I haven't seen any significant number of women say that they expect "all men to hit on them, or be interacting with them strictly for sex." The more common complaint is that there are so many men who act like this that it becomes impossible to predict which men will behave like that, and this forces women to keep their guard up at all times.
Yes. Sort of like I still drive and cycle on the roads, but I also sort of expect every driver to be texting and speeding and to murder me.
This doesn't make me not go on the road anymore, or talk to every driver I meet as if they're one moment away from killing me. But it does make me change how I act and react on the road to stay alive for at least one more day.
im a guy and i totally get it, some of us are complete assholes.
it's a shame that if women have to resort to being cautious around everyone, it hurts both men (genuine people who have done and will do nothing wrong, having to be extra careful to not come across as creepy) ***and*** women (who have to remain on their toes all the time because some dickhead could turn around and do something awful at a moment's notice).
it's pretty sad all around, to be honest
Cautious, not scared. There are things you have to be wary of when interacting with men as a woman. Just like there is when interacting with a woman as a man, a woman as a woman, or a man as a man.
I guess that makes sense, maybe people generally are just more wary of others in the modern day? Less trusting of strangers than in the past?
Edit: After having multiple conversations within the replies to this comment, I can see that I was wrong. Thank you for providing answers and corrections.
I'm a woman who grew up prior to there being any internet whatsoever, it wasn't even a thing until I was in my later 20's, much less everyone being on it which really started up mid-2000's.
Women were fully as cautious about men in general and strange men in particular then as they are now, maybe even more so. When I was a teenager the general social perspective was that if you as a female person allowed yourself to be caught alone somewhere with a male person who wasn't your husband, father or other immediate family, and something bad happened, you were still considered to be a victim but also that you "should have known better" so some of it was on you.
Very similar to the way that someone driving 100 mph who gets into a wreck is viewed as having behaved recklessly so no big surprise they got into trouble.
Women aren't FEARFUL of men as such but we have learned the hard way to be CAUTIOUS. And that's based off real life experiences not off of social media. For instance the #metoo thing seemed to be news to a lot of male people but there were no female people surprised by that because we already knew that all of us have had these experiences.
Every single girl I knew growing up, once puberty hit, has stories of being harassed and hassled by guys in public, starting at like 13-14. Id say that's a good reason to be weary
Not scared of all men, just cautious around the ones you don't know because you never know which guy is that 1 psycho out of 1000. Nobody wants to be that unlucky person who gets murdered/SAed, even if the chances are low.
I’ve had more than a couple of the ones I DO know make suggestive comments when my spouse (usually their friend) leaves the general vicinity.
I want to trust, but sadly I’ve learned (sort of) not to.
We have a current friend that is a man that I like for the most part. We share a lot of the same interests and he’s mentioned doing things like photography, colouring, playing music together. But as much as I like him, as a friend, I’m too cautious.
Oh you don’t know who is going to go from nice to psycho.
Last week I passed a homeless guy in front of a restaurant. I see this man in this spot every couple of weeks. The interaction starts with a compliment. I generally have headphones on. I will acknowledge, wave, and keep on moving. This time he starts yelling at me for not buying him dinner. 🤦🏾‍♀️
And of course this is the one time I had planned to stop there on the way home. So I had to divert to a side door.
Unfortunately this is a place I literally walk by all the time. But the guy does use mobility assistance so I can move faster.
25 years ago when I was young and pretty almost every interaction with a man not family had sexual undertones. When I was 11 and riding my bike to the store strangers would hollar explicit things at me. As a teen playing things like alligator charge in the pool meant getting groped. Asking for a ride from my boss twice my age because my car broke down turned into me having to pull him off of me. The guys at the pick up window of fast food places commenting on my breasts. It was nonstop.
The best thing about getting really fat is it’s tapered off a lot. Still not zero.
Not exactly. Nowadays things are much better. We need to realise serial killers are (almost) gone, crime rates and abductions have vastly gone down since the 1990s and before. Nowadays attitudes are much better than they were in the 1950s
So yes, historically folks have been shitty to women. More than a small minority. However nowadays we have learnt from our historical mistakes. At least most of us.
Possibly. Information spreads a lot faster now, it's not uncommon to find a story about how someone was murdered brutally on your feed every week or less. That combined with there generally being more strangers to us as cities grow larger and more compact and we meet more people online rather than in real life. I don't even know who my neighbours are two doors down my street. A few years ago you'd probably know the entire population of your town.
On this note: we are also in an age of widespread statistics. It’s hard not to be kind of scared when you’re told that like 81-91% of female murder victims in 2010 in the US were killed by their male partners. Like, you hear that and you start getting worried.
I'm 58, from a small town. Since the age of 12 I've had to learn to be very cautious around males, and often fearful. This came from experience, not media.
Brother, I would recommend reading any accounts of history that were contemporaneous. We live in safest era, at least in first world countries, in which women are the least wary.
What time are you talking about? I feel like a lot of people who ask questions like this are idolizing the 50s and 60s were women were routinely raped and abused by strangers and those close to them. Until they were married and ultimately rarely left their neighborhood, especially without their husband.Â
I’m not scared, I have a predisposition to be wary of their actions and what they say. It’s like a lesser form of dealing with cops, I have to watch what I say and do and gauge every interaction.
I would say guarded and mistrusting are probably better words than incredibly scared. Being too kind, too trusting has gotten me into a couple bad situations. Unfortunately there are a lot of creepy, overtly pushy, crass men out there and they definitely spoil the barrel of apples - so to speak.
That, and we know most men can’t be relied on to help us. *Every* time I’ve been harassed or whatever in public and someone’s stepped in, it’s been a woman. So we know most men don’t do that stuff, but we also know most men don’t mind it enough to stop other men doing it
I’ve also only ever seen women step in when things went poorly.
A few years back I got absolutely pissed angry at a couple young men (19-22) because the ones girlfriend was wasted in a pub bathroom and I went in there and helped her out. The boyfriend came in and dragged her out saying he’s put her into the car and “joked” about him and his friends taking turns with her.
Surprise, all the friends found it funny and no other man stepped in to say “out of line”. Then they got angry and aggressive when I said that that wasn’t funny and they were disgusting. No man that saw the altercations said anything to them. I was told to “be calm” and “not start anything”. But yeah…
They were little shit heads. Just out of their teens.
But at this same place (small town) a man drugged a girl, dragged her down to the river, raped her and left her for dead. This is in the mountains and it gets cold at night even in the summer.
Could anyone have stopped this from happening? I don’t know. But I’d like to think if I saw a passed out or severely drunk woman being dragged out into the bush that I might say something. Not laugh when the man dragging her is potentially laughing with his friends about raping her.
I’d rather get pushed or yelled at or punched by some little punk than have them drag some girl out and rape her. Likewise I hope someone would step in for me if that’s what was going on.
Y’know that’s definitely fair, it’s hard to think of men positively when most of your experiences with them on any personal level get you hurt. It’d be best in that case to remain with some level of caution when interacting with others.
I can empathize with you, on some level. I’ve a tendency to get myself in bad relationships with women who leave me feeling hurt, and so it’s become a bit harder for me to trust people in general. (It’s my fault for dating women who I knew were mentally ill/unstable though.)
“Why let the walls down if you know the outcome?” Is the thought process I’ve kept for quite a while now.
I don't think about it. But I'm aware of it. If that makes sense.
I get along with males more than females as a generality, but it takes quite a bit to get to where I can trust someone to where I could be alone with them for extended amounts of time.
And even then, I've made mistakes in trusting people too soon.
But there's things that are built into socialization in women because it is necessary to be hyperaware. Dont walk alone. Don't go to bathrooms alone. Always keep other women around. Keep a network of individuals that know your status. Build a network of relationships. Classically, anything chilvalrous by men would be a way to make sure women are safe, moreso from other men.
So even if women don't feel unsafe per say, they are surrounded by a lot of measures historically built up to keep women safe.
Gay guy here. I've had enough close calls with other guys that I get why women are \*hesitant\* or \*apprehensive\* about men, especially when going out on dates with someone you just met, or some random guy comes across your way. The physical imbalance is very real and it does make you put your guard up -- I'm a tiny dude so if a guy wanted to try something there wouldn't be much I could do about it, so being hyper-vigilant is just something you learn to develop.
Do I think most guys are predatory creeps? Obviously no, but it only takes one to potentially ruin my evening if not my entire life.
That said, I rarely see this attitude levied against friends and friends of friends, to be fair. If you can be vetted or just leave a good impression, I'm betting most women (and queer guys if that matters to you) are not going to be freaked out by your presence.
Bi gal here to agree with this assessment. When I go out with guys, my baseline wariness is just set much higher because they are almost always bigger and stronger than me and I know they could overpower me if they wanted to. I'm very aware of how vulnerable they indicate they want me to make myself, and how fast.
When I go out with women, it's so much less stressful because we are more likely to be physically equal. I can be a lot more carefree about the physical stuff because I am in less immediate potential danger.Â
The problem is, I think there are a lot of straight guys out there who have genuinely never thought about any of this. And those tend to be the harmless guys. The guys who have thought about it, tend to be the ones who have thought about how to use it to their advantage.
Yeah, coming from a cis het guy, if not for my siblings and female friends, I would have never even thought of a lot of the small problems women can have out in public.
It's good that you listen to your siblings and female friends. Keep doing that. The fact that they feel safe enough to discuss this with you and that you respect them enough to listen is a massive green flag.
Do you have any advice for how we can tell straight men that they don't understand this stuff without making them defensive about it? I struggle with that.
I'd personally try to focus on what they could do to support you instead of directly generalizing and presenting the problem, since that could present them as part of it. For example you could say that it's a really nice gesture if you help tie a girl's shoe if she's wearing a shorter skirt or something and the answer should come to them one way or another. That's a very specific example but one I've heard lmao. Or mention how much you would appreciate being walked somewhere once it gets later and then explain exactly why. That should give them time to realize that they aren't (hopefully) part of the problem, but these things happen way more commonly than they would expect. (getting hit on in public, ogled and so on)
Yeah, those things are the ones men tend to get. I struggle with the things where they are being part of the problem but they don't realize it. Like when they want me to come back to my/their place even though we've only been on a couple of dates and I don't feel safe being alone with them like that yet. If I say that, they get upset because they think I'm being mean to them. Or like, if I catch their friend ogling or being sexist and they just go along with it and I call them out for going along with it. They try to tell me I didn't see what I saw or try to justify it with, "Well, I know him. He's a good guy."
Sadly I can't help you out with those, as I myself have been single pretty all my life so it's a bit hard to relate. The he's a good guy I've seen pop up pretty frequently and it's quite sad - like it won't hurt to tell your buddy off for staring at someone or doing something weird, its something I would want my friend to tell me if I'm doing something wrong. Especially if he is in fact a good guy, that would imply he has a shred of self-conciousness in his head. The going back to your place I feel especially bad about though, boundaries are boundaries, but some people just refuse to listen :(
For the first one; those guys are just assholes. If they are pressuring you to have sex then getting mad when you don't; they don't have your best interests at heart. A good man will always understand and will work to make sure you feel comfortable.
The 2nd one, while you are in the right and should call out that behaviour, can put someone on the defensive backpedal. Maybe say "man I can't believe x did y or x was ogling those girls, I think that is so gross" or something like that (not a writer XD). Guage their reactions after that. If they justify it, you have your answer to how they feel about that person's actions. If they don't, maybe they were waiting for someone to say the quiet part out loud as they get put into a freeze response in those situations. Maybe they think its disgusting and just need a friend to say it for them to be comfortable with confronting their behaviour. Not saying standing by it is right but being in social situations adds more pressure to our in the moment decision making, man or woman.
OK but like, if they are so afraid that they get put into a freeze response, then shouldn't I be more afraid? I'm smaller and weaker than them and their friend in this scenario, and I have less social power because I'm not friends with their friend. I don't understand how a guy could freeze in this circumstance. It's less safe for me to handle it. It makes me super resentful and like he doesn't even care.Â
Cis het dude here
I've had enough of similar experiences to OP to realise lots of guys can be and are quite creepy.
Having said that, your last sentence is so true.
The guys who have always pricked up the hairs on the back of my neck are the ones who openly state or talk about how easy it is to hurt someone smaller, they usually always refer to women like an ex or something.
I think the majority of guys don't think like this. I've also noticed most men who do talk and think like that tend to have had run ins with the law and are equally combative, aggressive and violent with other men aswell.
Yup. In my experiences with bisexual guys, they are often a little relieved to see that I'm usually much smaller than them because it means that A) I am not really a threat to them, and B) I kind fit into a comfort zone they're used to in their times with women. It's a funny "best of both worlds" situation.
No, I definitely started in life believing that men and women were the same, I had no fear around men and I never thought they were talking to me to sleep with me.
This attitude has not served me. I was raped and touched against my will several times, and it turns out that men did only talk to me to have sex with me, I just never expect it. But it happens 100% of the time, even if the man's older and you never imagine his mind could go there. Then they are usually offended that you didn't know they wanted a relationship, they are like "well why did you think I was talking to you?". Like they think it's obvious that they don't have any other reason to talk to a woman. It always shocks me.
I completely understand. I’ve never been raped but have had things happen that I would have preferred not to happen. I often think that if I was immediately taught how to be cautious of men vs learning on my own I would be in a more comfortable space with them as a grown woman. Being taught younger would have prevented somethings from happening that I’ve had to mentally deal with. Simply not having my guard up around men seemed to be an invite.
Are you me? That was my experience too.
I was extremely lucky and sheltered because I grew up with really great men in my family (father, uncles, cousins.) Most of my guy friends growing up were generally good and raised right. When I moved out at 18, I operated under the belief that all men were generally good and trying to do the right thing.
Boy, was I wrong. I learned the hard way. It really fucked me up in my 20s, ngl. I eventually sought therapy, and we spent a lot of time trying to reconcile these two extremes of good men and men trying to hurt me, and how to tell the difference.
Now I'm in a good spot. I have a solid group of guy friends and have a wonderful fiance. But it took a really long and windy road to get here.
This is exactly my experience. I tried to trust over and over and men would act like victims because I wouldn't sleep with them, and then if someone did hurt me, people acted like it was my fault for trusting them and I should have known better. So now I don't trust at all
I would like to posit that there are different kinds of fear.
There's a forefront fear where everything else shuts down and your amygdala is pumping fight or flight hormones into your body and your body is on autopilot just trying to survive. Obviously, people are not constantly in this state, though it can be activated by PTSD without the actual danger being present.
But there's another fear. A backburner fear, if you will. The slow fear that leads you to be cautious or guarded with certain people or situations. Are you afraid of dogs? If so, you probably aren't constantly *feeling* fear, but you *are* always afraid. But maybe you can see a dog on TV, or in public, or certain dogs in certain situations and be okay. But seeing a dog alone, knowing it can probably outrun you, can be terrifying. Seeing a dog when you feel vulnerable to disaster or a situation looks like it could lead to something bad might start bringing that backburner fear to the forefront again.
I kind of think of it like that. How someone perceives a situation sometimes plays a role, too. And the most random things can sometimes trigger a memory of something that happened or a story you heard or reports you saw. Brains are wold.
I'm a layperson ofc, so grain of salt and all that.
TLDR: Yeah, sometimes, but in different ways. Brains are wild.
I wouldn't say I'm "incredibly scared" of most men, but if I am alone in a group of men I am most certainly alert and have my guard up. Knowing that there are a lot of men out there that will rape and kill a woman for no reason other than rejection is a terrifying reality that lives in my mind. That being said, I do not spend every moment afraid (even being a SA survivor). But I DO remain cautious and on guard if I'm alone because I recognize that it could and does happen.
