A man posting on a Cardiff Facebook messageboard has basically summed up everything that’s wrong with the #NotAllMen sentiment.
In a long post he himself described as a ‘rant’, he complained that, while walking along a road in the dark at half midnight, on the way home after a long day at work and a three-mile schlep home, a girl ran away from him. ‘Much to my amazement you took it upon yourself to run home,’ he wrote.
He explained that ‘I found deeply offensive’, for this ‘girl’ to commit an act of self-preservation that was more about getting herself home in one piece than anything else. He also added: ‘given I had no interest in you at all.’
Because there’s nothing nicer than being told ‘I didn’t fancy you anyway’. And what should’ve happened if he had deemed her attractive? Should she have been even more scared, legitimately so?
The poor guy ‘found it disheartening and ever so slightly offensive that you deemed me to be any sort of threat to you at all’.
This guy thinks that the knock-on effect of sexual assaults is *just as bad for him* as it is for women who are now having to be extra vigilant
The thing is, she didn’t accuse him of being a threat. She ran away without saying anything – according to his report of it, at least. While she may have made an assumption about him, this was because, it’s better to be safe than sorry, right? Unfortunately, with one in three women being sexually assaulted in their lifetimes, maybe she even knew from past experience to err on the side of caution.
Could you post a message for me. ’To the girl living at the bottom of Arabella street this morning. I realise in the...
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Even the complainant acknowledged that ‘it is daunting seeing someone of my size walking fast behind you’. He also understood that there’s ‘the current climate of what’s being going on in Cardiff’, which refers to the recent spate of attacks where three women have been sexually assaulted walking home at night, within the space of five days.
But this poster thinks that the knock-on effect is just as bad for him as it is for women who are now having to be extra vigilant on their way home after dark (which is 5pm these days, fact-fans).
‘I feel as a 24-year-old male that I am as much a victim of the current crime way as the girls who were attacked. It has left us being singled out simply because of the hours we keep and the need to get home.’
So, according to this guy, instead of considering her own safety, this girl should have considered that: ‘ I am not a violent person and am in fact a considerate individual who would more likely help you if you were in trouble than cause you any trouble.’
We don’t have attack sensors, or rape-dar. We don’t know what an attacker looks like
And this perfectly encapsulates the #notallmen sentiment. It’s true, not all men are harassers, attackers, creeps or rapists. But yes, all women fear the very few men who do either set out to treat women like shit, or the men who just happen to along the way somehow.
We are not cars. We don’t have attack sensors, or rape-dar. We don’t know what an attacker looks like – stereotypes don’t work when you consider rapists and attackers come from all backgrounds, ages, colours, classes – so sometimes it’s better to be safe than sorry.
The girl didn’t make the man a victim, she just did what she could to ensure she wasn’t one. And yeah, it’s a shame that people don’t talk to each other in the street like they used to, but did they really used to?
The lengths this guy has gone to to ensure Cardiff knows he’s a good man far outweigh what he has done to make that woman feel any safer, making us wonder how much of a nice guy he truly is.
Like this? You might also be interested in:
Sexually Assaulted Student Writes Powerful Open Letter To Survivors
‘My Rapist Added Me On Facebook’: The Truth About Sexual Assault At Oxford University
Follow Sophie on Twitter @sophwilkinson
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.