Most girls and young women do not feel completely safe in public spaces – survey

25 comments

1. Because you cannot, for the most part, tell the Good Men from the Bad Men just by looking at them. Until they do or say something to set themselves apart, they’re indistinguishable from one another.

   Actually, I should say _don’t do_ anything as well. Because sorry gents, if you hear or see one of your fellow men making a woman uncomfortable and you just stand there idly or scurry away in silence, you’re _not_ a Good Man. Your silence makes you complicit, it emboldens the Bad Men to act the way they do, because they’re only going to change their behaviour if other men challenge them on it. They only back off if another man is there to make them.

2. No one is completely safe in public spaces, and men suffer more violence from strangers, so this is unsurprising.

3. What kind of utopian alien society do the other people live in? I don’t feel safe in public at all and I don’t have a coochie

4. I feel as though stating the obvious here is going to be unpopular, but I don’t think we can ignore the fact that immigration from places where attitudes to women are very different and more aggressive is going to have this effect.

   This is definitely *not* to say that… for want of a much better word, “native” British men cannot be absolute Neanderthal dickheads, or that all, or even a majority or immigrant men are a problem but there is an will be some conflicting cultural aspects.

   I lived for a time in New Delhi, India and my friend’s young (white) sisters visited for two weeks. I loved India but while we were there we had to essentially act as bodyguards for them. They were harassed, groped, had young men trying to take photos up their skirts, the works… all brazenly, in public, with absolutely no notion of shame or the feeling that there might be negative consequences.

   Cities like Cairo are famously tricky for lone women. As are many other places.

   I feel like we have worked pretty hard to address the more inappropriate aspects of British culture. The stereotypes of builders catcalling from the scaffold seems to be a rarer thing now. I’m sure it still happens but from everything I understand progress has been made, but we do have more and more men coming from places that have not gone through some of this adjustment and will bring their attitudes and behaviour with them. We need a strategy for this.

5. Fucking hell these comments are depressing.

   If you came into this thread to say ‘what about men’ or ‘men are more at risk’ or ‘everyone feels like this, why does it matter that they have a vagina’ – you are part of the problem. You are contributing to a culture that normalises violence against women. You are contributing to a society where casual misogyny is accepted, and where it’s seen as the natural order of things that women don’t feel safe in public.

   Women are vulnerable to types of violence that men are generally not at risk of. The vast majority of men will never know what it’s like to be cat called, and the discomfort and anxiety this causes. The vast majority of men feel able to go out without taking the precautions that many women do. The vast majority of men feel able to walk alone at night without worrying about being abducted or raped or murdered or all three.

   Try listening. When an article like this gets posted, read it and think about the contents instead of just jumping straight to ‘but what about me’. When women talk about feeling unsafe, listen to them instead of talking over them and making it about yourself.

6. I wonder how much of this is down to hyperbolic, clickbait journalism which, if (like most) you’re not inclined to look at the statistics, would have the consumer believe that the UK is totally lawless and that women are at a similar risk of violence here as they are in a country like Mali.

   There’s plenty wrong with the police but it seems abundantly clear that the manner in which Sarah Everard’s murder was covered has has an unduly negative impact upon the way many women view law enforcement which, of course, ultimately just makes the country less safe for women.

7. It’s shit like this that persuades people to feel unsafe in public places. We are doing this to ourselves here.

8. Question for actual UK women in this sub. What’s your day to day like in public spaces? Does it generally feel unsafe or is it more so in built up areas or quieter areas? A lot of the top level comments are barking about “well men too…” and I’d like to hear women’s opinions on this

9. Personal actions aside, what can councils / the government meaningfully do to increase women’s sense of safety during the daytime without a massive injection of cash (which is unlikely to happen, so redesigning the built environment, having meaningful arrest and charge rates for most crimes or even having more “bobbies on the beat” is likely not going to happen for many years or even decades)?

10. As many have pointed out, women seem to feel very unsafe whereas men don’t seem to, despite being far more likely to be the victim of violence.

    Part of this could be lived experience, many women have terrible stories that involve harassment from strangers and that might make them more fearful in general.

    Also media, I say to friends that if you see a woman alone at night in a show or movie, is anything good about to happen to her? Women internalise that and can get a disproportionate fear of being attacked.

    Might also be the nature of the fears, with men worrying about a random attack or.mugging and women generally fearing being raped. Those are different crimes.

    It’s a complicated situation with no simple answers.

11. Men (and I’m one) just don’t, and can’t, understand how unsafe it feels to be at risk of physical domination by virtually every male over the age of 14

    Any man who has trained martial arts and sparred and grappled with women understands this

    My wife was a Police Officer for 19 years and you might think she feels safer because of her experience, but it’s the opposite. She knows how vulnerable women are after dealing with aggressive men for years and being literally saved by male colleagues on a number of occasions

12. This sub was foaming at the mouth over Kyle Clifford and was enraged when it came out that Holly Willoughby’s attempted kidnap/rapist had previous attempts he’d gotten away with. Every time a singular case of a woman being failed by the system and being killed by a man turns up, this sub’s users are rightly angry.