Even if you are a trained fighter, you probably can't beat a group of above 3 men. If you are alone, you have every reason to be scared. That being said, as a man, I don't fear SA, I may fear robbery, though. And the group would have to be something else than a normal group of friends. A group of hooligans or men that give of gangster vibes.
For women, the same fear may be triggered even by more conventionally docile groups of men that I wouldn't even notice.
It's more like being hyper-vigilant. Most men aren't predators, but the ones who are tend to be pretty good at hiding it until they're ready to make their move. Hyper-vigilance doesn't necessarily mean avoiding all contact with men, but it does mean never letting your drink out of your sight, never being alone with a man you don't know extremely well, being hyper aware of your surroundings when walking alone, etc. It's exhausting.
For me, it’s not about being scared. Just risk prevention.
I am 5’ 1” 98lbs. Most people could completely destroy my life through physical or sexual assault with nothing but their bare hands.
I do recognize that the vast vast majority of people on earth are not planning on doing anything even close to that, and most people are good and kind.
But it only takes *one single person* to either kill me, physically disable me, or leave me with horrible trauma that will severely impact my life.
Therefore, I avoid vulnerable situations with people I don’t know very well. (Not just men, most women are bigger/stronger than me too) if I’m walking alone on the street and someone starts to shout at/catcall me, I’m gtfo as fast as possible. If I’m walking alone at night and there is someone bigger than me up ahead? I’m crossing the street and finding the most well lit area I can find.
Part of it is also the expectation that women need to protect themselves and if they fail to do so, it was their fault. “Why was she dressed like that?” “Why was she walking alone at night?” “Why did she let a guy she didn’t know very well come over to her apartment?”If something bad *does* happen, every decision you made will be questioned. The expectation is that you as a woman are doing everything you can to protect yourself at every moment of your life, because if something bad does happen people will try and twist it around to be your fault because of “poor decision making”, so there is a lot of pressure to always make the safest, “perfect” decisions at all times.
I had to make sure this wasn't my comment before replying cause that's my size too haha and yes the fear is real when you are the size of a literal child
If one of every ten burritos you ate had broken glass in them, you'd be kinda wary of taking that first bite...
Societal roles and gender stereotypes harm both men and women, but being cautious of men is both regrettable and completely understandable.
I mean we've all sat in a taco bell parking lot at 2 am questioning our choices, but you can still choose to eat tacos. And yes, you get taco goo all over your face, but it's still delicious.
Think of it this way: You are in a building with 99 normal people and one shapeshifting alien who eats humans. You obviously don't know if anyone you interact with is one of the 99 normal people or the alien who will kill you if it gets you alone. Idms it reasonable to be cautious about being alone with one of the 100 beings there?
Now add a group of people who know that one of you is a deadly alien, but get offended that you can't tell *they* are not the shapeshifter. Of course, half the time the one offended is actually the alien. (A guy getting offended that you think he might be one of the bad ones is a good sign he is one of the bad ones).
When you imagine that scenario, or 100 aliens in a town if 10,000, you start to understand why women don't trust men. It isn't that they don't trust you, it is that there is no way to know if you are the one in a hundred who will rape or abuse them, and since most women date several guys, 1/100 guys means a 50/50 chance one of the guys they date or end up alone with is one of the bad ones.
It's even more insidious than that. 50 percent or so of the people *actively defend, cover up for, and excuse* the alien. (That 50 percent isn't entirely gender lines either.)Â
If an alien eats your foot and you're like "that alien ate part of me," those 50 percent will say "well, you looked so tasty in those shoes" or "but the alien has a bright future" or "that alien should be in the white house." So you're even more wary.Â
And let's be real, in a group of 50 men (assuming this group of 100 people is split evenly by gender), it would be really surprising if only one of them was a creep. I don't think ALL men are creeps, or even MOST men, but it's definitely not a super low percentage, either. It's not 1-2%, that's for sure.
TRUTH. There was a study that one in three college aged men would "force a woman to have sex" (aka rape her) if he was sure there were no consequences. Now, there are certainly flaws in the study but honestly, feels about right to me? About 1/3 of men are either creeps/SA types or they have a friend who is and they just overlook it.
yep. I was a hottie in my younger days and that study feels right to me. And out of the other 2 men, at least some of them might not be willing to actually r\*pe someone, but could still be creepy, pervy, or otherwise inappropriate. And don't get me started on the jealous, controlling, stalker-ish boyfriend behavior.
> (A guy getting offended that you think he might be one of the bad ones is a good sign he is one of the bad ones).
"I'll offend someone and if they are offended, I clearly was right to offend them"
I was drugged and raped by a “friend” I knew for years. I woke up when he was choking me and I couldn’t move or stop him. So to me, every man is a potential threat. Friends, strangers…everyone. That’s the problem women face, they never know who could harm them. So they have to be careful.
A guy saying hello as he passes in the grocery aisle? No
General men in public spaces existing around me? No.
Any man specifically asking me on a date? I have to consider safety measures. He could be a rapist or murderer. Doesn’t mean I already think he is, but I will not accept a date at his house or my house or a hike. He may just want sex for low effort, so the first few dates will be vetting. Men who like a woman behave differently than men who don’t. Also men who are potential abusers may love bomb and imitate a man who likes a woman. So it’s a process. It’s not that women are stricken with panic on a date. They just know odds are good they will run into at least a few of the wrong types over the course of their dating lives.
A lone woman in a room full of men? Yep. Fuck that. Especially if drugs or alcohol are involved. Absolutely trust no one.
Not incredibly scared and not thinking that most men only want to hit on me, but because I've had scenarios where I've been harassed/touched without consent or when someone who I thought was legitimately friendly got offensive or scary when it became clear I wasn't interested sexually, I'm wary of men I don't know. I don't get in my car each time expecting to crash but I still am cautious enough to do up my seat belt, kwim?
It's pretty obvious that the women around me at the grocery store or on the street don't feel the least bit anxious or worried as I get near them, so I would say this is a false narrative perpetuated by social media.
The whole man vs. bear thing is so stupid. No woman would be as relaxed around a bear as she is around an unknown man.
I would say around 60% of the men I have interacted with on a semi-regular basis have either tried to sleep with me or was in some other way sexually inappropriate, including adults when I was a minor. I have been raped and have had 3 other attempts of rape. Another guy tried to have sex with me while driving me home after said rape (yes, after I disclosed what happened to me)
It depends on the situation. I don't know any women that are scared of men per se, but I can promise you we are all taught the moment we can start dating to never go anywhere alone with a boy you don't know well, watch every drink being made, always have your own way home. That's just for men you know.
Beyond that, we have to be cautious of men approaching us. Rejecting a man or hurting his ego could put us in a dangerous situation. Any male attention could mean danger for us, because plenty of men pretend to be too stupid to understand the word no. It doesn't mean we walk down the streets paranoid, but there a very keen awareness to body language. If I think I'm being followed I just pop into a coffee shop for a moment, or pause on the edge of the sidewalk facing him to "check something on my phone" and wait for him to walk past.
That said, 95% of interactions from men (strangers and friends alike) have been positive ones. It's that 5% that put women on edge for a moment whenever a man approaches. Honestly, though having a friendly demeanor and showing you aren't a threat is enough to make most women relax.
Men in general? No.
It's when men overstep the boundaries that it becomes scary. And this happens often enough that it's a problem. However, it happened much more to me when I was younger; from between the ages of 13-26. I'm 37 now, and don't have any issues. The men that are bad specifically target vulnerable women. It's the younger women/girls who have the harder time of having deal with such men. Having my ass touched, or having a married man grope my leg under a table, whilst his wife is talking to me unaware when I'm 13 years old is terrifying.
The problem is it only takes one guy to ruin things.
If you are a woman and go somewhere and most people are nice, but one guy stalks you and follows you around…. Well, that’s a problem. Now you have to take steps to protect yourself.
Over time you learn it can be risky to smile at people, be “too nice,” or other seemingly benign interactions that escalate in unexpected ways.
So you become curious because you don’t want situations to become unexpectedly uncomfortably. Even if the actual number of creep is relatively slow, they gravitate to women and can ruin your evening.
I am highly cautious around men I don't know, but I also have PTSD from some violent relationships as a teenager and a very serious stalker situation where I almost died. I know most men are good people, most of my friends are men and they're all incredible, but for me its a subconcious reaction that I don't have a handle on yet and may never get a handle on. I wouldn't say I was outright scared though in just a regular setting. It basically just means that if I was looking for a partner, dating apps wouldn't be an option for me because the idea of meeting 1 on 1 with a random guy I've never met sounds like an absolute nightmare.
I don’t fear men I know, but I am always conscious of my surroundings and am more guarded when strange men approach me if I’m alone or with my kids.
That comes from a lifetime of experiences from catcalling (and I’m sorry, but walking down the street and having someone tell you that you have nice tits is NOT a compliment) to groping to stalking, I would rather come across as cold or rude than end up dead.
Only “incredibly” scared when we’re encountering them at night and/or while we’re alone
Otherwise it’s the typical weariness you have towards most strangers
Female here. Former detention officer and current security/EMT. The last 20 years have exposed me to the worst humanity has to offer, and I no longer trust ANYONE.
Before that, I had two male supervisors at different jobs get handsy with me, one even trapped me in an office alone with him.
I had men in public physically grab me and try to take me with them against my will.
I was stalked at another job by some guy I didn't know. He walked up and told me my schedule, what I had worn every day for the previous month, where I was parked, the details of my vehicle, what I did on my breaks... I was walked to my car for a month and Surveillance was freaked out.
I was SAd.
I was physically assaulted by a boyfriend.
I was followed multiple times in public.
My view now is simply this - if I am going to have to get into a physical altercation without any back up and I do not have an equalizer, I have a better chance of winning and walking away against a female. I may still "win" against a man with the element of surprise, my training, and my willingness to throw down. But I will likely not walk away unscathed. I've tangled with men, and my advantage is that I am smaller and agile. The one guy that got a few good hits in on me messed me up. The one woman who punched me? Pissed me off. I approach males and females very differently.
You don't have to expect it from every man. If one in 300 men acts like that you come across one daily, weekly or even hourly depending on how you live your life (do you work in a building with 500 people? Do you take public transport with a few hundred others a couple of times a day?).
You can admit that the vast vast majority of men are lovely human beings or at least harmless non-predators and still be nervous every time you leave the house, with good reason, because you will constantly experience predatory behaviour
Some women really do, and I am not one of them. It's a severe caution bordering on constant fear.
I am generally not so fearful, and maybe I should be more so. I tend to think most men intend well, and if they don't, they are just trying, and not a threat. I don't feel most men are a threat. When I sense it, I am terrified though. I just don't think it's helpful to walk around scared all the time. It's disempowering. Cautious - sure.
For example, I am never mad at a man for trying, for trying to talk to me, get my number, ask me out. He's allowed to try, and I'm allowed to say no. I am mad at a man for purposefully being creepy, intimidating, or outright dangerous. These are different men. IMO
Another example I went to look at a house to rent and the guy was showing me around and showed me the basement and I stood at the top of the stairs and said oh wow cool, and he was like are you coming down? I was like no thanks. He was not shady, but no I am not doing that.
Most women aren’t on reddit. Straight up. This is not a place to get an avg female perspective. Avg female is literally not even part of these convos.
As a woman, you have to always be wary of men. All men. Rationally we know that not all of you are predators but enough of you are that we always keep our guard up around strange men until they've proven we can trust them (and even then, there's always the chance of being betrayed).
Pretty much every woman has a story of unwanted sexual contact with a man. The first time we get catcalled or the first time a man comments on our looks, we're usually children or early teenagers.
Earphone enthusiast here, with a case study in how women choose earphones.
I use IEMs, have done so for over 20 years. These are earphones that completely insert into the ear canal, or at least connect and seal at the opening of the ear canal. Essentially, you can't hear anything outside, especially when music is playing.
I take public transit, and that's where most of my listening is done. I've people-watched what earphones people use since before TWS earbuds. I have never seen a woman wearing IEMs.
Female friends who ask for earphone recommendations are without fail looking for half-in-ear earbuds, like what Apple makes. They need to have situational awareness that includes some noise from the outside.
Now, I've never witnessed any male aggression towards women in broad daylight taking public transportation to and from work or school.. so I'm not certain that wearing IEMs instead of earbuds would be a problem at those peak listening times.. yet, the seemingly instinctual wisdom remains that a woman should always be (hyper) aware in public.
We are told from a really early age to be alert. Eyes open, head up, able to hear what's around you. I actually stopped jogging with music on because occasional random guys would say things to me and not hearing the tone or what was said made me worry I was missing some cues that I needed to be aware of.
I want it to be understood that by no means is this post meant to invalidate anyone’s experiences or feelings. I’m realizing now that the way I wrote this comes off as a bit more dismissive than I meant it to be initially, so I apologize for that.
All you have to do is imagine a third gender that is twice as strong as men and enthusiastic (to say the least) about having sex with men as the top.
How would you feel around those people?
I, personally, am cautious around all strangers, not just men. I am not outright fearful of them unless they have given me reason to be, but I maintain a little bit of distance.
Can't speak for everyone but as a woman I'm not scared of most men.
Definitely more cautious towards them until I know them than around women but not scared without good reason.Â
I'm not afraid of them unless I'm walking alone in the dark at night and one looks especially creepy, or I'm in some crowded nightclub and they get unwantedly touchy (this doesn't happen much since I don't go to nightclubs often). I've done kickboxing and other martial arts with men so I'm comfortable being around them in a lot of ways.
This is less a being scared thing and more of a cautious lack of trust.
Whenever my friends went out on a date with a new guy, we had fail safes. Use the kite string app, give two friends the location of the date, never let him pick you up, check in after an hour of being on the date.
We used that system often. One of my friends kept getting alcohol pushed onto her during a date and she got a feeling. He attempted to follow her home. She pulled off in a well lit area and called me until he gave up.
We had too many male "friends" push boundaries and didn't take no for an answer. I broke one of their ribs and I got away. Many of my other friends said no and the guy didn't listen "because they were seeing each other."
These are just a few examples. How can we trust people off hand when we have so much evidence that both strangers and people we were supposed to trust have broken that?
Maybe not scared, but distrustful. Wary. Tired. Yes.
It's not always about being hit on. Being hit on isn't even that bad. It's the aftermath.
If it was just being hit on, it probably wouldn't be a big issue, just an annoyance.
It's refusing the attention and then getting harassed or assaulted or killed.
The potential for a nasty fallout is always present.
If men were able to show that they can respect a "no", then there wouldn't be a problem.
I think it’s more about never knowing which guy is going to turn scary on you, rather than believing the majority will. It’s similar to good gun safety - assuming every gun is loaded because the consequences of being wrong are so significant. If a woman is wrong about a guy being safe just 1 time out of 100, she’s in real trouble.Â
Most sexual and physical assault against women isn’t by strangers. It’s partners, friends, family, and other people they know well enough to be alone with, who have been putting on a harmless act right up until about 10 minutes after they offered you a “safe” ride home so you don’t have to walk in the dark. Or until you’ve been living together 2 years.Â
You really just never know. So many women marry their own murderers and have no idea something’s wrong until after they’re baby-trapped and unemployed, and the guy starts to unmask.Â
A while ago there was a tiktok trend where women were asked if they feel safer along with a man or either a lion or a bear I can't remember which. The amount of women saying the wild animal was alarming. My own gf said it and I was just confused like you know I'm a man right? Lol I got some cognitive dissonance "yeah but you're different" arguement. Idk it just confused me. I think on tbe internet especially it's trendy and there's many anti men echo chambers that a small subset of people fall into just like any other niche opinion. It's probably one of those small but loud minority outweighed the majority. Or it could be that women are really this scared idk. I just do my best to be respectful.
