Is it a Shock for Women to Learn That Men See *You* as a Potential Threat Too?
3 min readSep 25, 2023
A recent post on Twitter was from a woman describing a thing that her dad does — constant threat assessment. That is, of both people and of situations, looking for signs of danger and places you might make an escape should something happen.
Most of the responses from men were from how they do this too. The responses from women were quite different. Plenty said that their husbands/fathers/sons did it, while others seemed surprised that this was even a thing.
Plenty of comments dismissed this is a US thing because of the gun violence. But I am not American, and I have always done this. Growing up in a large town makes you alert to all the things around you.
- That alley could have a mugger
- That prostitute might pull a knife on me
- That loud person in the pub might punch me for no reason
- This group of people coming towards me might see me as an easy target
- That bin might contain a bomb (yay for growing up in the 1980s with constant IRA vigilance!)
- Is that homeless person just being friendly (in my experience, most are and will be helpful if you look lost) or are they going to turn nasty?
