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.

They just haven't thought the ad through enough, I think. It's a lovely message BUT a woman, or man, approaching a person in distress or potential mental crisis, alone and in an isolated area, is taking a huge risk. A risk The Samaritans don't allow their staff to take.

Great message, poorly executed, for me.

They ruin it for the good ones don't they.
I make friendly chat with all kinds of people and one bus driver 30 years older than me started stroking my hand when I got on. The second time I reported him. Old married men are always inappropriately putting their hands on me
NEWSFLASH MEN: women are not in a constant state of waiting to be aroused by you. 99% of the time we are just being friendly.

She isn’t alone, there’s what looks like a member of staff approaching too.

That's completed suicides. Not what @MindHowYouGoes was talking about.

In London? Nope...

Lived in the capital for 30 year and there is not a chance I would approach someone who looks 'disturbed'.

You never know whether they are on drugs, drunk or plain unpredictable.

I would contact emergency services or if on the tube/train I would bring that person to the attention of staff if I thought they looked like they were in need of urgent help but, no, as a lone woman I would not get involved directly.

In the small town where I live in now, it would be different but I have seen too many fights, drunks and people off their heads in London to approach people there.

My safety comes first.

There are many murders, rapes and attacks carried out on women in broad daylight.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/dec/15/raped-broad-daylight-train-crime-illusions

You can tell the people in this thread who have actually spent time on train station platforms and those who haven't.

Train stations are often in a rough area of a city. Lots of drunk people, lots of people on drugs, lots of shady characters. My local one had an arsonist set the toilets on fire at 6am fairly recently. I've seen people trying to break into the shops next door. Stabbings aren't infrequent.

There's also a lot of space on train station platforms, it's not like you're queuing for a bus. Unless multiple trains have been delayed it's very rare you need to actually stand close to someone. This is generally an advantage, but also means it can be very likely that no one can hear you scream (not literally, but for example if someone was pushing, threatening, or manhandling you, it would be easy to do and no one aware at the time).

It also potentially contradicts the official national train station advice which is to immediately contact the transport police about anything at all that may be a problem.

It’s encouraging EVERYONE to talk to someone if they are acting in a way that could mean they are planning to jump. This SAVES LIVES - not everything is a campaign against women and you need to stop describing it as such

Get a grip OP.it’s telling you to “trust your instincts “ …for a woman that means trusting your instincts as to what to do…whether that’s talk to someone you are worried about, get help from someone else/999 or run as fast as you can in the opposite direction . Living in a society doesn’t mean seeing every man as a potential murderer/rapist.

So why did they frame it as kind woman in sexy outfit vs timid woman in plain outfit? That’s a conscious decision the film makers have chosen to employ. They could have used another bloke. Or a couple. Or the man could have been a woman. It’s an advert, and all the decisions which have been made are there to tag into the viewer’s subconscious.

I guess the sad truth is that these sorts of ads are just intended to raise the profile of the organisation and thereby raise funds. We kind of fool ourselves that the messaging is part of their charitable purpose, but fundamentally it is on a par with the 'social issue' branding that plenty of businesses and brands engage in to promote sales.
They don't really care as much as we would like to imagine they do about whether the hashtag #SmallTalkSavesLives reflects quality research about mental health support or just creates a nice little viral buzz.
I don't have much respect for the Samaritans. I think organisations that signpost them often do so in order to assuage a vague sense that they have a responsibility to do something, but that the signposting just leads very unhappy people to think that there is a service out there that will help them - when in fact all you get is ... well, nothing really, in my experience. Obviously the volunteers are trained not to offer counselling that they are fully untrained to deliver. All they offer is an ear and some platitudes.

If people are interpreting as that, and are perceiving the station as empty, that's the message they are taking home and the Samaritans have failed to communicate the message well and understand why women won't approach a male in the first place.

Nobody said it was a "campaign against women" so you can stop the strawmanning. It IS however an ill-thought out campaign using lazy sexist tropes.

So why not feature a man intervening?

Surely men aren’t so afraid of other men they would stay silent thus risking the other guy’s life? And if they are shouldn’t they get over it and live their lives without fear?

It’s a woman in the ad because whoever has come up with it hasn’t thought for one second that it’s a man’s job to support suicidal or depressed men.

I hope there’s another ad where a man gets involved. It’s important for men to see they can and should support other people’s mental health issues.

It’s really not but ok

You have a valid point OP

And shady people will take advantage of that. There's a guy in the city I live who went as far as pretending he needed a wheelchair. He'd then get on the tram, watch for a woman on her own and if they looked like they were getting off at a quieter stop (at night) he'd get off the tram ahead of them and pretend he needed help with something. Often it would be help tying his shoelaces or something like that that required the woman to bend her head in front of him. Instant vulnerability.

Standing at a railway station pretending you're in distress doesn't even require a wheelchair.

Soontobe60

So why did they frame it as kind woman in sexy outfit vs timid woman in plain outfit?”

Watched it again and still struggling to see the “sexy outfit”. She’s wearing the same dress? Obviously, sexy is in the eye of the beholder but I see a fairly average young woman with different hairstyles, as lots of people have on different days. Her looking slightly different is simply a tool to represent internal conflict.

Agree it’s dangerous for a woman to approach a disturbed man on a quiet platform and should not be encouraged.

”Do you know where I can get a coffee” = chat up line.

So how do you explain glamorous "bee kiiind" lady? Lipstick, nail polish, leather jacket (?), hair down, posture, the lot. Keep in mind nobody says that's deliberate design - lazy stereotypes tend not to be. That doesn't make them any better.

Marathon - it is telling the woman NOT to trust her instinct, it is telling her to override them.

Green - you may interpret it as telling everyone. I hear and see a man telling a woman what to do. They have consciously and deliberately chosen to target their message at young women. They have consciously and deliberately dressed the two options differently- one ‘sexy’ and one ‘frumpy’. They consciously and deliberately chose not to use an older woman, or a man or a less attractive person or a pair of people or a member of staff. They deliberately had the woman speaking directly to the troubled man rather than getting him some help from a member of staff.

It isn't their choice though, is it? Because they are gaslit by society, including other women, and told they are paranoid or cowards.

MrsSkylar. Really, you can’t see the difference?

Yes, I see a minor difference to represent two differing sides of her internal argument. She looks equally attractive in both, to me, which I suppose shows how what we all see is very different.

The railway staff should be trained in mental health first aid and suicide prevention and intervene in cases like this. And the woman should be alerting the railway staff to the man.

Or they could have shown two men. I'm a firm believer in men looking out for each other's mental health instead of relying on women to do that emotional labour, and in building a society in which men are comfortable doing that for each other and it's normal to do so.

One of my big fears, as an autistic woman and hence at a huge disadvantage when navigating all social situations, is for my kindness to be misinterpreted as sexual interest. In the past, I've had men stalk me and abuse me because I've been sympathetic and they took it as a come-on.