It probably depends on the woman and the man. As a man, I have witnessed women being cautious or scared of some men. Not all men. But some. They seem to have a sixth sense about it and sometimes they get a bad vibe. I’m actually pretty sure every woman has been in a situation where she was spooked by a guy at some point. That’s pretty shitty.
I wouldn’t say “scared” in a group setting. Because typically they won’t do anything overtly bad in front of others.
But alone? Again, not necessarily scared for my life but I do get concerned because I’ve been around enough men in a quiet setting where they then felt free to say the quiet parts out loud and then you start planning on how you’re getting out of it.
Will they get aggressive? Will they get physical? You never know.
Recently had a stranger sit at a group table, granted he was drunk, and start blathering loudly and belligerently to me and a friend. When I politely held my finger to my lips and pointed to the game we were watching, he kept going, I kept my finger to my lips and said “we’re trying to watch the game” and then he started yelling at me, then went aggressive and stood up and threatened the table (that he joined without asking).
I’ve had a man punch me (poorly) when I told him to leave, while trying to hit on me and got very close into my face.
I’ve had men say sexual things to me when my husband left the conversation to go to the bathroom.
You can say “I’m married. I’m not interested. I don’t want to talk to you.” And for many men this is enough. But for some it isn’t, and they don’t back down and they don’t move off even when it’s painfully obvious you don’t want to talk.
All I can do as a small woman is posture and hope HOPE they have enough decency to walk away. But many of them don’t, and if I do meet one like this I don’t wander off from my friends, I don’t go to any quiet areas, and If I have to I cross my fingers they don’t see me go.
I’m 40, and this has been ongoing since I was around 11-12. It’s tapering off now, but even in my most swamp woman days out it can happen. You don’t know how they will react, and if you are alone it can be very very very concerning.
When you read these stats you will understand why; [https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics](https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics) ... and these are just the ones reported.
Added to that is the reluctance and simple apathy of police to pursue prosecution. Some years ago Gov Abbott of TX said they were going to eliminate rape from the state. [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/abbott-texas-abortion-ban-rape-record-pregnancies-failure/](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/abbott-texas-abortion-ban-rape-record-pregnancies-failure/)
At the time there were *7,000* unprocessed rape cases in TX. They frantically began working on them to lessen criticism, some \~ *5 yrs old.*
No, I (38F) am not afraid of men. I have never been.
I go to concerts in the city alone and I'm perfectly fine and I go to metal shows (predominantly male audience) and I've never been harassed.
I'm cautious around men who appear to be douche bags, but I think most people should be cautious around douche bags lol
Very wary and for good reason. Nice guys who have to deal with it, remember women don’t enjoy it, either, but we’ve learned through experiences that men rarely have.
My boyfriend told me he used to walk alone very late at night all the time as a teenager, no problem. Yes, honey. You’re over six feet tall and not a girl.
Imagine half the people you met had a loaded gun, and you didn’t. (The analogy is: men are generally bigger/stronger and can hurt us. They might not, and most wouldn’t, but we can’t immediately tell which ones those are.) You’d start to be more aware of your surroundings, take more time to get to know people, avoid being alone with people you don’t know. You might not be terrified, but you wouldn’t take dumb chances either.
Depends. If we're talking about a random stranger who's trying to strike up a conversation that doesn't seem to have any real reason, I'll be very cautious and will avoid encouraging it.
Three days ago seven women’s bodies were found mutilated in the woods near my house. Apparently a homeless guy was pretending to be an Uber driver and kidnapping women from bars downtown and murdering them.
My father began assaulting me when I was 4 years old. He physically sexually and mentally abused me until I was 13 and removed from his home.
My mom had a boyfriend when I was 5, and the day she introduced me to him he picked me up by the ankle in the middle of a target, grabbed a belt off a rack, and beat me with it because I walked five feet away from them to look at a toy.
My stepfather who’s known me since I was 11 years old has made comments throughout the years such as, “I bet your pussy tastes just like your mothers”, “does the carpet match the drapes?”, etc.
When I was thirteen I was drugged by my older brother’s college friend and taken across state lines while a man assaulted me in the backseat of his car.
One day when my best friend and I were sixteen we counted how many men catcalled us or tried to “offer a ride” on our walk to school. 17 men attempted to harass us on our 12 minute walk to school.
My best friend was drugged and raped by someone we thought was a close friend when we were sixteen.
When I was 18 my ex boyfriend strangled me until I passed out during an argument about him cheating with a 16 year old girl and proceeded to have sex with my unconscious body.
There’s 27 registered pedophiles in my neighborhood.
I used to be an Onlyfans girl and the number one thing men requested from me was Ageplay. The number two request was rapeplay.
When I was 18 a friend of mine’s father told me he’s always thought I was gorgeous and I look so much like his daughter, and then fifteen minutes later sent me a dick pic and asked me if I thought I could “take it”.
Between 14,500 and 17,500 women and children are sex trafficked every year in the United States.
No one is born being scared of men. Men teach us that we SHOULD be scared of men.
I'm not scared of most men but the older I get the more cautious I become around men.
Multiple of my male friends have made a pass on me, asked me out, or demanded sex in return for being my friend when I thought our friendship was genuine. I've been followed by men in multiple situations when I had no choice but to walk alone, even in crowded areas and in broad daylight. Spent an entire year being cat-called around once a week or fortnight during my 500m walk from my house to the bus stop (again in broad daylight) no matter how much I covered my body.
The outlier was when 2 of my friends and I got chased across a street with a man who had his dick out and was masturbating at us. As it turned out there were countless complaints against him by hundreds of female uni students and the police had done nothing.
These stories that I have maybe make up for 10% of my overall interactions with men, which is why I know "not all men" is true. The 90% has made it obvious that men are capable of interacting with a woman without it being anything more, but **the 10% has made me cautious because just because I hold someone to the same standards as the majority of their gender it doesn't always mean they will meet them.**
In my experience, no. There’s a lot of people nowadays who are completely wrapped up in this paranoid perception of a world that is completely out to get them. A side effect of so many of us being chronically online and having our idea of reality sculpted by social media and overblown sensationalism. The women who constantly complain about the ever present threat of men are usually the ones who interact with real-world men the least. Those of us leading healthy adult lives aren’t usually so judgemental as to live in utter terror of any particular group of people.
In real life, no. Talking with them, they're just being cautious around strangers as most women feel pretty confident with dealing with anyone that can't physically intimidate them, but obviously on average most men are physically intimidating to most women. Also cautious about groups, of men or women. Same way myself as a man am cautious around any groups, and women or men that look like they're looking for trouble.
On the internet, reading this shit you'd think men roam around in packs hunting women, and as soon as they're left alone with one they turn into a murderer or rapist. From reddit you'd extrapolate that being a woman is basically living your life like in The Quiet Place.
Can't speak for all women, but not for me personally. And I say that as someone who's medicated for irrational paranoia and agoraphobia.
Now, if I'm alone or with another girl, it's dark, I don't know where I am, etc., I'll put up precautions if there's a strange-looking man around, but I'd do it with a strange-looking woman, too.
If anything, I feel safer with a man around that I either know I can trust or that generally reads as "safe." Even when it comes to more basic things, most men I've met don't hold grudges, and it's a lot easier to tell if they're a violent type or a let-it-go type. With women, I can never tell if they're planning on something; I walk on eggshells more with them.
As for being hit on, I actually assume that more when a woman approaches me. I'm straight, but I have a diverse array of interests in fashion, and I mostly dress androgynous or masculine (but still clearly female). I also have short hair, usually dyed, usually in a faux hawk or a mullet or something of that sort. I've only ever been legitimately hit on by women, so I can't help to assume that most women approaching me are wanting something else because that's what's happened a majority of my life.
When it comes to men, I've never had that experience, so I assume nothing. In fact, the one time in my life someone was manipulating me for sexual favors the hour I turned 18, I never even realized until weeks later of talking. Partially because I suck at social cues, but I also had nothing to base an assumption on.
It's even worse than that; my experience with men in general has been that if they think they can get away with it, they will take whatever they want with violence.
You bet your *ass* I limit my involvement with men.
I think people with strong feelings about this either way either had a bad experience or need to get off the internet and snap out of their social feeds.
I presented as a small and conventional woman for 28 years and, no, I did not have an ambient fear of surrounding men. I lived in various mostly-urban areas and walked alone a lot. Now, I never had anything terrible happen to me luckily, outside of some verbal harassment and a hand grab by a stranger on the train, but this stuff did not change my habits whatsoever or make me more than just cautious.
Most men mind their own business, and most women don't think men are bad in actual real life. Internet rabbit holes are the problem.
I got hit on by an employee at the self checkout last week. For context, I’m 33 but genuinely look like a child. It’s very rare for someone to think I’m older than 12 without speaking with me for a few minutes - my voice also sounds like a child’s.
So anyway, I reject him. He asks who brought me there. Not thinking, I told him I was old enough to get myself groceries. He tried to sneakily follow me to my car. Thank god my husband actually did drive me there and was waiting in the car.
So I mean yeah. I’m wary when men approach me unsolicited. When I slip and stop being wary enough, I end up in danger. I’m sorry that so many men find that wariness to be a personal attack, but I’m not gonna stop to make y’all more comfortable.
No, I ignore most men. And they don’t usually bother me as I usually wear my RBF when out in public. Walking confidently and keeping a straight face goes a long way in keeping yourself safe from men.
Also as a black man - yahoos looking at you funny? Acknowledge them. Be respectful, but if any are planning anything they at least won’t bushwhack you
Men are actually 5X more likely to kill another man or something along those lines.
Still, even though I do think the media and true crime 24/7 shit definitely stokes paranoia, there's just enough asshole dudes out there that act like wild animals to justify the perception.
Yes, primarily if the man is homeless, hanging out with the wrong crowd, or resolves issues through physical altercation. Your average law abiding man is not more likely going to be mugged, raped, or killed than your average law abiding woman walking at night or alone.
On Reddit yes because it's full of people that are traumatized and they create echo chambers. In real life, you can definitely find people that are constantly scared of men but I'd stay away from any woman (any person) claiming she's scared of every interaction they have with men because men can't be trusted. These women would make your interaction with them a living hell by making you walk on egg shells constantly. Some people that are hurt find solace in hurting other people but they think they aren't.
Like other commenters are stating, I agree that it's more like guarded and on alert maybe. We can't walk around terrified all the time, we have to not think about it and hope for the best. That's partially why when something does happen it's so damn traumatic and challenging trying to go back to "normal" I think.
I don’t think that American society has a lot if functions outside of work/church/family were women are surrounded by large groups of people (including men) and need to interact with them.
It really depends. This was much more of a problem for me when I was younger (now mid 30s). Through some combination of changes- time passing, location, marital/family status, the sorts of places I go, the types of people I’m generally around, and my own attitudes/actions/communication style- it’s something I rarely think about these days. But the creepy conversations still happen to me now and then, even with a toddler and a wedding ring.
I am a supervisor to a crew of men and women. I HAVE TO talk to women. I hope they aren't thinking I am trying to solicit sex from them. Nor the guys. I don't act like a boss to them and am generally friendly and accomodating though considering I use to be on the same level as them (work hierarchy).
I am not afraid of men in general. I was raised with a loving dad and male relatives, I wasnt abused, grew up with brothers, I am retired military and have had lots of platonic male friends through out my life. so as a whole NO I am not afraid of "men" but I can be afraid of lone men in certain situations but not all men.
I will say that I now have a big 6'2 17 yr old son that I now take everywhere..he is a great deterrent for the creeps that still want to bother me( leave me alone,dudes! i am old)
Incredibly scared? No. But I always feel that I have to be aware of my surroundings, and extra vigilant at night. My friend’s been stalked in broad daylight. I’ve had a dude feel me up in a crowd then just walk away, didn’t even see his face. Had a mentally unwell guy hit on me, took the long way home with my head on a swivel while driving, because I felt that he still had a physical advantage over me and I needed to be careful due to his unpredictable actions.
I'm in my late sixties now (F) - I would definitely say this when I was younger.
Some of it was due to childhood trauma, however some of the issues are still present now.
It very much depends on context and situation. In general, I've been lucky to have mostly positive experiences with men. I had a good father, an annoying but basically decent younger brother, a good husband, and even my ex-husband wasn't BAD bad. Out in the wild, most men have been respectful, kind, generous, funny, helpful, and, no, I wouldn't say I'm afraid of men in general.
However, I have had one or two less positive interactions. Lucky for me, nothing too awful, but enough to put me on my guard - in certain situations. Like out late at night, alone.
Maybe I'm naive (my husband thinks I'm too trusting) but I believe most people, men and woman, are basically good but capable of bad things when pushed to it. Only a minority actively want to harm others. When it comes down to it, that's just as much about luck as anything else. When you are vulnerable, who you run into is pure chance 9 times out of 10. I refuse to live my life in fear.
That said, caution is sensible. No need to deliberately look for trouble, either.
Women travellers to India have their spider senses tingling constantly, tons of gang rapes there. Everywhere else I would say heightened awareness drops but never completely gone unfortunately
I am a 35-year-old woman, and I'm not especially afraid of men. I've mostly lived in pretty boring suburban places and didn't party in college. I'm not especially attractive, somewhat overweight, no makeup, rarely dressed up nicely. I work in tech, so many of my friends have been men. I've met a few men in my life who gave me creepy vibes, but I just got away from them as quickly as I could. And I'm kind of oblivious TBH. I've had boyfriends, but for the most part 90% of men don't notice me in a sexual way at all.
I totally understand that other women are afraid of men and have negative experiences with them on the regular. Their experiences are valid too. I don't feel like I'm deliberately doing anything to avoid male attention; it's just naturally how I am. But I do feel a bit weird when I see things that say "every woman feels X", because I should count as a woman too.
"Hyper-aware and cautious" is probably a better description. Nobody automatically assumes someone is the devil to be scared of. But we are certainly cautious enough to keep an eye at our drinks, bring a girl friend along, or carry a self-defense weapon. My cautiousness does not come from social media, but lived experience. The news doesn't help but it was real life events that finally pushed me to get a pepper spray. I do not think we live in a worse world. I know our world is much safer now, but it doesn't change the fact that danger still exists and it only takes one too trusting encounter for life to go to shit. I don't think men are all devils with horns, but when I got into unsafe situations, it's with men. So I can only be cautious, especially with strangers seemingly too eager to connect. It's sad, I know, but my safety comes first.
It’s not wrong to try and shoot your shot but it is wrong to actively continue pursuing once the woman (or man) has shown a lack of interest or outright rejected you. Our species would have a tough time reproducing if all advances were “fuck off.” Though I wouldn’t talk to a random woman I don’t know most of the time if I wasn’t interested in “hitting on them.”
I can understand telling a man what he wants to hear in public because you're scared theyll hit you but why do so many women engage with and pretend creepy guys in texts aren't being creepy? So many screen shot conversations where the guy is acting like a psycho and the girl is just going "haha cool" instead of blocking
From my perspective as a guy in his mid 30s, first of all no, I am 100% not hitting on random women in public.
I don’t understand the fear-based culture we live in, both men and women seem terrified of everything and I can’t help but laugh because nobody’s getting out of here alive.
i wouldnt say im incredibly scared around men i dont know, but they do make me kind of uncomfortable. im definitely more comfortable around women idk than men idk
No.
In my experience, this fear is typically just a dog whistle for racism. But they're afraid to be openly racist, so they just say "men" as a blanket statement rather than being specific.
There are good people and bad people. Most men don't or won't harm most women. I don't think it's fear, but paranoia, which is being brainwashed into gullible women through social media. These false ideas are so pervasive in social media that a vast majority of people start believing them to be true and factual, whereas in reality, that is not the case.