    But any time we try to discuss the wider social issues that allow men to get away with domestic violence and leaves women vulnerable to this violence, it’s tantrum city. We are never going to solve any issues if we can’t talk about the wider causes without turning into whataboutism and taking it personally.

13. Christ. ITT: Not all men, but if it is men it’s immigrants, but what about mens safety?

    Couple years ago this sub would’ve had a robust discussion where at least 70/80% of the comments would’ve been talking about the subject of the article. Now, we’ve got these red-pill-Andrew-Tate-sounding fucks who brigade any and every article. So bring on the downvotes all you like, but if you’re coming in here with any whataboutisms, or a “not all men” attitude, you can fuck right off. You are everything wrong with the world because you excuse it.

    When women and girls are telling us they don’t feel safe, our first reaction as men should be disgust, not defence.

14. Not surprised. Several times even just this year I have had someone shout comments at me when out in public. Worst is when exercising. Just feels like I am being constantly objectified but its way too hot to just cover myself up all the time. I have found its better if I go early, only meet dog walkers who are usually better people.

15. The question is always “what do you want us to do about feelings”

    I know it gets parroted a lot, but statistically men are the most at risk when out in public.

    But because we (mostly) don’t feel that way, it’s never really mentioned or tackled

    Should we be tackling reality? Or feelings?

    I feel that flying abroad is really dangerous, but I’m aware that driving my car to work every morning is far more dangerous than flying, or almost anything else I do.

    Should my feelings, or reality, dictate what action we take there?

    My girlfriend will freak out because she feels that moths are icky. But she’ll pet any and every random dog she seems and risk getting actually bitten. Feelings and reality are usually very different and humans in general are terrible at risk assessment.

16. And I promise you it’s 100% going to increase within the next 5 years as well

17. Completely understandable. I imagine having a vagina is very much like walking around with 20k in cash strapped to you as a fella on full display: only a matter of time before some great big unscrupulous cunt tries to take it off you by force. I wouldn’t want to be a woman trotting about some of our towns and cities on my own.

18. I am not surprised when you consider that half of the population could easily overpower you and inflict any matter of violent or sexual attacks if they wanted. Biology is cruel for making women the weaker sex.

19. Its obviously bad if people don’t feel safe but it’s not like men don’t feel that way too. It’s not like we can endlessly fight off attacks

20. I was told the diversity is in fact great and excellent in every way

21. Men are much more likely to be a victim of violent crime but god forbid a woman “feels” unsafe

22. Of course they don’t! I’m a healthy young man and I don’t feel safe in the public spaces either. The crime situation is out of control.

23. I’d like to make the case that as a man, if any guy goes immediately to “not all men” or “what about the men” is either someone who is not perceptive enough to notice there is *a lot* of violent and dangerous men out there or is one of them.

    I’ve met plenty of men who I wouldn’t trust my sister/girlfriend/daughter/wife with alone with them. And I have even been in a situation where a stranger made a sexualised comment about my co-worker, expecting me to somewhat agree and that it’s some sort of camaraderie amongst men. The worst part is there was no shame or self reflection on this guy. Just fully expecting me to agree with his stupid, shitty comment.

    I like to think that “good men” usually have the ability to tell when a man has the potential to be a dangerous one. And in my experience, there is by *far* a lot of men who give off vibes where they would not respect a woman’s privacy and be a threat towards her. I’m sure that women also have an even better way of telling this, due to the fact that from a young age they’re literally taught how to avoid becoming a victim and don’t feel the same sense of security we might feel in the same situations.

24. The comments in this thread are a mess. Men that contribute to toxic, nasty behaviour towards women will do such things irrespective of being called out for it or not.

    A friend of mine has in the past said some fairly sexist things and when I’ve pulled him up on it and said that it isn’t right, he’s ‘done a 180’ and apologised but he still does it. He’s not learning anything and it’s all well and good saying that you need to tell people when they’re acting up but the truth is that’s not good enough.

    I don’t know what amount of educating you need to do to changes things in society but let me tell you this, if you’re that naive that you think simply telling your mates they’ve said something inappropriate is enough, it is not enough.

    Do you seriously think people from other cultures, in particular from far Eastern countries that they’ll suddenly decide after a life of seeing women as second class citizens that they’ll get called out for it and change their mind and general world view? Give me a break.

    Nothing is going to change because the work required to change things just isn’t possible unless you can completely change the mindset of various cultures across the world, both at home and abroad.

25. Second time this week I thought a post was from r/noshitsherlock.