as an opening line is so very odd and so very open to misinterpretation.

The intent of the ad is clear to see - humane, understanding, caring etc.
But like all things done from an angle of virtue, it has complete disregard for reality or even statistics.

If that bloke is upset because a lady who smiled at him thinks he's just a friend and here comes a saviour asking him to coffee - she's about to do a whole lot more damage - to him or herself.

The culture of white knighting does have to stop. In as much as it is great to get to know people, doubts should not be pushed aside and one needs to recognise when situations are way outside one's capacity.

See it, say it (to someone who can do something about it), sorted.

No need to replace that with women chatting randoms up.

Yes. Overlooking a woman's discomfort or placing a man's needs above a woman's discomfort is actually quite normal in society.

The internal dialogue of the woman was not very realistic. In reality you’d be asking yourself, is I say something will he get aggressive with me? Could he attack me? Is there anyone around I think would defend me? Or will he latch onto me and not go away? Am at at risk of attracting a stalker?’

A total lack of understanding about women's safety. I actually find it quite chilling the number of levels this must have gone through and not a single solitary person said / was listened to about the danger to women in this scenario.

I've had a man attempt to rape me for less than that. Add in that the man already looks distressed. And there are other men around who could do something - why the ever living fuck should a woman get involved in that situation? Unless she's a non-human whose mental health and wellbeing is less important than the man's.

Frankly I don’t know what I would do in each individual situation. I’m still in two minds about the advert having intervened once and been suicidal as well.

I have does some recent suicide awareness training and there were suggestions about small interventions. It was treated a bit like mental first aid.
There were also two very important things not here-
As with physical first aid make sure you are safe first. If you are not comfortable intervening in a particular way don’t. No duty. For some it would be physical safety. Other people need to safeguard their own mental health from hearing someone else talk about suicidal thoughts.

Second whatever happens you are not responsible for the outcome. You can’t do it wrong whether or not and how you intervene.

And yes as PP said - better to look at your watch and say something loudly, but not directed to anyone in particular, about the unreliability of trains and you wonder how delayed the next one is going to be and if there's an alternative rather than asking about coffee which is honestly rather strange.

FFS.

As someone who has had more than my fair share of stalkers, perverts, flashers etc simply by virtue of living next door to a park in London I am amazed that so many women can't see that any interaction with any strange man is inviting danger.

Judging from my experience it's far more likely that instead of saving a nice man from suicide, the woman in the advert would instead have a creepy man hassling her on the train all the way to her destination, and then possibly following her home. If not worse.

I think the statistic is that one in three women have been sexually assaulted. This is just yet another example of (at best) nice but dim people putting men first. See also mixed sex changing rooms, pretending that TWAW etc etc.

I suspect this advert has caused so much comment because 'uptight nervy cardigan woman' speaks to many people much more than 'cool lipstick girl.' We are not meant to empathize with the crisp eating frump but we do.

Shes sitting there, hair scraped up, old cardie, no time for lipstick, eating a bag of crisps because she hasn't had time for lunch = limited time for self care , the bag on her lap symbolic of all the burdens shes juggling in her own life, physical, mental, financial, caring. Her defensive body posture, trying not to draw attention to herself as a lone woman on a near deserted train platform, her face worried - why? we don't know anything about her, who she is, where shes traveling to or from, what emotions or situations shes balancing, what memories or instincts the sight of the man who is behaving erratically awaken in her.
(It would be interesting to find out the instinctive response people have to that character - is it sympathy with his vulnerability or wariness over his disturbed emotional state? - I wonder if they asked this while doing market research on their ad?)

She sees him, recognizes his distress because she is fundamentally empathic and weighs up what she can do. Her instinct is to help, but she also is balancing that with her own safety and all the other responsibilities she has on her shoulders - what happens if she puts herself in danger and he reacts with aggression? what happens if she ends up engaged in something prolonged and no one picks the kids up from school? what support has she to give at the moment when shes in the middle of her own emotional crisis? - and shes understandably wary of helping. She weighs it up - of course 'someone should do something' but feels that she cannot be that 'someone' in this situation.