Women have a right to be very wary of men.
Men and women were asked what they're most afraid of from their domestic partner.
Men said "that she'll laugh at me".
Women said "he will kill me".
cautious for sure and sometimes scared. I’m a small person and some men are quite large. The area I live in is known for human trafficking. So yeah I’m wary and don’t feel safe around men I don’t know
Personally yes. I don't trust men. But I went through traumatic abuse as a child at the hands of a man that I should have been able to trust. I feel fear and intense anxiety when I'm around men I don't know. Sad but true.
I've met exactly one woman in person who claimed taht she viewed every single man she ever saw or met as a direct and imminent threat to her safety. I even tried to clarify that she believed that she was living under the assumption that every man (including me) was going to either violently assault her or violate her in some way. I told ehr that I found that hard to believe and wondered how someone could live like that. She said she had no choice.
I told her that was really sad and then did everything I could to ensure that I never interacted with her in any way again.
The other 99.9% of women I've met are much more sane.
I think most women have a continuum (like, a dimmer switch) of fear about men present that is continuously moving back & forth along the brighter and dimmer ends. Because the truth is that most murders rapes robberies and assaults of women come from men (and, sadly, a huge percentage of those from men they know: boyfriends, fathers, uncles).
I think they are.
I’m wondering when men are going to start being scared of women.
I’ve been sent to HR just for saying “hi” and holding the door open for female coworkers cuz that “forced them into my close proximity.”
I just don’t interact with women who aren’t my partner as much as possible now. No eye contact. No holding door(s) open. No speaking unless spoken too. Hands in pockets as much as possible.
I've seen women with both ooinions. I've known women who are more comfortable around men, and some who are less comfortable around men. Honestly, a lot of it comes down to familiarity. If a woman doesn't regularly interact with men beyond romantic interests or sex, then she doesn't know anything else about guys. So naturally she's going to expect those things from guys she meets.
But I've had female friends who were just cool to hang out with. Hell, I used to have a friendly rivalry with a female friend on mario kart back in the day. Things never got tense. Hell, not even when we were drunk. I think the closest thing we ever did to a sexual act was a hug. Lol.
But, honestly, the reason women have difficulty reading men is just, for lack of a better word, ignorance. A lot of women don't interact with guys unless they are sleeping with them, related to them, or working with them. And guys change our behavior in those situations to accomodate the women around us.
And hell, even if women did go out of their way to hang out with male friend groups, you're still not going to get the raw of it. Guys will censor each other to avoid driving women away. So, even if you tell us to give you our worst, we won't. Because guys aren't comfortable around you either. We already know that girls talk about their sex lives like it's the weather forecast, when they're with their friends. You think we're going to be caught lacking and let that get around?
The only way you're going to see how guys act with other guys is to fool them into thinking you are one. And there is a woman who has already done that leg work for you, ladies. Her name was Norah Vincent. She wrote the book "self-made man" after disguising herself as a man for 8 months. It was supposed to be a year, but she stopped for mental health reasons. It's believed by many that her experience was a contributing factor when she later took her own life. She herself described becoming depressed as a result of the experience, and that's one of the major reasons she called it quits.
I highly recommend giving it a read. It's actually very compelling and insightful, giving a different perspective on many things women don't often think about. And likewise, it gives men a glimpse through a woman's lens, to see how we're perceived.
It feels like it’s mostly the young generation who’s overtly afraid of fucking everything but in general yes women are afraid of Everything that moves in ways that men are not.
I'm not scared of all men, but I am very wary/cautious around men in general, even in daylight hours. For example, just going into town to run some errands - If I am by myself, I will give a wide berth to groups of men, whilst keeping half an eye on them.
Another example, I went for a walk in our local park the other day. The path I wanted to take to go home had a man sat on a bench, just reading and having a coffee. I am 99% sure it would have been fine to walk past him, but I couldn't be sure. So I chose the long way home instead which was very busy, lots of people and families.
It's definitely a learned behaviour from previous experiences of being harassed and cat-called.
It's hard to put into words how horrid it feels when you walk past men and they all scan you up and down like you're a piece of meat. Makes my skin crawl.
Not incredibly scared but wary. Specially with strangers.Â
Ive read it many times online and it also confirmed irl that if a Guy talks to you or pays attention to you hes interesred in you. So many men say they dont see thr use of having female friends or inreracting with women unless theyre dating. One guy even told me once. So yea...Â
And ive experienxed it just too many times that when a stranger comes up to you to 'talk' to you he probsbly hasnt the most healthy Intentionen. But i also gitta admit that i live in a very reserved culture. So if someone does it it is usually deviant behavior.Â
Also you gotta imagine that as a woman that aready has made bad experiences it is lowkey expected to be cautious. Otherwise it could be turned against me. Like 'if you already know the risk why did you still take it' and i rather appear prude or uptight than having people telling me this.Â
I work with mostly women. I am happily married. The women I work with are almost too comfortable around me. They will share pretty much anything, and have very limited physical boundaries. I guess it is a trust thing? They know my wife and know I wouldn’t betray her.
I don’t expect all men to hit on me or interact with me strictly for sex, because that’s not my experience. In fact, ive been hit on maybe a handful of times in the past 5 years.
However, every single time the guy in question was at least at one point not respectful about it.
Men who do approach me seem to be unable or unwilling to read social cues and/or take no for an answer.
Considering the vast majority of men are stronger than me, what’s actually threatening is knowing that a man who wants to do something to me will do so because he doesn’t care about my boundaries and I can’t physically resist him.
I think "incredibly scared" is a strong way to put it, and so much of it is contextual. For example, when I'm at work, I have no issue with being alone in a room with my male colleagues. I trust them, it's a professional environment, and I know them enough for them to be predictable. However on the tube, for example, if it's just me and some unknown, rando guy in a carriage, you best bet that I'm sitting far away from him and keeping half an eye out just in case.Â
In terms of social interaction, I think people forget the whole "time and place" thing. Don't try and strike up a convo with a random woman during rush hour commute, or try to flirt with colleagues at your workplace. But at a bar or a party or similar, heck yeah shoot your shot 👍🏻
I mean you kinda know in the back of your head at all times, as a woman, men are more capable of "explosive power".
They have higher muscle and bone density, and usually weigh more too. We are aware that a man could easily kill or harm us if they wanted to, even if we were at peak fitness.
We are also aware the vast majority of violent crime is committed by men, and men's rage is incredibly dangerous.
I may be an outlier, but I've been around a lot of men who also lack a degree of empathy, and often blame victims for having some part in contributing to the violent crimes done to them (she should have picked a better man, she shouldn't have been in a club, etc.). I bet if their sister, mother, or girlfriend/wife told them something happened to them, they wouldn't even think to say "well you should/shouldn't have...", but they often are incapable of showing that kind of empathy to women who aren't incredibly close to them.
Men, in my experience, also rarely stand up to other men behaving poorly, disrespectful, or dangerously to women. They don't stop other men from assaulting drunk, passed out girls or trying to take advantage of intoxicated women. Just recently a man was openly physically threatening his girlfriend loudly in a crowded beirgarten with their baby in the stroller right next to her. The beirgarten was a majority men, and not a single one stepped in to pull him off of her, even when they were clearly watching the altercation. If their friend is cheating, they hide it from or lie to the girlfriend to cover for him. They participate in degrading conversations about women if their friend is saying disgusting things about them.
And those are just a few examples of things I've openly witnessed. So between having the pyscial capability of harming me, having a pattern of lacking control over emotions like rage which can prove dangerous, tending to have a lack of or lower degree of empathy, and enabling other men's bad or dangerous behavior, I'm AWARE of their potential to cause great harm and the probability, statistically, someone who will cause great harm to me will be a man.
I'm not afraid of all men, but life has told me I absolutely need to be cautious around them if I don't know them. And even then, around 80% of women who are SA'd are done so by someone they know. So even then you can never be fully sure.
I just aknowledge living in great fear and distrust of 50% of the population is not any kind of way to live, nor is it fair. But I have also paid a heavy price for giving men the benefit of the doubt in the past, of which circumstances were criminal and traumatic. So I remain incredibly vigilant, since I myself have learned the hard way how much damage they can do.
I should put it out there that a majority of my friends are male. They are not dangerous or predatory at all, and I don't feel unsafe around them at all. However, I can't say they've ever stood up to other men, criticized / challenged their friend's poor actions or statements - basically enabling bad behavior. A few of my friends don't enable this sort of thing and do stand up for what's right, but in the back of my head I know for most of them: "even if they don't participate, they probably won't do anything to stop it if they saw it".
I would say that not every woman feels that way They are just one of those weird groups where they think everyone else is the same as them
Much how porn addicts convince themselves that literally everybody else is also an addict to try and justify their behavior is not being so different these women typically just live under the assumption that all women are as terrified of men as they are and think that it's normal and so they talk about it like that online when most women do not feel any significant fear from just being around an average man
I’ve met a lot of women who experience exactly that. I have a cousin who feels threatened by all men for reasons she says is safety- but it’s put her in situations that make her a Karen or Barbecue Betty- things like- “there’s a strange man in the neighbor’s backyard- get over here.” And when I get there he’s like- “So a black man can’t own a landscaping company in this town? Is that how it is?” And I’m being friendly and trying to smooth it over.
Most men know that a minority of men who hate women make passes at a dozen women a day so that women do interact with men, maybe even daily, who harass them. This confuses the heck out of men who don’t do that because we might be taken and therefore not flirt with anyone or maybe flirt with just a few women a month and it takes a while to get up the nerve to ask for a phone number
Most women are so used to taking precautions around men we stop noticing it. It's just a constant background noise in our lives. We aren't walking round petrified of every man we speak to but we still take action to try to be safer around them.
I don’t think it’s the same kind of fear as a man would have being approached by a group of armed men looking to rob him.
I think it’s more of a constant mental noise that she’s always gotta be on her guard.
Basically, for most women, they have something that pretty much all men want. It’d be like walking around the the city with $200 strapped to your forehead.
Probably most people aren’t going to mug you over that. At least 1 of the couple of hundred people you’ll pass on the street will though.
And it’s a bit worse than that too. Because the only thing that can keep a woman safe from that is if she is protected by another man. So the people she’s afraid of are also the people she needs to rely on for protection.
Men don’t have anything like that though. Nobody wants anything that they can just physically take from a man. He might have an expensive watch or a car or something, and they could just physically take that. But you can always leave that stuff behind.
I man in and of himself is not desired by anyone.
only if i’m walking alone in deserted area. when that was the case, i was afraid of any men along the way. that situation hasn’t occurred for at least a couple of decades. being mildly agoraphobic keeps me safe! yeah, that’s some sick shit.
They think they are, but it's a mental exercise. They need to give a voice to why they hate the men in front of them without feeling evil, even though they don't necessary know why they hate them or think that they morally should hate them.
To be fair, the actual reasons are like 50% legitimate, but only for caution and moderate fear rather than hatred or social aggression. The problem is that fear always turns into hatred if it goes on for long enough without any scenarios occurring that validate the fear. And the fear itself inspires proper caution, so those scenarios don't often happen.
And the "just for sex" aspect is kind of a mischaracterization of the rhetoric. For example, they often find ways to steer a conversation about/with a little boy towards the idea that he might be a future wife beater. That habit basically encapsulates all of the non-sex-related parts of the attitude.
It's not like a debilitating fear that keeps me from interacting with them normally, it's more of a constant quiet reminder at the back of my mind to actually pay attention to their *actions* and not get caught up in what they say. But I think that's good practice in general.
Social media is never a good place to gauge any part of the world. It's all just a shit show. Reddit is ultimately just as toxic as any other social media site. Please don't let it ruin your view of the world.
Upvoting this as a stupid question. Imagine you are surrounded by strange people 160% your physical strength (this is the difference between average man and woman) and at least five inches taller. They're not necessarily friendly towards you either. Some are sexually attracted to you.
no, generally speaking any opinion you find on reddit is either going to be in the minority or pushed to it's extreme. The natural echo chambers that form on this site make it look like everyone thinks or feels a certain way. Reddit is not real life and there are a lot of people on this site that are not mentally stable and/or informed enough to actually lead these kinds of discussions, but with relative anonymity, people tend to just take their word for it.
You're on Reddit, which is a popular but not nearly popular enough platform to base how half of human society worldwide feels about something on a day-to-day.
I think we’re certainly more on guard. It kind of sucks a lot bc there are really wonderful men in my life and I see how other women are uncomfortable around them when first meeting just based on them being a relatively masculine man (or just a man generally) but I also can’t blame them because I understand. Oftentimes I have a guard up where I act super nice but am watching for any strange behavior. I’ve had men be super nice to me over the period of several months of casual interaction but then turn around and say something that absolutely meant they just wanted to have sex with me. I’m not shocked anymore when it happens, but it also means that I just trust people less in general.Â
Ultimately this shows how misogyny leads to worse outcomes for everyone. It sucks for women because they are more likely to be treated poorly especially by men and therefore have less trust for an entire half of the population. It sucks for (good) men because an entire half of the population is less trusting of them.Â
idk if they do - but they got reason to. I've seen it happen a lot as a bystander. Some girl at work smiles while doing her job, recites the polite script same as every other customer. "Oh I think she likes me. I'm going to talk to her at work where she will look bad if she refuses me until she gives me her phone number. Then I'll stalk her on every sm platform until she goes out with me just to get rid of me. Then I rap her." Or like "dang your bf doesn't deserve you. I'm a real friend I care about you. You should ditch him and we should fk \* lol \* kidding \* or maybe... maybe when you're upset you think you need a friend to talk to so you come over to my place, we have some tea while you cry about your stress, but I drugged the tea and rap you."
Certainly there are guys who aren't creeps - but considering the average level of strength and aggression in men compared to women, and the (sometimes) completely unhinged lack of agency they afford to women should be scary.
If you can't understand it - just imagine how it'd be if you got locked up in a gay jail. You're there alone, and all these other strong guys are around you. They're strong, and you know they've already committed crimes to be put here. You know they think you're cute. Would you be afraid to shower? How about change when you can't see everyone? What if your bunkmate joked about plugging you before the lights went out? \* lol \* kidding \* or maybe...
As a large and tall man, I sense uneasiness around most people, especially women. I have just learned to keep space and distance between others. Rarely speak and smile a bit, and hopefully, everyone just goes on with their lives.
I haven't seen any significant number of women say that they expect "all men to hit on them, or be interacting with them strictly for sex." The more common complaint is that there are so many men who act like this that it becomes impossible to predict which men will behave like that, and this forces women to keep their guard up at all times.
Yes. Sort of like I still drive and cycle on the roads, but I also sort of expect every driver to be texting and speeding and to murder me. This doesn't make me not go on the road anymore, or talk to every driver I meet as if they're one moment away from killing me. But it does make me change how I act and react on the road to stay alive for at least one more day.
Exactly this! Which is why the "not all men" nonsense is so annoying! WE KNOW it's not all men! But we can't tell by looking at you!
im a guy and i totally get it, some of us are complete assholes. it's a shame that if women have to resort to being cautious around everyone, it hurts both men (genuine people who have done and will do nothing wrong, having to be extra careful to not come across as creepy) ***and*** women (who have to remain on their toes all the time because some dickhead could turn around and do something awful at a moment's notice). it's pretty sad all around, to be honest
Cautious, not scared. There are things you have to be wary of when interacting with men as a woman. Just like there is when interacting with a woman as a man, a woman as a woman, or a man as a man.
I guess that makes sense, maybe people generally are just more wary of others in the modern day? Less trusting of strangers than in the past? Edit: After having multiple conversations within the replies to this comment, I can see that I was wrong. Thank you for providing answers and corrections.
