Is there a woman or girl alive who hasn't ever needed, used or asked for a male chaperone to feel or be safe in certain situations?

[SwordOfOmens]

I woke up and this was my first thought.

Fathers, brothers, uncles, partners, husbands, male friends...

I've had men pick me up from the pub or club, walk me home from my babysitting job, come with me late at night, accompanied me to pick my car up from the garage. Gone with me to look for the minster under the bed. Held my hand to make me feel safer. You name it!

It's just a normal part of being female.

So if TIMs are scared of using the male bathroom, they are welcome to ask for a male chaperone to make them feel safer. It's a massive inconvenience to us to need one at all!

I'm going to use this in my arguments on and offline.

I can honestly say I have never ever needed or wanted a man to supervise me going about my daily life to keep me safe as an adult. There have been occasions when I have asked a man to pick me up, but that has been for convenience, not safety.

Monsters under beds is a red herring, either parent would do that for their children of either sex. I went to uni in Glasgow and walked all over the city. The only time a man (supposed friend) volunteered his services (unasked, unwanted) to get me home safely after a few drinks, he then tried to stop the taxi driver dropping me at my flat and tried to convince him I was going home with him and physically stop me getting out. Luckily the taxi driver refused to drive on.

Since then, I have travelled solo to various parts of the world. I run, walk, cycle all over the place. I have never felt unsafe. I have not been harassed. I have not been assaulted.

A few people have mentioned this, and charity services you can phone while walking.

I don't get the point.

It demonstrates you have an expensive stealable item, it distracts you from your surroundings, it makes you walk slower, and if you do get attacked the person on the phone can't help.

It might make you feel safer. But it actually increases your risk.

"Chaparone" is a wierd way to phrase it. There are times when I've wanted company to feel safe, havent always had it but my husband does sometimes fill that role and sometimes other women do so.

So I cant answer your poll because the answer is yes but not often. The last time was asking my husband to go to a Let Women speak meeting. He wasnt needed but showing that men support womens rights too is not a bad thing.

I've never required a "male chaperone'.
There have been times I've chosen to do things/go places with another person but it's never had to be a man.
I live in a western country where women have rights and freedoms. It's ridiculous to presume that all women need male chaperones. How precious!

But the Dominique Pelicot trial just emphasises that it's not so much the strange men that you have to be cautious of, but the ones that you allow into your life and home. Gisele was betrayed by her own husband.

@SallyWD I suspect you're right that it's partly a matter of life experience.

I have no brothers or male cousins, and both grandfathers died before I was born. I grew up mainly with a single mother (a few stepfathers came and went, but were unreliable - one tried to kill my mother, so didn’t exactly foster the idea of man-as-protector). So if something needed doing, my mum and I did it ourselves - took sledgehammers to walls and rebuilt them, fixed the car, put up tents, lit fires, took out bins. There were no 'pink jobs and blue jobs'.

My maternal grandmother did all her own DIY amd walked everywhere alone. She'd been in the army, just a mile or 2 behind the front lines during the liberation of France then working in psychiatric care for soldiers coming out of the German and Japanese PoW camps. If you'd suggested a male chaperone to her, you'd have got A Look that would make Paddington cringe.

I've lived in some seriously grotty areas - the part of London with the highest gun crime at the time, another part where stolen cars were regularly set on fire and one rammed into my front wall during a police chase. At one point I was living opposite a 'wet' hostel (for homeless alcoholic men) and working next to a methadone clinic.

I've travelled solo since I was 16, including overland across Russia.

I've lived alone, with no man to call to help me home or check out the things that go bump in the night (and my now DP doesn't drive, and sleeps through most things).

So I've never been in a man-shielded bubble. I certainly wouldn't settle for a man-contolled one. Life has risks. Men cause at least as many as they solve, so I don't depend on them for help.

Thank you for your response. It's interesting to hear how varied our life experiences are and how this shapes our perceptions of risk. I now live in a nice area but have lived all over the UK and abroad, including in some very dodgy areas. If anything, this has made me feel stronger and less afraid. It made me think that if you actually live in a dangerous place and and feel relatively OK then the risks aren't that great in terms of doing a 20 minute walk home at night.
I also take your point about never having had men to rely on so that you and the women in your family have become very self-sufficient. I honestly think this is a good thing.

Awful

Thanks for responding and I hear what you're saying. Despite being a tall woman and fairly well-built, I'm actually not that strong. I wouldn't stand a chance against a strong 6ft, 13 stone man. However, I suppose I don't feel afraid because I do believe the risk of being attacked and physically harmed by a complete stranger is very small. It happens but it's very rare.
Like all women, I've had my fair share of unpleasant (and sometimes scary) experiences with men but they have always been men I know. I've never been attacked by a stranger and I've been walking alone at night since I was 14/15. I'm now 50. I don't know any woman who's been attacked by a stranger either. It's always been men they've known in some capacity, even if it's just a couple of dates.
Yes, I've had comments from random men and strangers being too familiar in a bar but I've never felt in physical danger when walking home at night, so I continue to do it because I actually enjoy walking alone at night. It helps me to unwind after a night out. As an introvert, I find nights out quite stimulating and I need that period of quiet afterwards.