I am sure this is the 'bystander effect' they want to tackle but this advert it focuses on the wrong problem - and its here that the add shifts the story, and segues into a weird world where she overcomes all that and puts all other considerations out of her head to approach a distressed stranger with a lame line that could certainly be mistaken as sexual interest by the wrong disturbed person, - so completely misses the mark.

The barriers that prevent her intervening are not so much fear of getting it wrong as fear of what might happen next and the potential cost and harm to her - and this advert doesn't recognize any of that. It would be good if they showed an action she could take to help without putting herself in danger eg contact a staff member? or perhaps she could start an action while protecting herself - eg approach him as part of a group/ pair, and use something better as an intro line like - do you know if this is the train til x? that could not be misconstrued.

I wonder if they considered or have made the same advert with a man approaching another man? or if they thought that would be too unrealistic to expect that level of empathy and engagement with a stranger - or perhaps they recognized that many men would with good justification fear violence from an unsolicited approach in the situation

Frankly I don’t know what I would do in each individual situation

That's it isn't it, you assess each situation and know what feels "right" - trust your instincts type thing. So I'd probably do the same here, which is just common sense I think as small talk can definitely help if you're feeling in a bad place. Only you'd know if the situation felt "right" to do so

The thing is, as much as I sympathise with men struggling with their MH (as my son does) you really do have to proceed with caution. Once, many years ago, my friend was minding her own business when an unknown man came up to her and slapped her across the face - because she reminded him of his wife! A man who very obviously was not in a stable frame of mind.

The second incident I witnessed first hand on a train. A man was behaving in a strange manner, a woman spoke to him (not loud or anything, woman seemed very civilised) and he too slapped her round the face and started screaming obscenities (this stayed with me a long time, it really freaked me out, this man was scary!)

To encourage women to go up to possibly disturbed men who are an unknown quantity to her seems very foolhardy to me.

@SamuelDJackson

I’ll guarantee they wouldn’t have had the man asking another man if he knew where he could get a coffee!

"The thing is, as much as I sympathise with men struggling with their MH (as my son does) you really do have to proceed with

Absolutely this. I'm an ex copper and it was all well and good me with my uniform / radio and potential backup. Now, I'm afraid as a disabled 50 odd year old, I have to think what's I'm my own best interests too.

There was a lot of "Ladies, look after your Man" type stuff shared on social media. It shared that stats on male suicide. There was also a lot shared a couple of years ago about checking in on 'the quiet ones' Yes, men's MH is important, but as a single woman I found to my cost in previous relationships that some men think their MH trumps your own.
That's what I told my last partner when I walked away. "Your mental health does not trump mine" because I realised it was totally one sided.

Are women not already doing all the checking in? Are women not already doing enough for others? Often looking after kids, partners, elderly parents. The wife work. The life admin. Women often put themselves last ro start with. Why are we bombarded with ever more things considered to be our moral selfless responsibility.

Wouldn’t it be lovely to see a campaign about chaps checking in on chaps?

Striking up conversations with sad men?

Just asking “are you alright, mate?”

Men smiling at each other in a “it’s ok mate” kind of way.

I mean, I feel like I’m sealioning at this point but wouldn’t that campaign be good?

Oh isn't she just. But we're not going to unpick this (aside from a small comment about how "a black woman was only used to tick the diversity box"). We're going to ignore this and continue discussing the advert through a white lens. "Oh yes, she's black, but that's by the by".

If using a woman is problematic and worth discussing, then there is a double layer of problematic in using a black woman.

If it just so happens that a black woman was used, then it maybe it just so happens that a woman was used.

There is one. And it's been around for years.

The Campaign Against Living Miserably was set up for men who have suicidal thoughts, and for their friends to be helped to know what to say to them.

Okay, I haven't followed their SM enough to know if they've aimed their work at total strangers on a train platform, but I'd be mildly surprised of they hadn't talked about similar situations.

https://www.thecalmzone.net/anyone-can-feel-suicidal