Are young women insane?

[irishmurdoch]

Just been on a Reddit travel forum where young people planning their "year out" are discussing the merits of mixed gender hostel rooms. Lots of women talking about men snoring but absolutely none of them seem to be aware of the safeguarding risks. My mind is boggling. AIBU??

YANBU. Young people often have a false sense of invincibility. Eventually, experience knocks it out of them.

Presumably they've done the leap from NAMALT to NMALT (nice men aren't like that, and by definition the men they "know" are nice).

(hit Post by mistake) - like an extension of Not My Nigel.

Just naive probably. I never thought about it when I was young - I'd lived a relatively sheltered life, and many hostels were mixed sex overseas - it was only really the Official YHA ones that had single sex dorms (even they are "single gender" these days), the "Backpackers" places were mixed. I had no concept of predators when I was young - we were simply travelling and seeing the world. Now being older and wiser I think back to what could have happened. I wouldn't do it now. You can't be less defenseless than when you're asleep!

As a mother of a daughter I find it absolutely terrifying. We desperately need to add personal safety to the PSHE curriculum. I don't think many parents are aware of the extent to which the current younger generation's own sense of their boundaries (or even the need for them) has been eroded.

Mixed gender hostels are nothing new. Even in single sex girls bring blokes back with them. It's not for me but you have to let people make their own choices.

My friends and I always avoided them when travelling. My older sister had been raped at university by a man brought back to the house by a flatmate after a night out - she woke up to find him on top of her. So we were always very aware of things like not getting in taxis alone and carrying rape alarms. But it now feels like it's a lot more difficult to educate young girls on stuff like this without getting a barrage of "Not all men".

Good lord, whatever has happened to the education of our young women? As a teenager in the 1970's, in West Yorkshire, we knew that we didn't know who the bad men were. We were marching to reclaim the night, we knew we were at risk. We had also grown up knowing not to get into strangers cars, because we were within 10 miles of where Bradey and Hindley buried their victims. The idea that we would share a sleeping space with unknown men was beyond belief.

This reminded me of when I was travelling in Australia with 2 friends and they put a man in the 4th bed.

The risk never occurred to me until now (I was very naive).

Turned out the only thing he took was all the hot water.

Lots of people have mixed sex friendship groups and are comfortable with this kind of arrangement. Arguably safer with a male pal than alone in some ways.

males in their late teens/early twenties have the worst ability to assess risk out of any other demographic and the most willingness to take risk
Females in the same age range probably come in second. But both groups are adults.

I think also, there is a bit of a stigma on saying some things out loud. Young** men in particular get upset at the insinuation that men are a threat to women. To be fair, I can see why it would feel like a personal attack (even if it isn't and its true) and lots of men might accept sex offenders exist but "its only 0.05% of men probably". Contrary to what some think and bear dilemmas aside, most young women aren't deliberately trying to whip up hysteria against men, or spread man-hate to demoralse them. The opposite. So quite possibly the "oh, you know, men snore" etc is because they don't feel kind/comfortable saying the other issues. I know that I would have had conversations with close friends about "not feeling comfortable" or "safety issues" that I wouldn't have had outloud or even online.

**This squeamishness on discussing the dark side of human nature often disappears about the time men have daughters

Mixed sex dorms have been mainstream for a long while. I went youth hostelling about 20 years ago and was shocked to discover this. All the young people I spoke to just saw it as normal.

Same. I remember staying in a hostel at Alice Springs. All girls room. I went out to a pub (must have been alone, I've no idea why I ventured out alone) and got talking to an American serviceman. Airforce I think.

He was perfectly nice, a bit lonely and homesick. We went to another bar, just chatted then I went back to the hostel. One of my room mates had stayed up waiting for me and tore into me about how foolish I'd been, what a risk I'd taken, I could be dead in the Australian bush and no one would know.
I was completely bemused! It hadn't occurred to me that I was doing anything wrong. Honestly I was dim back then but luckily for me men must have found it an unattractive trait!

