I wrote this and thought about not posting, but changed my mind:
But some of the men here are so defensive when all we're trying to say is that the ubiquitousness of sexual predation, big and small, affects our worldview. And they don't get that the 360° presence, in our society, of the possibility of attack of some kind, however small, influences our day to day actions and thoughts. And, that we're not necessarily being thin-skinned, but very wary, because sometimes a very bad experience starts with tentative feelers with ostensibly "harmless" conversation.
And to the men that don't want to be in womens' presence, because they are afraid of false accusations? That's crazy. Women are generally happy to be around a guy, who even though he might be a little sexist or patronizing, is not a threat. That, oftentimes, is appealingly quaint. But trust me, after a few bad experiences, we can usually feel it when he's a creep. The great majority of men aren't , and we're good with that. And, with good men, we feel safe. Just reading these forums, for example, if I were to meet some of them here, I would trust them with my life. Others, I would carefully back away from. Women can develop a "good guy radar", and we love you guys for it. And the opposite is true.
But, some of us don't want to be alone with any strange man, because there are variations of a Ted Bundy everywhere. Ask any guy about when he enters an elevator with a lone woman inside, how often has the women stepped out, as if she had reached her floor? Or, if an elevator has only one man can inside, if a woman is waiting for it, all of a sudden, she turns around and acts like she forgot something. She'll wait for an elevator without a lone man. The fact that our mothers all had warnings on safety regarding such male/female interactions (and there are many such warnings), is based on real life. And the shame is that men don't have to worry like we do, their mothers don't give them warning after warning. Parents worry about their daughters getting kidnapped, or mutilated, raped or abused. All because she's a female. Parents with sons worry about their boys getting into trouble, being idiots, getting into car wrecks because of teenage male driving, or motorcycle accidents. Now all of these are generalizations, but you get my drift.
The point of the thread is to explain why a woman will fear being alone anywhere. Because regardless of the chances of harm, we've learned that we can never let our guard down. Because if we do, and something happens, that it's our fault.
And that's just effing crazy.