You think I don't know all that. I've lived through some of that. I'm bloody but unbowed like many of the women on here.

What is truly frightening is the amount of compliance rather than tackling the true issue of male violence. It's right there in your post and others that we'd rather be a good girl, than tell men it's not our behaviour that is the problem but theirs. Even now there are good people male and female willing to stand aside, say nothing, and keep an unsustainable status quo that, male behaviour towards women must change.

No OP I never have. Genuinely. And I'm 60. Travel the world alone and frequently go out in the evening.

I can't think of a situation where I would specifically ask a man to chaperone me. I can think of scenarios where I wouldn't want to be alone but a male or female would suffice.

I think whether we are consciencely aware of it or not, there is a layer of mammalian non verbal communication going on in interactions where strength and perceived social status is being evaluated.

A single female friend of mine was taken aback by how differently she was treated when she was out with a male friend and her young daughter.

Her daughter was lagging behind to play on the street furniture and the male friend walked ahead. A group of drunk men came out from a nearby pub and one of them came between her and her daughter and was being a bit of an arse. She was in full mumma bear mode and had already visualised how she could defend them if he became aggressive, the moment passed and she took her daughter to catch up with the male friend. When the drunk man saw that the whole interaction had been watched by a man he apologised - not to the woman he had been rude to, but to the male friend. She was furious about that and that the male friend had responded with a "no worries mate" and couldn't see the problem.

She certainly didn't want to be considered property of the male friend and she felt able to handle the situation (she's worked in pubs). But in that drunk man's impaired state, he was wary that he had offended another man who could perhaps retaliate, in a way he didn't seem to give a shit about her reaction (mistakenly I think as she wouldn't have been shy about hurting him and throwing him off balance to get to her little girl and he wasn't sober enough to fight effectively).

She also said that while she was with him staff in places they went seemed to address him first etc and she found it very stark as she wasn't used to that.

Whether women want it or not, feel capable and safe doing things independently or not, there is an element of strangers making assumptions about physical threat level and perceived status based on size and sex (whether correctly or incorrectly), as well on things like confidence, eye contact etc.

I suppose my bias is to assume that a lot of what plays in to that non verbal communication and assessment is ancient instinct (in the same way it shows up in other animals) but of course there will be a socialisation factor too, where growing up in a sexist society where drunk man has learned to treat females with entitlement if he can get away with it, but unknown males who may accompany them with caution as they may be a threat.

It's definitely in a lot of the culture this idea of fathers/brothers/partners being protective of women.

Even if statistically we know that known men are the bigger threat.

I don't think it's fair to the OP to pretend this dynamic doesn't exist even in societies we hope are more egalitarian now than in the past where it developed, even if they overstepped the mark by assuming every woman feels safer around known men than strangers. Or that they consciously use male presence to go places/get things done.

I'm pretty independent and live in a feels safe area and I will do things like go running at night alone (well not at the moment but I have done when a bit fitter). My brothers were quite a bit younger than me so the dynamic was me looking after them when we were growing up and we don't spend a lot of time together as adults so I never really thought about them as protection, I can imagine if I had had older brothers we might have had more of that dynamic.

@SallyWD

Interesting thoughts in your post. I come from a mostly male family. I was never given the impression that men were there to protect me, quite the opposite.

Physically I'm 5.5 and look small but thanks to leading an outdoorsy life in and out of work I'm strong for my size. I was born in one of the worst places in that region for crime and violence. For me I was 8 when a young man held a knife to my throat. He wasn't the only one to do that, just the first. I spent much of my middle teenage years onwards being threatened and harmed via DV and SA. I've worked and lived in several areas of England good and bad for crime in cities to very remotely.

That women feel safer walking with other women is not a surprise to me, there is some safety in numbers. I do not need a man to walk me on an invisible lead.

@GryffindorsSword

You are right people do assess on nonverbal communication. I march along rather than walk, do I look and am confident. In terms of predatory strangers that alone probably helps stave some of it off.

Nope. I've backpacked all over the country, lived in London and walked home from late/twilight shifts through various areas.

I was super aware, always wore trousers, trainers or boots that I could run in, carried an alarm and chose my routes carefully . I had various strategies if I thought someone was following me - sometimes I would go back to the station, change my route, cross the road and wait there until I was behind them.

I had a few situations when I was young (and very naive) but I was lucky that I managed to get out of them without significant harm.

I'm actually quite disturbed by the suggestion of a male chaperone being necessary - it feels very regressive.

I agree completely

On some threads about this, it's just asserted that of course women don't go out alone at night, it's not safe etc

I have never asked a man to chaperone me anywhere.

