As a woman, imagining situations like those: I can see the brightly lit center is empty, that’s all I need to know about it. The stairs require several glances especially if I’m in heels or other unstable shoes. But those dark corners need checking and rechecking the whole time I’m walking, to be sure no tiny changes betray a lurker. Who is probably going to wait until they’re at my back to make a move.
My mental image of the guys scanning the same image: “Yeah that’s where I’m going, that’s obviously where I’m looking.” Sure, they could get mugged but it’s less likely, and physical threat isn’t on their mind.
This is completely untrue, men are (and always have been) the primary target of random violence such as mugging. According to FBI crime statistics it’s hugely disproportional year after year. Women are disproportionately victimized by their intimate partners, both male and female. Both of these facts are beyond tragic but it is, in my opinion, really important to get these things straight. Women are more likely to scream for help when they are being robbed which leads them to being de-prioritized when violent criminals are choosing their targets. Men tend to submit, and are likely to avoid reporting it due to shame, so the disparity is probably significantly higher than the already gigantic reported disparity.
Hope you don’t see this as me just trying to stir shit cause I’m not. It just really irks me to see that sentiment repeated even though it’s entirely unsubstantiated. I’m a man of small stature and a minority. With awareness of the reality of the situation, the threat of physical violence is literally always on my mind. I’ve had a solid handful of random encounters in public that very nearly turned violent and it causes me pretty severe anxiety.
Don’t know why I felt like typing a novel over this, like I said though I guess I just find it frustrating. I can’t talk to my female friends about this, they just laugh at me. They talk about it like I’m wholly immune to violence by virtue of being male when it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Edit with data from FBI crime data explorer:
Over the last 10 years it’s 906k male victims of robbery to 474k female victims, and (though it doesn’t need to be said) that’s just about double.
My point wasn’t that women aren’t looking at the surroundings, but that they don’t do it as is portrayed in the image. You said it yourself: “checking and rechecking the whole time” That doesn’t match singular hotspots, but rather a more spread-out heatmap with peaks at certain positions.
I was mugged in the playground of my building, the street across fine my house, my lobby, and at 57th and suttton, all in Manhattan. Then a few more times when I lived in Baltimore. I really hope most women don’t get raped that often.
I hope you’ve started scanning the dark periphery like we do. Not because you deserved anything that happened to you! And I’m not assuming you weren’t already. But because I can’t do anything to protect you from over here on the Internet and I don’t want that to happen to you anymore. It’s when we’re near home that we tend to let our guard down.
Many of them likely aren’t immediately useful to most people but here goes.
1 I got older, got a few degrees, got paid a bunch and have been living in areas with extremely low street crime. I could probably pass out in front of my house with a Benji sticking out of my fly and it would still be there in the morning.
2 I quit drinking. That wasn’t an issue when I was a kid but later on it provided 2 huge benefits:
2.a) My situational awareness is never impaired.
2.b) It eliminated the vast majority of situations where someone might find me an interesting target.
3 I spent an absurd amount of time practicing and studying martial arts. The fighting parts of that aren’t that useful but many RBSD (Reality Based Self Defense) classes are actually practical. tl;dr It’s now fairly easy to find actual statistics on many forms of violence, look up the most likely ones for you, find the proven counters and practice those. For example, I’ve done a ton of drills that are a variation of shoving an attacker, yelling “Get away from me you PERVERT” (because while people tend to ignore cries for help, everyone wants to know who the pervert is), and running away.
4 Closely related to 3 is the general realization that you don’t need to make yourself immune to violence. It’s hard to be a good fighter and it’s hard to make yourself the least attractive target. It’s pretty easy to avoid being the most attractive target. For example, men are often targeted by men who want to exert dominance. Looking tough is counter productive because the attacker gets more glory from taking down a tough guy than a wimp. Looking batshit crazy is pretty effective; if I feel like I’m being followed and there isn’t a convenient escape I smack my head a few times and start arguing with “the voices”.