I'd hope a few more savvy young women look out for the naive ones.

And if my roommate is on Mumsnet thank you!

I used to sleep in hostels a lot, often mixed sex because there was no choice. I always preferred single sex though. I remember one that was mixed - I had actually booked a single room to avoid the mixed dorm but asked to change as the door didn't close properly and was external to the hostel and didn't feel safe so I ended up in a room with one man and one other girl. The man was quite threatening and we woke up to him staring at us and masturbating.

I agree with others that you definitely get more aware of risk as you get older and just don’t think it’ll happen to you when you’re young. I have stayed in a mixed room at a hostel but it was with a mixed sex group of friends, although there were also some strangers in there. I would have felt more uncomfortable if it was me and some female friends with unknown men. Though that said the men who had assaulted me or put me in what felt like dangerous positions in the past had been men known to me, not strangers.

I agree with what OP said about boundaries. It’s something I think of a lot in raising my daughter. I feel like I was raised in a typically ‘be a nice little girl’ way and that I was never really taught it’s okay to say no even if that makes other people unhappy. It meant I got into lots of situations when I was older where I was uncomfortable but didn’t want to upset the other person by saying no or leaving the situation (not necessarily all sexual btw, just in general). It took me a long time to get to a point where I could do that.

I think it’s super important that children, girls especially, are given the tools to say no and to establish boundaries.

Young people in general have less life experience and are more likely to make poor judgements in terms of risk assessment. The default setting is to view everything and everyone in a positive light, with no concept of the ways predators work by exploiting such goodwill. They also don't have the confidence to speak up or push back against poor behaviour in their peer groups - these skills tend to come with age.

Also, life for women in Western countries has improved immeasurably in terms of safety and respect. Hence why plenty of young women can afford to be naive about male violence and clueless about their own safety. Women in other countries where sexual and physical violence are far more prevalent are more cautious around men. Their mothers teach them from an early age about what they need to do or avoid, and they are generally a bit 'smarter' about these things - usually because the likelihood of doing something foolish means you get into dangerous situations pretty quick. Male friends also don't take offence and are respectful of women-only spaces.

Hostels have been mixed forever. I remember them in the 80s. It's not a new thing. So maybe we've always been "insane".

My DDs would definitely NOT like this, and sensibly would refuse to use one. They know that not all men are as considerate-seeming as their teenage boy friends, especially older ones who they say give off “creepy vibes”.

I was a complete idiot in this way when I was young (60s/70s). It’s not new.

This is exactly what people want to achieve when they push 'inclusion' everywhere and demonise anything else as 'exclusionary' - the erosion of boundaries.

Adding myself to the string of idiots!

You are only young and carefree once so I do get it.

My sister went as far as couch surfing.
Absolute lunacy.

Most men are good men == lucky escape

There are normally 6-8 people in those rooms though so it's almost like a public space.

I've felt more at risk in other situations when backpacking TBH- mainly in private rooms where the door or window doesn't quite lock right

I think there is a big difference between going in a mixed group and finding yourself with a few male strangers and going alone...and finding yourself in a room with six male strangers.

But what if all the other people are men? Or what if there’s only one man but he’s a creepy bastard who stares at all seven women as they get undressed etc? Making all the women feel uncomfortable and want to change elsewhere eg in the toilet. Not great, is it?

I didn't see anything wrong with mixed sex rooms either, until aged 22 I had a big guy (whom I had snogged at a bar earlier) climb into my bunk and try to have sex with me, with multiple other people in the room- and none of them did anything about it, including my friends who apparently thought I was enjoying it Luckily he did eventually stop trying and went back to his own bed, but it was an eye opener.

I stayed in hundreds of mixed sex dorm hostels when I was travelling in my twenties.
Completely normal and everybody did it. Didn't even think twice about it to be honest.