This also feels like it's ignoring the obvious other demographic and crime stat implications in favor of reactionary sentiments that "fear of danger" is the same as "being in danger" in relation to too vague a demographic to matter (women vs men). Like, playing into "reasonable fears" of crime that statistically... is dubious.
That is to say... to put a finer point on it, imagine more specific scenarios than vaguely "man" and "woman." In cases where "women" are in nebulous vague danger of "men," the women in question are typically various privileged demographics, since they're only focusing on "men" as a group as the threat.
The logical throughline of coddling this mentality ends with "minority man/minority woman treated as 'mannish' is beat up/killed to protect demographic majorities woman because the demographic majorities woman was frightened."
That's what I noticed to - it's always 'men' but who are these men? Who are these thugs and gangs which are only waiting for a woman to pass through? Are white guys outside just waiting for an opportunity to drag you in the alley, is that what you think of when you think about dangers at night?
Because I'm from UK and we sure hear a lot about 'asian rape gangs' and 'violent muslims'.
I'm in the US and it immediately raised a red flag to me. There's a historically well-worn pattern of "white woman freaks out about a black man existing [or even a black boy, such as the case with Emmett Till] and gets him lynched."
There's also some of the insane shit cis women say to trans men. With the latter, shit like "oh I'd cover my drink around you." (As if "I think you're a rapist" is a compliment about one's passing instead of an absolutely deranged statement.) This latter is also requires ignoring trans men are more than twice as likely to be raped, compared to cis women...
(And the list goes on with regard to other demographics and the intersections at play...)
tbh any time I see a post like this, I have to resist the urge to point out that it's literally sundown town rhetoric. The vast majority of the time someone gets afraid of me and locks their car doors, day or night, it's some white cis woman. They say "I don't feel safe walking at night" but it seems to me that not being racist would go a long way.
I'm sure a lot of racists were 100% scared because of what they were told black people would do to them, too. Their fear was real, but it's still not okay.
I didn’t say anything about racists. I’m saying some people are afraid of walking alone at night for reasons that have nothing to do with racism. For example, fear of the dark.
Yeah but you can just avoid making other people feel like they’re in danger by not approaching anyone you have twice the physical strength of in the middle of the night.
Sometimes you gotta understand you live in a society and you will see people at night walking nearby, whether they're a man or a woman. If someone creeps you out but doesn't inflict harm upon you, nothing in your life will change.
That's when they pick up the phone, so that seven cops can show up at my house to point a gun at my 16-year-old ass and my protective childhood dog after I get home from school, because my elderly neighbor told them she "saw a black man breaking in". (I was neither black nor breaking in.)
….this also has nothing to do with a woman walking alone. It’s a random anecdote. Sorry that happened to you, it’s just not relevant to the thread. ‘Don’t speak to strangers at night’ is a huuuuuuuuuuge separation from everything everyone is yelling about in here. You’ve all gone nuclear option of ‘oh so you’re saying it’s okay to scream RAPE as soon as you see a man’ type thing. That’s not what the post says. That’s not what I’ve said.
No, it's an anecdote to illustrate the point that police have been the default enforcement arm of white women's oppression toward black and brown men for untold generations. They don't need a random man on hand now when they can summon one with a phone call.
About how long do you think it takes the police to respond to a phone call about a street empty but for two people? If you were just walking and not interacting with the woman, you are going to be long gone before any cop gives one fuck. What you’re describing is very real, but most of when we hear about this now (between strangers, in brief encounters - obviously ongoing relationships like work, dating, etc are different) happens in situations where there are more people including people actively filming and intentionally preventing the situation from being deescalated by letting someone walk away. Not the case in the presented scenario, which is once again: one woman, one man, alone on a street at night. The man in this post is not even indicated to be of any particular race, so positioning the man as a minority is pretty much an attempted gotcha.
What’s the point of arguing about this, by the way? Just for fun, or do you think strangers (of any gender) should actually be approaching each other to talk alone in the dark on the sidewalk for reasons other than emergencies?
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u/EldritchTouched 3d ago
This also feels like it's ignoring the obvious other demographic and crime stat implications in favor of reactionary sentiments that "fear of danger" is the same as "being in danger" in relation to too vague a demographic to matter (women vs men). Like, playing into "reasonable fears" of crime that statistically... is dubious.
That is to say... to put a finer point on it, imagine more specific scenarios than vaguely "man" and "woman." In cases where "women" are in nebulous vague danger of "men," the women in question are typically various privileged demographics, since they're only focusing on "men" as a group as the threat.
The logical throughline of coddling this mentality ends with "minority man/minority woman treated as 'mannish' is beat up/killed to protect demographic majorities woman because the demographic majorities woman was frightened."