As a woman, imagining situations like those: I can see the brightly lit center is empty, that’s all I need to know about it. The stairs require several glances especially if I’m in heels or other unstable shoes. But those dark corners need checking and rechecking the whole time I’m walking, to be sure no tiny changes betray a lurker. Who is probably going to wait until they’re at my back to make a move.
My mental image of the guys scanning the same image: “Yeah that’s where I’m going, that’s obviously where I’m looking.” Sure, they could get mugged but it’s less likely, and physical threat isn’t on their mind.
This is completely untrue, men are (and always have been) the primary target of random violence such as mugging. According to FBI crime statistics it’s hugely disproportional year after year. Women are disproportionately victimized by their intimate partners, both male and female. Both of these facts are beyond tragic but it is, in my opinion, really important to get these things straight. Women are more likely to scream for help when they are being robbed which leads them to being de-prioritized when violent criminals are choosing their targets. Men tend to submit, and are likely to avoid reporting it due to shame, so the disparity is probably significantly higher than the already gigantic reported disparity.
Hope you don’t see this as me just trying to stir shit cause I’m not. It just really irks me to see that sentiment repeated even though it’s entirely unsubstantiated. I’m a man of small stature and a minority. With awareness of the reality of the situation, the threat of physical violence is literally always on my mind. I’ve had a solid handful of random encounters in public that very nearly turned violent and it causes me pretty severe anxiety.
Don’t know why I felt like typing a novel over this, like I said though I guess I just find it frustrating. I can’t talk to my female friends about this, they just laugh at me. They talk about it like I’m wholly immune to violence by virtue of being male when it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Edit with data from FBI crime data explorer: Over the last 10 years it’s 906k male victims of robbery to 474k female victims, and (though it doesn’t need to be said) that’s just about double.
My point wasn’t that women aren’t looking at the surroundings, but that they don’t do it as is portrayed in the image. You said it yourself: “checking and rechecking the whole time” That doesn’t match singular hotspots, but rather a more spread-out heatmap with peaks at certain positions.
I was mugged in the playground of my building, the street across fine my house, my lobby, and at 57th and suttton, all in Manhattan. Then a few more times when I lived in Baltimore. I really hope most women don’t get raped that often.
I hope you’ve started scanning the dark periphery like we do. Not because you deserved anything that happened to you! And I’m not assuming you weren’t already. But because I can’t do anything to protect you from over here on the Internet and I don’t want that to happen to you anymore. It’s when we’re near home that we tend to let our guard down.
Thank you. I’ve taken a much more holistic approach. It’s worked very well. Haven’t been mugged in decades.
Can you mention some of the changes you’ve made? Maybe it would help someone who might read this comment chain.
Many of them likely aren’t immediately useful to most people but here goes.
1 I got older, got a few degrees, got paid a bunch and have been living in areas with extremely low street crime. I could probably pass out in front of my house with a Benji sticking out of my fly and it would still be there in the morning.
2 I quit drinking. That wasn’t an issue when I was a kid but later on it provided 2 huge benefits: 2.a) My situational awareness is never impaired. 2.b) It eliminated the vast majority of situations where someone might find me an interesting target.
3 I spent an absurd amount of time practicing and studying martial arts. The fighting parts of that aren’t that useful but many RBSD (Reality Based Self Defense) classes are actually practical. tl;dr It’s now fairly easy to find actual statistics on many forms of violence, look up the most likely ones for you, find the proven counters and practice those. For example, I’ve done a ton of drills that are a variation of shoving an attacker, yelling “Get away from me you PERVERT” (because while people tend to ignore cries for help, everyone wants to know who the pervert is), and running away.
4 Closely related to 3 is the general realization that you don’t need to make yourself immune to violence. It’s hard to be a good fighter and it’s hard to make yourself the least attractive target. It’s pretty easy to avoid being the most attractive target. For example, men are often targeted by men who want to exert dominance. Looking tough is counter productive because the attacker gets more glory from taking down a tough guy than a wimp. Looking batshit crazy is pretty effective; if I feel like I’m being followed and there isn’t a convenient escape I smack my head a few times and start arguing with “the voices”.