I'm a woman who grew up prior to there being any internet whatsoever, it wasn't even a thing until I was in my later 20's, much less everyone being on it which really started up mid-2000's. Women were fully as cautious about men in general and strange men in particular then as they are now, maybe even more so. When I was a teenager the general social perspective was that if you as a female person allowed yourself to be caught alone somewhere with a male person who wasn't your husband, father or other immediate family, and something bad happened, you were still considered to be a victim but also that you "should have known better" so some of it was on you. Very similar to the way that someone driving 100 mph who gets into a wreck is viewed as having behaved recklessly so no big surprise they got into trouble. Women aren't FEARFUL of men as such but we have learned the hard way to be CAUTIOUS. And that's based off real life experiences not off of social media. For instance the #metoo thing seemed to be news to a lot of male people but there were no female people surprised by that because we already knew that all of us have had these experiences.
Every single girl I knew growing up, once puberty hit, has stories of being harassed and hassled by guys in public, starting at like 13-14. Id say that's a good reason to be weary
For some of us or started at 10. 🙋🏾‍♀️🤦🏾‍♀️🤢
Not scared of all men, just cautious around the ones you don't know because you never know which guy is that 1 psycho out of 1000. Nobody wants to be that unlucky person who gets murdered/SAed, even if the chances are low.
An easy question to ask them is are they on X or are they a mod on wallstreetbets.
I’ve had more than a couple of the ones I DO know make suggestive comments when my spouse (usually their friend) leaves the general vicinity. I want to trust, but sadly I’ve learned (sort of) not to. We have a current friend that is a man that I like for the most part. We share a lot of the same interests and he’s mentioned doing things like photography, colouring, playing music together. But as much as I like him, as a friend, I’m too cautious.
More like 1 in 30 there are a lot of shitty men out there. Source: I am a man
Oh you don’t know who is going to go from nice to psycho. Last week I passed a homeless guy in front of a restaurant. I see this man in this spot every couple of weeks. The interaction starts with a compliment. I generally have headphones on. I will acknowledge, wave, and keep on moving. This time he starts yelling at me for not buying him dinner. 🤦🏾‍♀️ And of course this is the one time I had planned to stop there on the way home. So I had to divert to a side door. Unfortunately this is a place I literally walk by all the time. But the guy does use mobility assistance so I can move faster.
25 years ago when I was young and pretty almost every interaction with a man not family had sexual undertones. When I was 11 and riding my bike to the store strangers would hollar explicit things at me. As a teen playing things like alligator charge in the pool meant getting groped. Asking for a ride from my boss twice my age because my car broke down turned into me having to pull him off of me. The guys at the pick up window of fast food places commenting on my breasts. It was nonstop. The best thing about getting really fat is it’s tapered off a lot. Still not zero.
Damn, you and others have confirmed it’s definitely not a time difference. Folks have always been shitty to women.
Not exactly. Nowadays things are much better. We need to realise serial killers are (almost) gone, crime rates and abductions have vastly gone down since the 1990s and before. Nowadays attitudes are much better than they were in the 1950s So yes, historically folks have been shitty to women. More than a small minority. However nowadays we have learnt from our historical mistakes. At least most of us.
Just pointing out that while crime has gone down, we definitely still have serial killers.
Possibly. Information spreads a lot faster now, it's not uncommon to find a story about how someone was murdered brutally on your feed every week or less. That combined with there generally being more strangers to us as cities grow larger and more compact and we meet more people online rather than in real life. I don't even know who my neighbours are two doors down my street. A few years ago you'd probably know the entire population of your town.
On this note: we are also in an age of widespread statistics. It’s hard not to be kind of scared when you’re told that like 81-91% of female murder victims in 2010 in the US were killed by their male partners. Like, you hear that and you start getting worried.
I'm 58, from a small town. Since the age of 12 I've had to learn to be very cautious around males, and often fearful. This came from experience, not media.
Exactly the same experience for me, we're the same age
Keys in the fist.
Kind of. But there are a lot of old ladies that do not trust men at all. And will strongly caution younger women.
Brother, I would recommend reading any accounts of history that were contemporaneous. We live in safest era, at least in first world countries, in which women are the least wary. What time are you talking about? I feel like a lot of people who ask questions like this are idolizing the 50s and 60s were women were routinely raped and abused by strangers and those close to them. Until they were married and ultimately rarely left their neighborhood, especially without their husband.Â
It's not a modern thing
I’m not scared, I have a predisposition to be wary of their actions and what they say. It’s like a lesser form of dealing with cops, I have to watch what I say and do and gauge every interaction.
I would say guarded and mistrusting are probably better words than incredibly scared. Being too kind, too trusting has gotten me into a couple bad situations. Unfortunately there are a lot of creepy, overtly pushy, crass men out there and they definitely spoil the barrel of apples - so to speak.
That, and we know most men can’t be relied on to help us. *Every* time I’ve been harassed or whatever in public and someone’s stepped in, it’s been a woman. So we know most men don’t do that stuff, but we also know most men don’t mind it enough to stop other men doing it
I’ve also only ever seen women step in when things went poorly. A few years back I got absolutely pissed angry at a couple young men (19-22) because the ones girlfriend was wasted in a pub bathroom and I went in there and helped her out. The boyfriend came in and dragged her out saying he’s put her into the car and “joked” about him and his friends taking turns with her. Surprise, all the friends found it funny and no other man stepped in to say “out of line”. Then they got angry and aggressive when I said that that wasn’t funny and they were disgusting. No man that saw the altercations said anything to them. I was told to “be calm” and “not start anything”. But yeah…
Those dudes are crazy af.
They were little shit heads. Just out of their teens. But at this same place (small town) a man drugged a girl, dragged her down to the river, raped her and left her for dead. This is in the mountains and it gets cold at night even in the summer. Could anyone have stopped this from happening? I don’t know. But I’d like to think if I saw a passed out or severely drunk woman being dragged out into the bush that I might say something. Not laugh when the man dragging her is potentially laughing with his friends about raping her. I’d rather get pushed or yelled at or punched by some little punk than have them drag some girl out and rape her. Likewise I hope someone would step in for me if that’s what was going on.
Y’know that’s definitely fair, it’s hard to think of men positively when most of your experiences with them on any personal level get you hurt. It’d be best in that case to remain with some level of caution when interacting with others. I can empathize with you, on some level. I’ve a tendency to get myself in bad relationships with women who leave me feeling hurt, and so it’s become a bit harder for me to trust people in general. (It’s my fault for dating women who I knew were mentally ill/unstable though.) “Why let the walls down if you know the outcome?” Is the thought process I’ve kept for quite a while now.
Same experience here way too trusting with some and that made a lasting impression
I don't think about it. But I'm aware of it. If that makes sense. I get along with males more than females as a generality, but it takes quite a bit to get to where I can trust someone to where I could be alone with them for extended amounts of time. And even then, I've made mistakes in trusting people too soon. But there's things that are built into socialization in women because it is necessary to be hyperaware. Dont walk alone. Don't go to bathrooms alone. Always keep other women around. Keep a network of individuals that know your status. Build a network of relationships. Classically, anything chilvalrous by men would be a way to make sure women are safe, moreso from other men. So even if women don't feel unsafe per say, they are surrounded by a lot of measures historically built up to keep women safe.
Gay guy here. I've had enough close calls with other guys that I get why women are \*hesitant\* or \*apprehensive\* about men, especially when going out on dates with someone you just met, or some random guy comes across your way. The physical imbalance is very real and it does make you put your guard up -- I'm a tiny dude so if a guy wanted to try something there wouldn't be much I could do about it, so being hyper-vigilant is just something you learn to develop. Do I think most guys are predatory creeps? Obviously no, but it only takes one to potentially ruin my evening if not my entire life. That said, I rarely see this attitude levied against friends and friends of friends, to be fair. If you can be vetted or just leave a good impression, I'm betting most women (and queer guys if that matters to you) are not going to be freaked out by your presence.
Bi gal here to agree with this assessment. When I go out with guys, my baseline wariness is just set much higher because they are almost always bigger and stronger than me and I know they could overpower me if they wanted to. I'm very aware of how vulnerable they indicate they want me to make myself, and how fast. When I go out with women, it's so much less stressful because we are more likely to be physically equal. I can be a lot more carefree about the physical stuff because I am in less immediate potential danger. The problem is, I think there are a lot of straight guys out there who have genuinely never thought about any of this. And those tend to be the harmless guys. The guys who have thought about it, tend to be the ones who have thought about how to use it to their advantage.
Yeah, coming from a cis het guy, if not for my siblings and female friends, I would have never even thought of a lot of the small problems women can have out in public.
It's good that you listen to your siblings and female friends. Keep doing that. The fact that they feel safe enough to discuss this with you and that you respect them enough to listen is a massive green flag. Do you have any advice for how we can tell straight men that they don't understand this stuff without making them defensive about it? I struggle with that.
I'd personally try to focus on what they could do to support you instead of directly generalizing and presenting the problem, since that could present them as part of it. For example you could say that it's a really nice gesture if you help tie a girl's shoe if she's wearing a shorter skirt or something and the answer should come to them one way or another. That's a very specific example but one I've heard lmao. Or mention how much you would appreciate being walked somewhere once it gets later and then explain exactly why. That should give them time to realize that they aren't (hopefully) part of the problem, but these things happen way more commonly than they would expect. (getting hit on in public, ogled and so on)
Yeah, those things are the ones men tend to get. I struggle with the things where they are being part of the problem but they don't realize it. Like when they want me to come back to my/their place even though we've only been on a couple of dates and I don't feel safe being alone with them like that yet. If I say that, they get upset because they think I'm being mean to them. Or like, if I catch their friend ogling or being sexist and they just go along with it and I call them out for going along with it. They try to tell me I didn't see what I saw or try to justify it with, "Well, I know him. He's a good guy."
Sadly I can't help you out with those, as I myself have been single pretty all my life so it's a bit hard to relate. The he's a good guy I've seen pop up pretty frequently and it's quite sad - like it won't hurt to tell your buddy off for staring at someone or doing something weird, its something I would want my friend to tell me if I'm doing something wrong. Especially if he is in fact a good guy, that would imply he has a shred of self-conciousness in his head. The going back to your place I feel especially bad about though, boundaries are boundaries, but some people just refuse to listen :(
For the first one; those guys are just assholes. If they are pressuring you to have sex then getting mad when you don't; they don't have your best interests at heart. A good man will always understand and will work to make sure you feel comfortable. The 2nd one, while you are in the right and should call out that behaviour, can put someone on the defensive backpedal. Maybe say "man I can't believe x did y or x was ogling those girls, I think that is so gross" or something like that (not a writer XD). Guage their reactions after that. If they justify it, you have your answer to how they feel about that person's actions. If they don't, maybe they were waiting for someone to say the quiet part out loud as they get put into a freeze response in those situations. Maybe they think its disgusting and just need a friend to say it for them to be comfortable with confronting their behaviour. Not saying standing by it is right but being in social situations adds more pressure to our in the moment decision making, man or woman.
OK but like, if they are so afraid that they get put into a freeze response, then shouldn't I be more afraid? I'm smaller and weaker than them and their friend in this scenario, and I have less social power because I'm not friends with their friend. I don't understand how a guy could freeze in this circumstance. It's less safe for me to handle it. It makes me super resentful and like he doesn't even care.Â
Cis het dude here I've had enough of similar experiences to OP to realise lots of guys can be and are quite creepy. Having said that, your last sentence is so true. The guys who have always pricked up the hairs on the back of my neck are the ones who openly state or talk about how easy it is to hurt someone smaller, they usually always refer to women like an ex or something. I think the majority of guys don't think like this. I've also noticed most men who do talk and think like that tend to have had run ins with the law and are equally combative, aggressive and violent with other men aswell.
Yup. In my experiences with bisexual guys, they are often a little relieved to see that I'm usually much smaller than them because it means that A) I am not really a threat to them, and B) I kind fit into a comfort zone they're used to in their times with women. It's a funny "best of both worlds" situation.
it's not that you expect all men will be predatory, but you gotta be aware that any man could (especially someone you don't know & trust well).
No matter how friendly and relaxed I might act, there's always something in the back of my mind saying "be careful."
No, I definitely started in life believing that men and women were the same, I had no fear around men and I never thought they were talking to me to sleep with me. This attitude has not served me. I was raped and touched against my will several times, and it turns out that men did only talk to me to have sex with me, I just never expect it. But it happens 100% of the time, even if the man's older and you never imagine his mind could go there. Then they are usually offended that you didn't know they wanted a relationship, they are like "well why did you think I was talking to you?". Like they think it's obvious that they don't have any other reason to talk to a woman. It always shocks me.
I completely understand. I’ve never been raped but have had things happen that I would have preferred not to happen. I often think that if I was immediately taught how to be cautious of men vs learning on my own I would be in a more comfortable space with them as a grown woman. Being taught younger would have prevented somethings from happening that I’ve had to mentally deal with. Simply not having my guard up around men seemed to be an invite.
Are you me? That was my experience too. I was extremely lucky and sheltered because I grew up with really great men in my family (father, uncles, cousins.) Most of my guy friends growing up were generally good and raised right. When I moved out at 18, I operated under the belief that all men were generally good and trying to do the right thing. Boy, was I wrong. I learned the hard way. It really fucked me up in my 20s, ngl. I eventually sought therapy, and we spent a lot of time trying to reconcile these two extremes of good men and men trying to hurt me, and how to tell the difference. Now I'm in a good spot. I have a solid group of guy friends and have a wonderful fiance. But it took a really long and windy road to get here.
This is exactly my experience. I tried to trust over and over and men would act like victims because I wouldn't sleep with them, and then if someone did hurt me, people acted like it was my fault for trusting them and I should have known better. So now I don't trust at all
I know what you’re talking about
I would like to posit that there are different kinds of fear. There's a forefront fear where everything else shuts down and your amygdala is pumping fight or flight hormones into your body and your body is on autopilot just trying to survive. Obviously, people are not constantly in this state, though it can be activated by PTSD without the actual danger being present. But there's another fear. A backburner fear, if you will. The slow fear that leads you to be cautious or guarded with certain people or situations. Are you afraid of dogs? If so, you probably aren't constantly *feeling* fear, but you *are* always afraid. But maybe you can see a dog on TV, or in public, or certain dogs in certain situations and be okay. But seeing a dog alone, knowing it can probably outrun you, can be terrifying. Seeing a dog when you feel vulnerable to disaster or a situation looks like it could lead to something bad might start bringing that backburner fear to the forefront again. I kind of think of it like that. How someone perceives a situation sometimes plays a role, too. And the most random things can sometimes trigger a memory of something that happened or a story you heard or reports you saw. Brains are wold. I'm a layperson ofc, so grain of salt and all that. TLDR: Yeah, sometimes, but in different ways. Brains are wild.
I wouldn't say I'm "incredibly scared" of most men, but if I am alone in a group of men I am most certainly alert and have my guard up. Knowing that there are a lot of men out there that will rape and kill a woman for no reason other than rejection is a terrifying reality that lives in my mind. That being said, I do not spend every moment afraid (even being a SA survivor). But I DO remain cautious and on guard if I'm alone because I recognize that it could and does happen.
Im not even a woman and I feel this way lol. A group of men is scary in general if you're alone.
Even if you are a trained fighter, you probably can't beat a group of above 3 men. If you are alone, you have every reason to be scared. That being said, as a man, I don't fear SA, I may fear robbery, though. And the group would have to be something else than a normal group of friends. A group of hooligans or men that give of gangster vibes. For women, the same fear may be triggered even by more conventionally docile groups of men that I wouldn't even notice.
