this post was submitted on 12 Nov 2024
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Sometimes prophecies are self fullfilling, treat a man like the worst example of the gender he represents, through no fault of his own and you might find he behaves less than appropriately.
I'm not saying that excuses the behaviour, but if women looked at me and immediately thought "potential rapist/murderer" I can't say that wouldn't upset me and possibly cause me to act less than amicably.
I mean what the fuck am I supposed to do? Somehow talk the worst male scum out of their depraved behaviour, or somehow try to convince all women that "I'm one of the good ones"? That's never going to happen no matter how hard I try.
We all need to be realistic and keep things in perspective. It's not OK to treat people as the worst of the people they identify with, it's no better than the "all Muslims are terrorists" mentality.
My gf does this constantly. She is afraid of every man on the street. If there is a homeless or god forbid mentally ill person on her path she’s basically terrified.
Yes, she does listen to true crime podcasts. Yes, we live in a relatively safe part of a relatively safe country.
Go ahead and aks her if she has ever been harrased or sexually coerced in her life. At what age and what happend. And then ask her if she has friends who have. Or how often she didn't think it was socially acceptable to say "no" or "fuck off".
This is not something just in our heads. We don't just freak out about nothing. Especially in a world were young white men are increasingly frustrated about the way the world "treats" them.
I have had enough guys try to follow me home or just obnoxiously trying to "be nice" while ignoring all the " I don't want to talk right nows" and "i don't need you to escort me home, reallys", thank you very much.
Its not about the danger of beeing raped or killed. Its about the fact that its uncomfortable enough as is even if nothing objectively bad happens.
Being scared isn't really something you can control. So I think what matters is whether that affects how she treats men.
As someone who also is quite scared of strangers when no one is around, I mostly just avoid that situation to begin with. If that's not possible or it's just too severe, it's definitely something where looking into professional help could help her, if it's available. Though not listening to true crime podcasts would probably be a good start...
The problem with listening to things like that is that they are self-selecting for the absolute worst things that have ever happened. It's not like they go on today's podcast nothing really happened so we're going to talk about a case of minor vandalism instead.
Nah they will dig back to the 1960s in order to find something to talk about. Seriously look up how many podcasts are still going on about Jack The Ripper despite the fact it was about 150 years ago.
Yeah obviously but it is no justification. I definitely understand how material conditions can influence behavior
Or you could just realize that it’s not personal and give signals that you’re friendly when possible. I’m a man, and I walk around my neighborhood a lot by myself. I get different reactions from different women when I pass by or walk behind them, some amicable and some standoffish.
It feels a bit bad when I get the impression that someone is scared of me, but I have the understanding to know that many women are cautious and possibly traumatized, and no one owes me friendliness.
Also, your comparison to Muslims is really off. Most people with prejudice against Muslims are rarely (if ever) exposed to them in real life and have their opinions influenced by conservative media. Women with fear of men in public spaces are usually informed by stories from their friends and their own previous experiences. I’ve witnessed enough to know as much.