Pretty sure this is a thought experiment not intended to be taken literally.
I'm going to walk to town later today. I'm going through the woods. Last time I did that I had to talk to a black bear briefly and check if it was gonna move off the trail or charge. The bear moved along.
I'll be in town and then I'll see lots of men. I'll see grandpas, fathers, uncles, brothers, sons, cousins. I'll see old men who worked in the mines of this area, I'll see young ones working in the mineral plants, and probably some hippy types out to enjoy summer in the mountains.
The men can be generally judged as more or less safe by their proximity to a woman. Although that ignores the practical reality of longterm abuse and how victims of abuse become tied to those situations. Let's ignore this aspect of socialisation for this and suggest that the men are standalone.
I can interrupt myself to say I'm a man, and I'm a large one with a large beard and a ready smile. I can take people off of their guard, it's sort of a dichotomy between the surly presentation and the warm and friendly personality. Disorienting to other people. It's a good thing I'm harmless. [edit: I'm not harmless. I'm a human being and I'm a male one so my instincts are what they are. I'm emotionally adjusted and I can process and manage my emotions, so I can proudly say I've never harmed another person and am confident that I have the skills not to do so, HOWEVER, I could lose those skills, I could have a head injury, I could have a stroke, I could experience trauma beyond my ability to cope]
It's about what I call "the cost of failure". Try to arrange your life with cost-of-failure that is relatively appropriate to the level of risk. Phew, it took me this ramble and I finally got it in my mind:
The RISK of meeting a man on the trail is very low. I am friendly and outgoing [even though it's a defense mechanism and I would really rather be alone]. I'll be fine 99% of the time I meet a man in the woods in this small town. I'll be fine 99% of the time I meet a bear in the woods here too.
1% of the time, a bear will maul me--possibly kill me. Black bears are the more common here, so it may be predatory and eat me. Predatory attacks are a percentage of that 1%, so the consequence there is that I will be eaten as I am dying. Pretty painful, overall short and woohoo I die doing something I love. I've felt pain before. It's temporary.
1% of the time, a man I encounter will have nefarious purposes in his mind. [ignoring my maleness for this part] Those purposes are so traumatic that I don't even feel comfortable using the correct words to name them because if there are any survivors of such an experience I might bring their trauma back up. Notice how I used direct English to talk about the bear. Not gonna happen here. The 1% man who's going to hurt me is going to do it for perverse reasons, will prolong my suffering--sometimes for days, weeks, or YEARS--will understand exactly how to hurt me and will hurt me deliberately. Yes, being tortured represents only a small percentage of the 1% of men. The 1% of the 1% of bears that eat me? That's all it is. Just a quick little eat-you-to-death.
There it should be clear that the cost of failure is very very very high for a man. The cost of failure is so high that women don't go outside at night in the city. It's a sad reality we live in, and sadder because people are taking this sort of thing personally. This is a statement of risk assessment. This is good advice on how to live your life.
Practically, you can't fix the human race unless you stop anybody ever having another child. There will be killers. Risk assessment is necessary, and women expressing a natural emotional reaction to the stress of this situation is okay, and not a personal attack on myself as a man. Shit, even if a woman assumes I'm a threat because I'm in the woods.
Actually when I first moved to this town, I found myself walking a dog along a big, wide, open trail at night. Trail so big the moonlight gets to the bottom. In front of me is a woman and a dog. So I'm instantly uncomfortable because I have social anxiety and I am aware that I'm a man walking behind a woman in the woods at night. That motivates me to be like "uhhh... HI" and I go to the opposite side of the trail and pick up my speed and pass her. Then I say something like "sorry, I just want to walk in front of you because it's dark and I'm a man" and she said "oh there are no animals here, we are close to town"
She thought I was clearing the trail of animals, bless her. No lol I wanted her to be the one following me so that she could watch me and keep her distance, because I am a man. It's reality--it's not personal.
from a distance. Fingers crossed for my CTB nature trip.