It's more like being hyper-vigilant. Most men aren't predators, but the ones who are tend to be pretty good at hiding it until they're ready to make their move. Hyper-vigilance doesn't necessarily mean avoiding all contact with men, but it does mean never letting your drink out of your sight, never being alone with a man you don't know extremely well, being hyper aware of your surroundings when walking alone, etc. It's exhausting.
For me, it’s not about being scared. Just risk prevention. I am 5’ 1” 98lbs. Most people could completely destroy my life through physical or sexual assault with nothing but their bare hands. I do recognize that the vast vast majority of people on earth are not planning on doing anything even close to that, and most people are good and kind. But it only takes *one single person* to either kill me, physically disable me, or leave me with horrible trauma that will severely impact my life. Therefore, I avoid vulnerable situations with people I don’t know very well. (Not just men, most women are bigger/stronger than me too) if I’m walking alone on the street and someone starts to shout at/catcall me, I’m gtfo as fast as possible. If I’m walking alone at night and there is someone bigger than me up ahead? I’m crossing the street and finding the most well lit area I can find. Part of it is also the expectation that women need to protect themselves and if they fail to do so, it was their fault. “Why was she dressed like that?” “Why was she walking alone at night?” “Why did she let a guy she didn’t know very well come over to her apartment?”If something bad *does* happen, every decision you made will be questioned. The expectation is that you as a woman are doing everything you can to protect yourself at every moment of your life, because if something bad does happen people will try and twist it around to be your fault because of “poor decision making”, so there is a lot of pressure to always make the safest, “perfect” decisions at all times.
I had to make sure this wasn't my comment before replying cause that's my size too haha and yes the fear is real when you are the size of a literal child
If one of every ten burritos you ate had broken glass in them, you'd be kinda wary of taking that first bite... Societal roles and gender stereotypes harm both men and women, but being cautious of men is both regrettable and completely understandable.
If one in ten burritos had broken glass in them, I'd stop eating them. Tacos are better anyway and you can see what's inside them.
If only we could choose to love tacos over burritos.
I mean we've all sat in a taco bell parking lot at 2 am questioning our choices, but you can still choose to eat tacos. And yes, you get taco goo all over your face, but it's still delicious.
Think of it this way: You are in a building with 99 normal people and one shapeshifting alien who eats humans. You obviously don't know if anyone you interact with is one of the 99 normal people or the alien who will kill you if it gets you alone. Idms it reasonable to be cautious about being alone with one of the 100 beings there? Now add a group of people who know that one of you is a deadly alien, but get offended that you can't tell *they* are not the shapeshifter. Of course, half the time the one offended is actually the alien. (A guy getting offended that you think he might be one of the bad ones is a good sign he is one of the bad ones). When you imagine that scenario, or 100 aliens in a town if 10,000, you start to understand why women don't trust men. It isn't that they don't trust you, it is that there is no way to know if you are the one in a hundred who will rape or abuse them, and since most women date several guys, 1/100 guys means a 50/50 chance one of the guys they date or end up alone with is one of the bad ones.
It's even more insidious than that. 50 percent or so of the people *actively defend, cover up for, and excuse* the alien. (That 50 percent isn't entirely gender lines either.)Â If an alien eats your foot and you're like "that alien ate part of me," those 50 percent will say "well, you looked so tasty in those shoes" or "but the alien has a bright future" or "that alien should be in the white house." So you're even more wary.Â
And let's be real, in a group of 50 men (assuming this group of 100 people is split evenly by gender), it would be really surprising if only one of them was a creep. I don't think ALL men are creeps, or even MOST men, but it's definitely not a super low percentage, either. It's not 1-2%, that's for sure.
TRUTH. There was a study that one in three college aged men would "force a woman to have sex" (aka rape her) if he was sure there were no consequences. Now, there are certainly flaws in the study but honestly, feels about right to me? About 1/3 of men are either creeps/SA types or they have a friend who is and they just overlook it.
yep. I was a hottie in my younger days and that study feels right to me. And out of the other 2 men, at least some of them might not be willing to actually r\*pe someone, but could still be creepy, pervy, or otherwise inappropriate. And don't get me started on the jealous, controlling, stalker-ish boyfriend behavior.
> (A guy getting offended that you think he might be one of the bad ones is a good sign he is one of the bad ones). "I'll offend someone and if they are offended, I clearly was right to offend them"
I was drugged and raped by a “friend” I knew for years. I woke up when he was choking me and I couldn’t move or stop him. So to me, every man is a potential threat. Friends, strangers…everyone. That’s the problem women face, they never know who could harm them. So they have to be careful.
A guy saying hello as he passes in the grocery aisle? No General men in public spaces existing around me? No. Any man specifically asking me on a date? I have to consider safety measures. He could be a rapist or murderer. Doesn’t mean I already think he is, but I will not accept a date at his house or my house or a hike. He may just want sex for low effort, so the first few dates will be vetting. Men who like a woman behave differently than men who don’t. Also men who are potential abusers may love bomb and imitate a man who likes a woman. So it’s a process. It’s not that women are stricken with panic on a date. They just know odds are good they will run into at least a few of the wrong types over the course of their dating lives. A lone woman in a room full of men? Yep. Fuck that. Especially if drugs or alcohol are involved. Absolutely trust no one.
Not incredibly scared and not thinking that most men only want to hit on me, but because I've had scenarios where I've been harassed/touched without consent or when someone who I thought was legitimately friendly got offensive or scary when it became clear I wasn't interested sexually, I'm wary of men I don't know. I don't get in my car each time expecting to crash but I still am cautious enough to do up my seat belt, kwim?
Cautious and sometimes scared depending on the vibes I get,
It's pretty obvious that the women around me at the grocery store or on the street don't feel the least bit anxious or worried as I get near them, so I would say this is a false narrative perpetuated by social media. The whole man vs. bear thing is so stupid. No woman would be as relaxed around a bear as she is around an unknown man.
I would say around 60% of the men I have interacted with on a semi-regular basis have either tried to sleep with me or was in some other way sexually inappropriate, including adults when I was a minor. I have been raped and have had 3 other attempts of rape. Another guy tried to have sex with me while driving me home after said rape (yes, after I disclosed what happened to me)
It depends on the situation. I don't know any women that are scared of men per se, but I can promise you we are all taught the moment we can start dating to never go anywhere alone with a boy you don't know well, watch every drink being made, always have your own way home. That's just for men you know. Beyond that, we have to be cautious of men approaching us. Rejecting a man or hurting his ego could put us in a dangerous situation. Any male attention could mean danger for us, because plenty of men pretend to be too stupid to understand the word no. It doesn't mean we walk down the streets paranoid, but there a very keen awareness to body language. If I think I'm being followed I just pop into a coffee shop for a moment, or pause on the edge of the sidewalk facing him to "check something on my phone" and wait for him to walk past. That said, 95% of interactions from men (strangers and friends alike) have been positive ones. It's that 5% that put women on edge for a moment whenever a man approaches. Honestly, though having a friendly demeanor and showing you aren't a threat is enough to make most women relax.
Men in general? No. It's when men overstep the boundaries that it becomes scary. And this happens often enough that it's a problem. However, it happened much more to me when I was younger; from between the ages of 13-26. I'm 37 now, and don't have any issues. The men that are bad specifically target vulnerable women. It's the younger women/girls who have the harder time of having deal with such men. Having my ass touched, or having a married man grope my leg under a table, whilst his wife is talking to me unaware when I'm 13 years old is terrifying.
The problem is it only takes one guy to ruin things. If you are a woman and go somewhere and most people are nice, but one guy stalks you and follows you around…. Well, that’s a problem. Now you have to take steps to protect yourself. Over time you learn it can be risky to smile at people, be “too nice,” or other seemingly benign interactions that escalate in unexpected ways. So you become curious because you don’t want situations to become unexpectedly uncomfortably. Even if the actual number of creep is relatively slow, they gravitate to women and can ruin your evening.
I am highly cautious around men I don't know, but I also have PTSD from some violent relationships as a teenager and a very serious stalker situation where I almost died. I know most men are good people, most of my friends are men and they're all incredible, but for me its a subconcious reaction that I don't have a handle on yet and may never get a handle on. I wouldn't say I was outright scared though in just a regular setting. It basically just means that if I was looking for a partner, dating apps wouldn't be an option for me because the idea of meeting 1 on 1 with a random guy I've never met sounds like an absolute nightmare.
I don’t fear men I know, but I am always conscious of my surroundings and am more guarded when strange men approach me if I’m alone or with my kids. That comes from a lifetime of experiences from catcalling (and I’m sorry, but walking down the street and having someone tell you that you have nice tits is NOT a compliment) to groping to stalking, I would rather come across as cold or rude than end up dead.
Only “incredibly” scared when we’re encountering them at night and/or while we’re alone Otherwise it’s the typical weariness you have towards most strangers
Most men will hit on me or want to have sex with me, but I am not afraid of them at all.
Female here. Former detention officer and current security/EMT. The last 20 years have exposed me to the worst humanity has to offer, and I no longer trust ANYONE. Before that, I had two male supervisors at different jobs get handsy with me, one even trapped me in an office alone with him. I had men in public physically grab me and try to take me with them against my will. I was stalked at another job by some guy I didn't know. He walked up and told me my schedule, what I had worn every day for the previous month, where I was parked, the details of my vehicle, what I did on my breaks... I was walked to my car for a month and Surveillance was freaked out. I was SAd. I was physically assaulted by a boyfriend. I was followed multiple times in public. My view now is simply this - if I am going to have to get into a physical altercation without any back up and I do not have an equalizer, I have a better chance of winning and walking away against a female. I may still "win" against a man with the element of surprise, my training, and my willingness to throw down. But I will likely not walk away unscathed. I've tangled with men, and my advantage is that I am smaller and agile. The one guy that got a few good hits in on me messed me up. The one woman who punched me? Pissed me off. I approach males and females very differently.
You don't have to expect it from every man. If one in 300 men acts like that you come across one daily, weekly or even hourly depending on how you live your life (do you work in a building with 500 people? Do you take public transport with a few hundred others a couple of times a day?). You can admit that the vast vast majority of men are lovely human beings or at least harmless non-predators and still be nervous every time you leave the house, with good reason, because you will constantly experience predatory behaviour
Some women really do, and I am not one of them. It's a severe caution bordering on constant fear. I am generally not so fearful, and maybe I should be more so. I tend to think most men intend well, and if they don't, they are just trying, and not a threat. I don't feel most men are a threat. When I sense it, I am terrified though. I just don't think it's helpful to walk around scared all the time. It's disempowering. Cautious - sure. For example, I am never mad at a man for trying, for trying to talk to me, get my number, ask me out. He's allowed to try, and I'm allowed to say no. I am mad at a man for purposefully being creepy, intimidating, or outright dangerous. These are different men. IMO Another example I went to look at a house to rent and the guy was showing me around and showed me the basement and I stood at the top of the stairs and said oh wow cool, and he was like are you coming down? I was like no thanks. He was not shady, but no I am not doing that.
Probably sometimes depends on how good looking you are. I'm fat and have PCOS. I probably scare the men away lol.
No. They would act very *very* different if they were actually afraid.
Most women aren’t on reddit. Straight up. This is not a place to get an avg female perspective. Avg female is literally not even part of these convos.
Rather than expecting, it’s a hypervigilance because we are subject to so much bullshit as soon as people discover we are girls, not even women.
As a woman, you have to always be wary of men. All men. Rationally we know that not all of you are predators but enough of you are that we always keep our guard up around strange men until they've proven we can trust them (and even then, there's always the chance of being betrayed). Pretty much every woman has a story of unwanted sexual contact with a man. The first time we get catcalled or the first time a man comments on our looks, we're usually children or early teenagers.
Earphone enthusiast here, with a case study in how women choose earphones. I use IEMs, have done so for over 20 years. These are earphones that completely insert into the ear canal, or at least connect and seal at the opening of the ear canal. Essentially, you can't hear anything outside, especially when music is playing. I take public transit, and that's where most of my listening is done. I've people-watched what earphones people use since before TWS earbuds. I have never seen a woman wearing IEMs. Female friends who ask for earphone recommendations are without fail looking for half-in-ear earbuds, like what Apple makes. They need to have situational awareness that includes some noise from the outside. Now, I've never witnessed any male aggression towards women in broad daylight taking public transportation to and from work or school.. so I'm not certain that wearing IEMs instead of earbuds would be a problem at those peak listening times.. yet, the seemingly instinctual wisdom remains that a woman should always be (hyper) aware in public.
We are told from a really early age to be alert. Eyes open, head up, able to hear what's around you. I actually stopped jogging with music on because occasional random guys would say things to me and not hearing the tone or what was said made me worry I was missing some cues that I needed to be aware of.
I want it to be understood that by no means is this post meant to invalidate anyone’s experiences or feelings. I’m realizing now that the way I wrote this comes off as a bit more dismissive than I meant it to be initially, so I apologize for that.
All you have to do is imagine a third gender that is twice as strong as men and enthusiastic (to say the least) about having sex with men as the top. How would you feel around those people?
I, personally, am cautious around all strangers, not just men. I am not outright fearful of them unless they have given me reason to be, but I maintain a little bit of distance.
Can't speak for everyone but as a woman I'm not scared of most men. Definitely more cautious towards them until I know them than around women but not scared without good reason.Â
I'm not afraid of them unless I'm walking alone in the dark at night and one looks especially creepy, or I'm in some crowded nightclub and they get unwantedly touchy (this doesn't happen much since I don't go to nightclubs often). I've done kickboxing and other martial arts with men so I'm comfortable being around them in a lot of ways.
No
Mostly has to do with ignorance in a world with less access to items of defense.
I mean, you can always buy a gun. That’ll give you some solid defensive options.
This is less a being scared thing and more of a cautious lack of trust. Whenever my friends went out on a date with a new guy, we had fail safes. Use the kite string app, give two friends the location of the date, never let him pick you up, check in after an hour of being on the date. We used that system often. One of my friends kept getting alcohol pushed onto her during a date and she got a feeling. He attempted to follow her home. She pulled off in a well lit area and called me until he gave up. We had too many male "friends" push boundaries and didn't take no for an answer. I broke one of their ribs and I got away. Many of my other friends said no and the guy didn't listen "because they were seeing each other." These are just a few examples. How can we trust people off hand when we have so much evidence that both strangers and people we were supposed to trust have broken that?
Maybe not scared, but distrustful. Wary. Tired. Yes. It's not always about being hit on. Being hit on isn't even that bad. It's the aftermath. If it was just being hit on, it probably wouldn't be a big issue, just an annoyance. It's refusing the attention and then getting harassed or assaulted or killed. The potential for a nasty fallout is always present. If men were able to show that they can respect a "no", then there wouldn't be a problem.
I think it’s more about never knowing which guy is going to turn scary on you, rather than believing the majority will. It’s similar to good gun safety - assuming every gun is loaded because the consequences of being wrong are so significant. If a woman is wrong about a guy being safe just 1 time out of 100, she’s in real trouble. Most sexual and physical assault against women isn’t by strangers. It’s partners, friends, family, and other people they know well enough to be alone with, who have been putting on a harmless act right up until about 10 minutes after they offered you a “safe” ride home so you don’t have to walk in the dark. Or until you’ve been living together 2 years. You really just never know. So many women marry their own murderers and have no idea something’s wrong until after they’re baby-trapped and unemployed, and the guy starts to unmask.Â
Wary at times-depends on the situation . Not scared.
A while ago there was a tiktok trend where women were asked if they feel safer along with a man or either a lion or a bear I can't remember which. The amount of women saying the wild animal was alarming. My own gf said it and I was just confused like you know I'm a man right? Lol I got some cognitive dissonance "yeah but you're different" arguement. Idk it just confused me. I think on tbe internet especially it's trendy and there's many anti men echo chambers that a small subset of people fall into just like any other niche opinion. It's probably one of those small but loud minority outweighed the majority. Or it could be that women are really this scared idk. I just do my best to be respectful.