OP - absolutely fine that you want to be chaperoned, your choice, but please don't run away with the idea that it's a universal experience for all women.

I'm genuinely sorry that you have experienced the worst aspects of men's behaviour. I'm also genuinely glad you still feel strong and resilient and have lived your life fully despite your experiences. Not all women who have suffered sexual assault and trauma are able to do that.

I think we are 'arguing' at cross purposes.
I do not think women should be 'good girls' meekly accepting male violence, limiting their lives to only venturing out with a male escort or, as someone up thread described it, attaching themselves to 'an invisible lead'.

But I also think we can all agree men are in no rush to change the status quo when they benefit as a class from the impacts of sexual violence and its threat. Women are therefore left with the options of 'sucking it up' (limiting their personal freedoms to reduce real and perceived risk) or 'refusing to be fearful' (relying on the statistical unlikeliness of assault to participate fully in society as men do.)
Most of us do the second one most of the time and the first when we feel we have to.

My issue is that discussions about the impact of male violence inevitably lead to women being told it's not as bad as we think, that actually the risks are in our heads, we're limiting ourselves, we just need to take no crap and get on with it etc. A bit like the way period pain and hormonal fluctuations were historically underplayed in order to not disadvantage women in the workplace - if we don't acknowledge biological differences they won't be used against us. I think that kind of refusal to acknowledge reality is massively unfair on women and in the case of male violence verges on victim blaming.

So I think we should acknowledge the unacceptable levels of violence and women's vulnerability and campaign to arrange society in a way that priorities women and girl's safety in terms of the design of public spaces, lighting, transport, policing and how the criminal justice system responds to crimes against females. In addition we need decent men to implement a zero tolerance approach to misogyny in all areas - online, in education, sports, music, the arts etc - basically make male aggression and misogyny only for losers.

But for now it is not weak of women to understand their physical vulnerability compared to men, to carry trauma from past abuse and harassment or simply to be aware of the high levels of sexual abuse and exploitation endemic in patriarchal societies and adjust their behaviour in response. They shouldn't have to - you're absolutely right about that - but it's not women's fault if they feel they have to because of all the reasons I've outlined. It's also not capitulation to take advantage of male support when it suits us - it's just pragmatic. I am not lesser because my male partner is physically stronger than me and in some circumstances has a type of body that is better suited to physical protection than mine - that's just material reality. Thinking it makes me, or any other woman, complicit with men treating us badly because we acknowledge these differences and sometimes use them to mitigate risk is misogynistic thinking. Your anger, as you implied mine should be, would be better directed at the violent men responsible for curtailing women's freedom.

I was going to say no (just lucky/sheltered), but actually, when I was chair of a student society and we had someone to speak, I heard he could get handsy with women, and got the secretary - a strapping bloke who lifted weights - to be in the taxi with him instead of me.

I have definitely felt unsafe on my own late at night, or far from home, or drunk, walking home etc. but I’ve not looked to a male chaperone to help with that, it’s been my female friends.

It was women who were my childminders to walk me home from school as a child, a random woman who stood up for me when I was sexually assaulted in public as a pre-teen, female friends who protected me from creepy men in clubs, women who I got cabs home with and texted to say home safe.

No. Men don't make me feel safer. I've walked / travelled in groups of women or with another woman for safety many times, but not men.

If I was on a train on my own and felt unsafe I'd move to sit near another woman. Definitely not a man.

If I was waiting for a bus or taxi and felt unsafe I'd feel safer standing close to another woman. Definitely not a man.

If I was walking somewhere at night, I'd look for a group of women to walk close to. Definitely not a group of men.

If I was afraid in my own house I'd call a female neighbour to come and sit with me. Definitely not a male neighbour.

If I needed to ask for help in the street, I'd make a beeline for a woman. Definitely not a man.

I've told my children, if they need help approach - a woman. Definitely not a man.

I feel safe with a female taxi driver. Definitely don't with a man. (I always call someone as soon as I get into a cab with a male driver and stay on the phone until I'm home).

Men aren't safe for lone women.

The replies here make it very clear that not many of us regard a "male chaperone" as a safe option. When you consider that a trans-women is more likely to be a victim of sexual assault and violence, then I'd say that no, absolutely not - they wouldn't be safer going into the toilet with a male chaperone - very far from it.

@Jamclag

I don't believe we can keep shifting these problems onto the next generation.

As a 19 year old I had a job I really liked. My boss would often ask me to stay late on some pretext of work to abuse me. I started asking my dad or my boyfriend to come and pick me up, or wait for me outside as soon as I knew I'd have to work late. I quit after a few weeks. In university there was a rapists attacking students on the grounds late at night, and a call to security personnel to walk you to your car if you were on campus late was mandatory for a while. That's the only two times in my life I think I've consciously requested a male escort for safety to mitigate violence.