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.

that it looked as though the woman was chatting him up.

They might have thought that was the point. A lot of men think of us as sexy service humans.

Pleased to report I showed this to my partner and he was able to say why it's so blindingly stupid.

But even so, surely some of those men would have said that it looked as though the woman was chatting him up.

As I said up-thread my limited sample thought so, and he raised that the resulting disappointment once it had been sorted out that she wasn't intending to chat him up would be counterproductive to the man's mental health.

Even if you purely centre the man's feelings and don't consider the woman's safety at all, it's still a terrible course of action to have modelled to less socially experienced women.

I’ve been reading this thread for a while and I see the usual suspects have turned up to tell off the silly wimmin for being scared.

I’ve travelled a lot for work over my career. When travelling I dress for comfort not style, and I’m overweight and normal/conventional looking, not pretty or glamorous. I cannot count the number of times that normal chit chat (about the service running late or moving stuff off a seat) with a male fellow traveler has taken a turn where I’m suddenly aware I’m being propositioned. Of course, answering questions briefly and concisely and not engaging further gets me labelled as a stuck up bitch. Luckily I’ve never had someone then follow me to the car park, although I’ve dived into the loos after getting off a plane to avoid the guy in the seat next to me who was following me into passport control. (That one was hoping for an hook up while waiting for a connection, to celebrate his first time travelling to America on business) Other women tell me of similar stories. And that’s separate from the blatant sexual harassment and groping from strangers in a crowded carriage.

So yes, it blindingly obvious that none involved in that advert has been a woman travelling by public transport. I answer questions and am polite but I don’t engage any more.

How thoroughly and depressingly predictable.

I'd like to say I'm shooketh, but nope.

Asking commuters, great but how many were men?

Did not one man say anything about the coffee line? Or did a few and were ignored?

And asking commuters, were they in a rush? Not really paying attention? Didnt want to stand there and discuss the finer points? Is it at all possible that most of the men they asked were of a mind to believe women are support humans and preventing men suicide is their job? Same for women, did they mostly ask women who believe everything is womens job?
Were there any dissenters? Who were ignored because the ad company wants this to work regardless of womens feelings or lived experience.
Lots of questions. Including was it ever really tested with the public? Or were results falsified.

They should have just made both people in the ad the same sex.

There's no flipping way I'd ever approach an upset-looking man and ask him if he was OK (much less ask where I can get coffee). I suppose it's sad that I think that way, and I'd love to live in a world where I could safely do that. Wouldn't we all. But my safety comes first.

Approach an upset-looking woman though? Yes, been there and done that, and felt totally safe doing it.

And if it was a man approaching a woman asking about coffee, that would very likely come across as a chat up line & just one more problem for her to deal with.

"Lots of questions. Including was it ever really tested with the public? Or were results falsified"

Indeed. I've done a lot of market research. It pays quite well these days. My last job was for Meta Quest, and they obviously had a large budget.

As i said earlier in the thread, charities on a lower budget? Wouldn't surprise me in the slightest of results were falsified. The advertising company isn't going to feel terribly obliged if it eats into the overall fee after all..

Of course they are, that is the whole point of Andys Man Club. They are opening new clubs every week. There are three in my small city and hundreds of men attend and support each other every week. It is toxic to tell men they are no good at talking to each other, they absolutely are more than capable.

It's numbers as well. They may well have done what they said. It also may have taken them ten minutes as they only asked ten people.

And I bet nobody’s telling Andy’s Man Club that they’re hateful for being single sex & need to start including trans-identifying women.

Not yet, thankfully. I assume the time will come. Probably be some non binary entitled young thing.

Yup. You can just imagine it. Friday afternoon at the office: "Here, fancy a flier? I'll sort this. I'll just ask a few blokes down the pub tonight. Jobs a good un" Tick!

Mine too. We chatted about it again today, & he came up with lots of inventive, wacky ideas to deal with the problem at stations! When he's on a roll he's unstoppable & hilarious.❤

What ideas? I'm curious now.

They ran from using a click-clack device to distract someone without having to engage close up & put yourself at risk (or appear to be asking them out on a date) to being fitted with a collar & leash as you enter the station & attached to a wall on the platform so you can't jump in front of a train: leashes would all be released automatically once the train is standing there with the doors open.

I pointed out that this one would attract some dodgy sorts who would enjoy it way too much, & the conversation turned rude as we joked about slip hazards & the like.

This is waaaay too much information about my private life & how my weekends go, but you asked, dear Vito, & I cannot refuse the Don.

Brighton would definitely be up for being the pilot station for that.

😀

Or the cages they put grey hounds in. All the commuters waiting for the off. The train stops, the traps open and they all fly out.

Either way would also ensure people can get off the train first, before the traps are opened/leashes released. Win-win.

Yes. Also, thinking about it, they may need to make the cages a teensy bit bigger.

I kind of asumed that. 😂

😃 never occurred to me.

I'm clearly not a 'details' person.

It probably wasn’t just men asked though.

There’s a depressing amount of women feel it’s their job to look after men who would probably have seen nothing wrong with it. Or they think men are crap at doing anything emotional or helpful.

You'd think by now with technology being the way it is they'd have worked out some way to have a barrier along the platform edge with doors that opened and matched up with the arriving trains doors thereby preventing people from ever being able to jump in front of a train at a station.