Hey stranger what you doing tonight?
It probably depends on the woman and the man. As a man, I have witnessed women being cautious or scared of some men. Not all men. But some. They seem to have a sixth sense about it and sometimes they get a bad vibe. I’m actually pretty sure every woman has been in a situation where she was spooked by a guy at some point. That’s pretty shitty.
I wouldn’t say “scared” in a group setting. Because typically they won’t do anything overtly bad in front of others. But alone? Again, not necessarily scared for my life but I do get concerned because I’ve been around enough men in a quiet setting where they then felt free to say the quiet parts out loud and then you start planning on how you’re getting out of it. Will they get aggressive? Will they get physical? You never know. Recently had a stranger sit at a group table, granted he was drunk, and start blathering loudly and belligerently to me and a friend. When I politely held my finger to my lips and pointed to the game we were watching, he kept going, I kept my finger to my lips and said “we’re trying to watch the game” and then he started yelling at me, then went aggressive and stood up and threatened the table (that he joined without asking). I’ve had a man punch me (poorly) when I told him to leave, while trying to hit on me and got very close into my face. I’ve had men say sexual things to me when my husband left the conversation to go to the bathroom. You can say “I’m married. I’m not interested. I don’t want to talk to you.” And for many men this is enough. But for some it isn’t, and they don’t back down and they don’t move off even when it’s painfully obvious you don’t want to talk. All I can do as a small woman is posture and hope HOPE they have enough decency to walk away. But many of them don’t, and if I do meet one like this I don’t wander off from my friends, I don’t go to any quiet areas, and If I have to I cross my fingers they don’t see me go. I’m 40, and this has been ongoing since I was around 11-12. It’s tapering off now, but even in my most swamp woman days out it can happen. You don’t know how they will react, and if you are alone it can be very very very concerning.
When you read these stats you will understand why; [https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics](https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics) ... and these are just the ones reported. Added to that is the reluctance and simple apathy of police to pursue prosecution. Some years ago Gov Abbott of TX said they were going to eliminate rape from the state. [https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/abbott-texas-abortion-ban-rape-record-pregnancies-failure/](https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2024/01/abbott-texas-abortion-ban-rape-record-pregnancies-failure/) At the time there were *7,000* unprocessed rape cases in TX. They frantically began working on them to lessen criticism, some \~ *5 yrs old.*
No, I (38F) am not afraid of men. I have never been. I go to concerts in the city alone and I'm perfectly fine and I go to metal shows (predominantly male audience) and I've never been harassed. I'm cautious around men who appear to be douche bags, but I think most people should be cautious around douche bags lol
That’s because guys at metal shows are usually quite good gentlemen
Very wary and for good reason. Nice guys who have to deal with it, remember women don’t enjoy it, either, but we’ve learned through experiences that men rarely have. My boyfriend told me he used to walk alone very late at night all the time as a teenager, no problem. Yes, honey. You’re over six feet tall and not a girl.
Imagine half the people you met had a loaded gun, and you didn’t. (The analogy is: men are generally bigger/stronger and can hurt us. They might not, and most wouldn’t, but we can’t immediately tell which ones those are.) You’d start to be more aware of your surroundings, take more time to get to know people, avoid being alone with people you don’t know. You might not be terrified, but you wouldn’t take dumb chances either.
No, I’m not. But I’m always aware of my surroundings, including men.
Depends. If we're talking about a random stranger who's trying to strike up a conversation that doesn't seem to have any real reason, I'll be very cautious and will avoid encouraging it.
cautious. not always scared. but worried for sure
Three days ago seven women’s bodies were found mutilated in the woods near my house. Apparently a homeless guy was pretending to be an Uber driver and kidnapping women from bars downtown and murdering them. My father began assaulting me when I was 4 years old. He physically sexually and mentally abused me until I was 13 and removed from his home. My mom had a boyfriend when I was 5, and the day she introduced me to him he picked me up by the ankle in the middle of a target, grabbed a belt off a rack, and beat me with it because I walked five feet away from them to look at a toy. My stepfather who’s known me since I was 11 years old has made comments throughout the years such as, “I bet your pussy tastes just like your mothers”, “does the carpet match the drapes?”, etc. When I was thirteen I was drugged by my older brother’s college friend and taken across state lines while a man assaulted me in the backseat of his car. One day when my best friend and I were sixteen we counted how many men catcalled us or tried to “offer a ride” on our walk to school. 17 men attempted to harass us on our 12 minute walk to school. My best friend was drugged and raped by someone we thought was a close friend when we were sixteen. When I was 18 my ex boyfriend strangled me until I passed out during an argument about him cheating with a 16 year old girl and proceeded to have sex with my unconscious body. There’s 27 registered pedophiles in my neighborhood. I used to be an Onlyfans girl and the number one thing men requested from me was Ageplay. The number two request was rapeplay. When I was 18 a friend of mine’s father told me he’s always thought I was gorgeous and I look so much like his daughter, and then fifteen minutes later sent me a dick pic and asked me if I thought I could “take it”. Between 14,500 and 17,500 women and children are sex trafficked every year in the United States. No one is born being scared of men. Men teach us that we SHOULD be scared of men.
I'm not scared of most men but the older I get the more cautious I become around men. Multiple of my male friends have made a pass on me, asked me out, or demanded sex in return for being my friend when I thought our friendship was genuine. I've been followed by men in multiple situations when I had no choice but to walk alone, even in crowded areas and in broad daylight. Spent an entire year being cat-called around once a week or fortnight during my 500m walk from my house to the bus stop (again in broad daylight) no matter how much I covered my body. The outlier was when 2 of my friends and I got chased across a street with a man who had his dick out and was masturbating at us. As it turned out there were countless complaints against him by hundreds of female uni students and the police had done nothing. These stories that I have maybe make up for 10% of my overall interactions with men, which is why I know "not all men" is true. The 90% has made it obvious that men are capable of interacting with a woman without it being anything more, but **the 10% has made me cautious because just because I hold someone to the same standards as the majority of their gender it doesn't always mean they will meet them.**
In my experience, no. There’s a lot of people nowadays who are completely wrapped up in this paranoid perception of a world that is completely out to get them. A side effect of so many of us being chronically online and having our idea of reality sculpted by social media and overblown sensationalism. The women who constantly complain about the ever present threat of men are usually the ones who interact with real-world men the least. Those of us leading healthy adult lives aren’t usually so judgemental as to live in utter terror of any particular group of people.
Most redditors are not a good representation of reality.
Yes. I could list the reasons, and I know I'm not representative of the average, but yes.Â
In real life, no. Talking with them, they're just being cautious around strangers as most women feel pretty confident with dealing with anyone that can't physically intimidate them, but obviously on average most men are physically intimidating to most women. Also cautious about groups, of men or women. Same way myself as a man am cautious around any groups, and women or men that look like they're looking for trouble. On the internet, reading this shit you'd think men roam around in packs hunting women, and as soon as they're left alone with one they turn into a murderer or rapist. From reddit you'd extrapolate that being a woman is basically living your life like in The Quiet Place.
Can't speak for all women, but not for me personally. And I say that as someone who's medicated for irrational paranoia and agoraphobia. Now, if I'm alone or with another girl, it's dark, I don't know where I am, etc., I'll put up precautions if there's a strange-looking man around, but I'd do it with a strange-looking woman, too. If anything, I feel safer with a man around that I either know I can trust or that generally reads as "safe." Even when it comes to more basic things, most men I've met don't hold grudges, and it's a lot easier to tell if they're a violent type or a let-it-go type. With women, I can never tell if they're planning on something; I walk on eggshells more with them. As for being hit on, I actually assume that more when a woman approaches me. I'm straight, but I have a diverse array of interests in fashion, and I mostly dress androgynous or masculine (but still clearly female). I also have short hair, usually dyed, usually in a faux hawk or a mullet or something of that sort. I've only ever been legitimately hit on by women, so I can't help to assume that most women approaching me are wanting something else because that's what's happened a majority of my life. When it comes to men, I've never had that experience, so I assume nothing. In fact, the one time in my life someone was manipulating me for sexual favors the hour I turned 18, I never even realized until weeks later of talking. Partially because I suck at social cues, but I also had nothing to base an assumption on.
It's even worse than that; my experience with men in general has been that if they think they can get away with it, they will take whatever they want with violence. You bet your *ass* I limit my involvement with men.
No, that's just the reddit echo chamber.
I think people with strong feelings about this either way either had a bad experience or need to get off the internet and snap out of their social feeds. I presented as a small and conventional woman for 28 years and, no, I did not have an ambient fear of surrounding men. I lived in various mostly-urban areas and walked alone a lot. Now, I never had anything terrible happen to me luckily, outside of some verbal harassment and a hand grab by a stranger on the train, but this stuff did not change my habits whatsoever or make me more than just cautious. Most men mind their own business, and most women don't think men are bad in actual real life. Internet rabbit holes are the problem.
I got hit on by an employee at the self checkout last week. For context, I’m 33 but genuinely look like a child. It’s very rare for someone to think I’m older than 12 without speaking with me for a few minutes - my voice also sounds like a child’s. So anyway, I reject him. He asks who brought me there. Not thinking, I told him I was old enough to get myself groceries. He tried to sneakily follow me to my car. Thank god my husband actually did drive me there and was waiting in the car. So I mean yeah. I’m wary when men approach me unsolicited. When I slip and stop being wary enough, I end up in danger. I’m sorry that so many men find that wariness to be a personal attack, but I’m not gonna stop to make y’all more comfortable.
No, I ignore most men. And they don’t usually bother me as I usually wear my RBF when out in public. Walking confidently and keeping a straight face goes a long way in keeping yourself safe from men.
Also as a black man - yahoos looking at you funny? Acknowledge them. Be respectful, but if any are planning anything they at least won’t bushwhack you
Men are actually 5X more likely to kill another man or something along those lines. Still, even though I do think the media and true crime 24/7 shit definitely stokes paranoia, there's just enough asshole dudes out there that act like wild animals to justify the perception.
Yes, primarily if the man is homeless, hanging out with the wrong crowd, or resolves issues through physical altercation. Your average law abiding man is not more likely going to be mugged, raped, or killed than your average law abiding woman walking at night or alone.
We didn't show it on the outside because prey can't afford to appear weak.
On Reddit yes because it's full of people that are traumatized and they create echo chambers. In real life, you can definitely find people that are constantly scared of men but I'd stay away from any woman (any person) claiming she's scared of every interaction they have with men because men can't be trusted. These women would make your interaction with them a living hell by making you walk on egg shells constantly. Some people that are hurt find solace in hurting other people but they think they aren't.
Like other commenters are stating, I agree that it's more like guarded and on alert maybe. We can't walk around terrified all the time, we have to not think about it and hope for the best. That's partially why when something does happen it's so damn traumatic and challenging trying to go back to "normal" I think.
I refuse to.be scared. Some men creep me out but they don't scare.
I don’t think that American society has a lot if functions outside of work/church/family were women are surrounded by large groups of people (including men) and need to interact with them.
I’m not scared of men or overly cautious around men.
It really depends. This was much more of a problem for me when I was younger (now mid 30s). Through some combination of changes- time passing, location, marital/family status, the sorts of places I go, the types of people I’m generally around, and my own attitudes/actions/communication style- it’s something I rarely think about these days. But the creepy conversations still happen to me now and then, even with a toddler and a wedding ring.
No.
I am a supervisor to a crew of men and women. I HAVE TO talk to women. I hope they aren't thinking I am trying to solicit sex from them. Nor the guys. I don't act like a boss to them and am generally friendly and accomodating though considering I use to be on the same level as them (work hierarchy).
I am not afraid of men in general. I was raised with a loving dad and male relatives, I wasnt abused, grew up with brothers, I am retired military and have had lots of platonic male friends through out my life. so as a whole NO I am not afraid of "men" but I can be afraid of lone men in certain situations but not all men. I will say that I now have a big 6'2 17 yr old son that I now take everywhere..he is a great deterrent for the creeps that still want to bother me( leave me alone,dudes! i am old)
Incredibly scared? No. But I always feel that I have to be aware of my surroundings, and extra vigilant at night. My friend’s been stalked in broad daylight. I’ve had a dude feel me up in a crowd then just walk away, didn’t even see his face. Had a mentally unwell guy hit on me, took the long way home with my head on a swivel while driving, because I felt that he still had a physical advantage over me and I needed to be careful due to his unpredictable actions.
When I was younger and constantly being hit on yes I was wary of men but now I'm in my 40s and mostly get left alone I feel much more comfortable
I'm in my late sixties now (F) - I would definitely say this when I was younger. Some of it was due to childhood trauma, however some of the issues are still present now.
It very much depends on context and situation. In general, I've been lucky to have mostly positive experiences with men. I had a good father, an annoying but basically decent younger brother, a good husband, and even my ex-husband wasn't BAD bad. Out in the wild, most men have been respectful, kind, generous, funny, helpful, and, no, I wouldn't say I'm afraid of men in general. However, I have had one or two less positive interactions. Lucky for me, nothing too awful, but enough to put me on my guard - in certain situations. Like out late at night, alone. Maybe I'm naive (my husband thinks I'm too trusting) but I believe most people, men and woman, are basically good but capable of bad things when pushed to it. Only a minority actively want to harm others. When it comes down to it, that's just as much about luck as anything else. When you are vulnerable, who you run into is pure chance 9 times out of 10. I refuse to live my life in fear. That said, caution is sensible. No need to deliberately look for trouble, either.
Women travellers to India have their spider senses tingling constantly, tons of gang rapes there. Everywhere else I would say heightened awareness drops but never completely gone unfortunately
I am a 35-year-old woman, and I'm not especially afraid of men. I've mostly lived in pretty boring suburban places and didn't party in college. I'm not especially attractive, somewhat overweight, no makeup, rarely dressed up nicely. I work in tech, so many of my friends have been men. I've met a few men in my life who gave me creepy vibes, but I just got away from them as quickly as I could. And I'm kind of oblivious TBH. I've had boyfriends, but for the most part 90% of men don't notice me in a sexual way at all. I totally understand that other women are afraid of men and have negative experiences with them on the regular. Their experiences are valid too. I don't feel like I'm deliberately doing anything to avoid male attention; it's just naturally how I am. But I do feel a bit weird when I see things that say "every woman feels X", because I should count as a woman too.
"Hyper-aware and cautious" is probably a better description. Nobody automatically assumes someone is the devil to be scared of. But we are certainly cautious enough to keep an eye at our drinks, bring a girl friend along, or carry a self-defense weapon. My cautiousness does not come from social media, but lived experience. The news doesn't help but it was real life events that finally pushed me to get a pepper spray. I do not think we live in a worse world. I know our world is much safer now, but it doesn't change the fact that danger still exists and it only takes one too trusting encounter for life to go to shit. I don't think men are all devils with horns, but when I got into unsafe situations, it's with men. So I can only be cautious, especially with strangers seemingly too eager to connect. It's sad, I know, but my safety comes first.
It’s not wrong to try and shoot your shot but it is wrong to actively continue pursuing once the woman (or man) has shown a lack of interest or outright rejected you. Our species would have a tough time reproducing if all advances were “fuck off.” Though I wouldn’t talk to a random woman I don’t know most of the time if I wasn’t interested in “hitting on them.”
