Just to put another angle on this - back in the 80's I got into a brawl that ended badly The damage was done by my girlfriend at the time, who gave a bloke a mouth full, knowing it very unlikely she'd get physically hit back, so I got it instead........ Christmas Eve in A&E.......
I don’t think we are all being tarred with the same brush to be honest. If I’m walking somewhere behind a lone female, I quite often think “Jesus, I look like a right dodgy bas____” and quite regularly change my behaviour to try and make them feel a bit safer. It’s probably daft, but crossing a road so I’m not directly following them is no skin off my nose, and if it helps them relax a bit; everyone’s a winner. I do it because I can guess how they feel, not because I “should”.
I must admit Ive done similar if Ive taken the hound a walk on my own, took a different route to avoid giving them anxiety, just because its easier when the reality is I'm just out to take the dog a walk and get some exercise.
Good one, I've done the same. I think the point is we shouldn't have to feel like that and neither should they.
Exactly. This message about crossing the street has been around for years. I was certainly taught it. I can’t even remember by whom. Until such a time as women can walk the streets without fear, I try to take any nervousness about my behaviour on their part away. That much is under my control. also, there are many parts of London that I would not take a fifty minute walk home from / through.
For me it's about emphathy. Would I want to be treated like that? Would I want to be made to feel like that? So I adapt my behaviour to make sure I don't impact badly on another human being negatively. Although, more men are killed each year, more women suffer from violet attacks according to Gov. stats. The common factor is more often than not it is men who are the attackers. In my opinion I think eduction is the answer and empathy is the solution. Whilst we are at it can we destroy the tabloids!
This was pre kids for me, not an issue now as the bus has log since gone. It was quite difficult for my wife, as a very young child she rode her bike from her family farm with the little boy next door. They left their bikes at a house near the main road. One day as she was riding in front down the narrow lane her little friend was hit by a lorry from behind deliviring to her farm. She never looked back, she wont talk about it but I believe he never made it home.
Get a grip no they are not trying to stop that they are trying to stop 12 year old girls and younger having disgusting things shouted at them from passing cars and work vans as they walk to and from school, it's about stopping blokes who think it's ok to rub themselves up against a woman on a crowded underground train, it's about stopping men that think it's ok to follow a woman through a park as shes jogging
I must admit to showing consideration towards following a girl / woman after dark , if I can I'll cross the road and just give her some space - only being polite really ... Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk
You've obviously not worked in a factory full of women, not the shrinking violets everyone is making them out to be.
I think some of that is because women are less likely to be walking the streets alone. If I walk anywhere after dark or with no one around I walk in the gutter in case anyone jumps out from a hedge etc. I would never walk across a common or a secluded place after dark alone, in fact not often in daylight either. I don’t even like catching a train alone late at night and if possible will avoid it even if it means spending more cash. I think these are some things that may not even occur to some men.
This is true, for many a graduate engineer, in the factory I started, the manufacturing lines were a place of true fear; bottom pinching was considered a compliment.
AB Electronics, just outside Newport. Production lines full of valley girls, used to slaughter us apprentice electricians. "Show us your ....."........
As As a printing apprentice you had to show no fear - the Bindery girls were a force to be reckoned with , Christmas was always a riot
I used to know young women that used to get proper upset if they didn't catch the eye of the builders while walking past a site. All changed now with considerate constructors, can't remember the last time I heard a wolf whistle while working on a site.