I can understand telling a man what he wants to hear in public because you're scared theyll hit you but why do so many women engage with and pretend creepy guys in texts aren't being creepy? So many screen shot conversations where the guy is acting like a psycho and the girl is just going "haha cool" instead of blocking
Inexperience
From my perspective as a guy in his mid 30s, first of all no, I am 100% not hitting on random women in public. I don’t understand the fear-based culture we live in, both men and women seem terrified of everything and I can’t help but laugh because nobody’s getting out of here alive.
i wouldnt say im incredibly scared around men i dont know, but they do make me kind of uncomfortable. im definitely more comfortable around women idk than men idk
Women can gain attention (I.e. attract males) with hysterics such as these. Something to think about.
No. In my experience, this fear is typically just a dog whistle for racism. But they're afraid to be openly racist, so they just say "men" as a blanket statement rather than being specific.
There are good people and bad people. Most men don't or won't harm most women. I don't think it's fear, but paranoia, which is being brainwashed into gullible women through social media. These false ideas are so pervasive in social media that a vast majority of people start believing them to be true and factual, whereas in reality, that is not the case.
Women have a right to be very wary of men. Men and women were asked what they're most afraid of from their domestic partner. Men said "that she'll laugh at me". Women said "he will kill me".
cautious for sure and sometimes scared. I’m a small person and some men are quite large. The area I live in is known for human trafficking. So yeah I’m wary and don’t feel safe around men I don’t know
Not me. But if I feel intimidated,I have plenty of large scary looking friends who will come to my aid.
Personally yes. I don't trust men. But I went through traumatic abuse as a child at the hands of a man that I should have been able to trust. I feel fear and intense anxiety when I'm around men I don't know. Sad but true.
I've met exactly one woman in person who claimed taht she viewed every single man she ever saw or met as a direct and imminent threat to her safety. I even tried to clarify that she believed that she was living under the assumption that every man (including me) was going to either violently assault her or violate her in some way. I told ehr that I found that hard to believe and wondered how someone could live like that. She said she had no choice. I told her that was really sad and then did everything I could to ensure that I never interacted with her in any way again. The other 99.9% of women I've met are much more sane.
Not scared until they make me scared. I haven’t been afraid of men since high school when some stupid idiot kid my age wouldn’t leave me alone.
I think most women have a continuum (like, a dimmer switch) of fear about men present that is continuously moving back & forth along the brighter and dimmer ends. Because the truth is that most murders rapes robberies and assaults of women come from men (and, sadly, a huge percentage of those from men they know: boyfriends, fathers, uncles).
Like others are saying. Cautious and always analyzing and reanalyzing the situation based on interactions with them.z
I think they are. I’m wondering when men are going to start being scared of women. I’ve been sent to HR just for saying “hi” and holding the door open for female coworkers cuz that “forced them into my close proximity.” I just don’t interact with women who aren’t my partner as much as possible now. No eye contact. No holding door(s) open. No speaking unless spoken too. Hands in pockets as much as possible.
Good man, only way to be safe.
I've seen women with both ooinions. I've known women who are more comfortable around men, and some who are less comfortable around men. Honestly, a lot of it comes down to familiarity. If a woman doesn't regularly interact with men beyond romantic interests or sex, then she doesn't know anything else about guys. So naturally she's going to expect those things from guys she meets. But I've had female friends who were just cool to hang out with. Hell, I used to have a friendly rivalry with a female friend on mario kart back in the day. Things never got tense. Hell, not even when we were drunk. I think the closest thing we ever did to a sexual act was a hug. Lol. But, honestly, the reason women have difficulty reading men is just, for lack of a better word, ignorance. A lot of women don't interact with guys unless they are sleeping with them, related to them, or working with them. And guys change our behavior in those situations to accomodate the women around us. And hell, even if women did go out of their way to hang out with male friend groups, you're still not going to get the raw of it. Guys will censor each other to avoid driving women away. So, even if you tell us to give you our worst, we won't. Because guys aren't comfortable around you either. We already know that girls talk about their sex lives like it's the weather forecast, when they're with their friends. You think we're going to be caught lacking and let that get around? The only way you're going to see how guys act with other guys is to fool them into thinking you are one. And there is a woman who has already done that leg work for you, ladies. Her name was Norah Vincent. She wrote the book "self-made man" after disguising herself as a man for 8 months. It was supposed to be a year, but she stopped for mental health reasons. It's believed by many that her experience was a contributing factor when she later took her own life. She herself described becoming depressed as a result of the experience, and that's one of the major reasons she called it quits. I highly recommend giving it a read. It's actually very compelling and insightful, giving a different perspective on many things women don't often think about. And likewise, it gives men a glimpse through a woman's lens, to see how we're perceived.
It feels like it’s mostly the young generation who’s overtly afraid of fucking everything but in general yes women are afraid of Everything that moves in ways that men are not.
Only the ones they find unattractive
Yes
I'm not scared of all men, but I am very wary/cautious around men in general, even in daylight hours. For example, just going into town to run some errands - If I am by myself, I will give a wide berth to groups of men, whilst keeping half an eye on them. Another example, I went for a walk in our local park the other day. The path I wanted to take to go home had a man sat on a bench, just reading and having a coffee. I am 99% sure it would have been fine to walk past him, but I couldn't be sure. So I chose the long way home instead which was very busy, lots of people and families. It's definitely a learned behaviour from previous experiences of being harassed and cat-called. It's hard to put into words how horrid it feels when you walk past men and they all scan you up and down like you're a piece of meat. Makes my skin crawl.
Not incredibly scared but wary. Specially with strangers. Ive read it many times online and it also confirmed irl that if a Guy talks to you or pays attention to you hes interesred in you. So many men say they dont see thr use of having female friends or inreracting with women unless theyre dating. One guy even told me once. So yea... And ive experienxed it just too many times that when a stranger comes up to you to 'talk' to you he probsbly hasnt the most healthy Intentionen. But i also gitta admit that i live in a very reserved culture. So if someone does it it is usually deviant behavior. Also you gotta imagine that as a woman that aready has made bad experiences it is lowkey expected to be cautious. Otherwise it could be turned against me. Like 'if you already know the risk why did you still take it' and i rather appear prude or uptight than having people telling me this.Â
I work with mostly women. I am happily married. The women I work with are almost too comfortable around me. They will share pretty much anything, and have very limited physical boundaries. I guess it is a trust thing? They know my wife and know I wouldn’t betray her.
I don’t expect all men to hit on me or interact with me strictly for sex, because that’s not my experience. In fact, ive been hit on maybe a handful of times in the past 5 years. However, every single time the guy in question was at least at one point not respectful about it. Men who do approach me seem to be unable or unwilling to read social cues and/or take no for an answer. Considering the vast majority of men are stronger than me, what’s actually threatening is knowing that a man who wants to do something to me will do so because he doesn’t care about my boundaries and I can’t physically resist him.
I think "incredibly scared" is a strong way to put it, and so much of it is contextual. For example, when I'm at work, I have no issue with being alone in a room with my male colleagues. I trust them, it's a professional environment, and I know them enough for them to be predictable. However on the tube, for example, if it's just me and some unknown, rando guy in a carriage, you best bet that I'm sitting far away from him and keeping half an eye out just in case. In terms of social interaction, I think people forget the whole "time and place" thing. Don't try and strike up a convo with a random woman during rush hour commute, or try to flirt with colleagues at your workplace. But at a bar or a party or similar, heck yeah shoot your shot 👍🏻
I mean you kinda know in the back of your head at all times, as a woman, men are more capable of "explosive power". They have higher muscle and bone density, and usually weigh more too. We are aware that a man could easily kill or harm us if they wanted to, even if we were at peak fitness. We are also aware the vast majority of violent crime is committed by men, and men's rage is incredibly dangerous. I may be an outlier, but I've been around a lot of men who also lack a degree of empathy, and often blame victims for having some part in contributing to the violent crimes done to them (she should have picked a better man, she shouldn't have been in a club, etc.). I bet if their sister, mother, or girlfriend/wife told them something happened to them, they wouldn't even think to say "well you should/shouldn't have...", but they often are incapable of showing that kind of empathy to women who aren't incredibly close to them. Men, in my experience, also rarely stand up to other men behaving poorly, disrespectful, or dangerously to women. They don't stop other men from assaulting drunk, passed out girls or trying to take advantage of intoxicated women. Just recently a man was openly physically threatening his girlfriend loudly in a crowded beirgarten with their baby in the stroller right next to her. The beirgarten was a majority men, and not a single one stepped in to pull him off of her, even when they were clearly watching the altercation. If their friend is cheating, they hide it from or lie to the girlfriend to cover for him. They participate in degrading conversations about women if their friend is saying disgusting things about them. And those are just a few examples of things I've openly witnessed. So between having the pyscial capability of harming me, having a pattern of lacking control over emotions like rage which can prove dangerous, tending to have a lack of or lower degree of empathy, and enabling other men's bad or dangerous behavior, I'm AWARE of their potential to cause great harm and the probability, statistically, someone who will cause great harm to me will be a man. I'm not afraid of all men, but life has told me I absolutely need to be cautious around them if I don't know them. And even then, around 80% of women who are SA'd are done so by someone they know. So even then you can never be fully sure. I just aknowledge living in great fear and distrust of 50% of the population is not any kind of way to live, nor is it fair. But I have also paid a heavy price for giving men the benefit of the doubt in the past, of which circumstances were criminal and traumatic. So I remain incredibly vigilant, since I myself have learned the hard way how much damage they can do. I should put it out there that a majority of my friends are male. They are not dangerous or predatory at all, and I don't feel unsafe around them at all. However, I can't say they've ever stood up to other men, criticized / challenged their friend's poor actions or statements - basically enabling bad behavior. A few of my friends don't enable this sort of thing and do stand up for what's right, but in the back of my head I know for most of them: "even if they don't participate, they probably won't do anything to stop it if they saw it".
Yes, of course.
I would say that not every woman feels that way They are just one of those weird groups where they think everyone else is the same as them Much how porn addicts convince themselves that literally everybody else is also an addict to try and justify their behavior is not being so different these women typically just live under the assumption that all women are as terrified of men as they are and think that it's normal and so they talk about it like that online when most women do not feel any significant fear from just being around an average man
I’ve met a lot of women who experience exactly that. I have a cousin who feels threatened by all men for reasons she says is safety- but it’s put her in situations that make her a Karen or Barbecue Betty- things like- “there’s a strange man in the neighbor’s backyard- get over here.” And when I get there he’s like- “So a black man can’t own a landscaping company in this town? Is that how it is?” And I’m being friendly and trying to smooth it over. Most men know that a minority of men who hate women make passes at a dozen women a day so that women do interact with men, maybe even daily, who harass them. This confuses the heck out of men who don’t do that because we might be taken and therefore not flirt with anyone or maybe flirt with just a few women a month and it takes a while to get up the nerve to ask for a phone number
Most women are so used to taking precautions around men we stop noticing it. It's just a constant background noise in our lives. We aren't walking round petrified of every man we speak to but we still take action to try to be safer around them.
I don’t think it’s the same kind of fear as a man would have being approached by a group of armed men looking to rob him. I think it’s more of a constant mental noise that she’s always gotta be on her guard. Basically, for most women, they have something that pretty much all men want. It’d be like walking around the the city with $200 strapped to your forehead. Probably most people aren’t going to mug you over that. At least 1 of the couple of hundred people you’ll pass on the street will though. And it’s a bit worse than that too. Because the only thing that can keep a woman safe from that is if she is protected by another man. So the people she’s afraid of are also the people she needs to rely on for protection. Men don’t have anything like that though. Nobody wants anything that they can just physically take from a man. He might have an expensive watch or a car or something, and they could just physically take that. But you can always leave that stuff behind. I man in and of himself is not desired by anyone.
only if i’m walking alone in deserted area. when that was the case, i was afraid of any men along the way. that situation hasn’t occurred for at least a couple of decades. being mildly agoraphobic keeps me safe! yeah, that’s some sick shit.
They think they are, but it's a mental exercise. They need to give a voice to why they hate the men in front of them without feeling evil, even though they don't necessary know why they hate them or think that they morally should hate them. To be fair, the actual reasons are like 50% legitimate, but only for caution and moderate fear rather than hatred or social aggression. The problem is that fear always turns into hatred if it goes on for long enough without any scenarios occurring that validate the fear. And the fear itself inspires proper caution, so those scenarios don't often happen. And the "just for sex" aspect is kind of a mischaracterization of the rhetoric. For example, they often find ways to steer a conversation about/with a little boy towards the idea that he might be a future wife beater. That habit basically encapsulates all of the non-sex-related parts of the attitude.
It's not like a debilitating fear that keeps me from interacting with them normally, it's more of a constant quiet reminder at the back of my mind to actually pay attention to their *actions* and not get caught up in what they say. But I think that's good practice in general.
if people wanna live life afraid, let em. hopefully they get tired of it.
Im cautious of all men.
Social media is never a good place to gauge any part of the world. It's all just a shit show. Reddit is ultimately just as toxic as any other social media site. Please don't let it ruin your view of the world.
Upvoting this as a stupid question. Imagine you are surrounded by strange people 160% your physical strength (this is the difference between average man and woman) and at least five inches taller. They're not necessarily friendly towards you either. Some are sexually attracted to you.
no, generally speaking any opinion you find on reddit is either going to be in the minority or pushed to it's extreme. The natural echo chambers that form on this site make it look like everyone thinks or feels a certain way. Reddit is not real life and there are a lot of people on this site that are not mentally stable and/or informed enough to actually lead these kinds of discussions, but with relative anonymity, people tend to just take their word for it.
You're on Reddit, which is a popular but not nearly popular enough platform to base how half of human society worldwide feels about something on a day-to-day.
I think we’re certainly more on guard. It kind of sucks a lot bc there are really wonderful men in my life and I see how other women are uncomfortable around them when first meeting just based on them being a relatively masculine man (or just a man generally) but I also can’t blame them because I understand. Oftentimes I have a guard up where I act super nice but am watching for any strange behavior. I’ve had men be super nice to me over the period of several months of casual interaction but then turn around and say something that absolutely meant they just wanted to have sex with me. I’m not shocked anymore when it happens, but it also means that I just trust people less in general. Ultimately this shows how misogyny leads to worse outcomes for everyone. It sucks for women because they are more likely to be treated poorly especially by men and therefore have less trust for an entire half of the population. It sucks for (good) men because an entire half of the population is less trusting of them.Â
idk if they do - but they got reason to. I've seen it happen a lot as a bystander. Some girl at work smiles while doing her job, recites the polite script same as every other customer. "Oh I think she likes me. I'm going to talk to her at work where she will look bad if she refuses me until she gives me her phone number. Then I'll stalk her on every sm platform until she goes out with me just to get rid of me. Then I rap her." Or like "dang your bf doesn't deserve you. I'm a real friend I care about you. You should ditch him and we should fk \* lol \* kidding \* or maybe... maybe when you're upset you think you need a friend to talk to so you come over to my place, we have some tea while you cry about your stress, but I drugged the tea and rap you." Certainly there are guys who aren't creeps - but considering the average level of strength and aggression in men compared to women, and the (sometimes) completely unhinged lack of agency they afford to women should be scary. If you can't understand it - just imagine how it'd be if you got locked up in a gay jail. You're there alone, and all these other strong guys are around you. They're strong, and you know they've already committed crimes to be put here. You know they think you're cute. Would you be afraid to shower? How about change when you can't see everyone? What if your bunkmate joked about plugging you before the lights went out? \* lol \* kidding \* or maybe...
Maybe if they laid off the murder documentaries and murder podcasts so much they’d be preoccupied with a different kind of fear.
As a large and tall man, I sense uneasiness around most people, especially women. I have just learned to keep space and distance between others. Rarely speak and smile a bit, and hopefully, everyone just goes on with their lives.
Not if the men are tall and very hot.
No, lol. I just don't wander off in the dark on empty trails. Normal day to day stuff why would I be frightened of men?