Why are women frightened of men?
Update. I wrote this in November 2015. Nothing’s changed, except that more men than ever are pretending to be women, and mocking and attacking women who dare to say that they are still frightened of them.
Recently, a man posted what he himself described as a rant on the Spotted in Cardiff facebook page to complain about having had his feelings hurt by a woman running away from him as he walked home in the early hours of the morning. This was only a few days after Cardiff police warned women in the city to be very careful, following three attacks by men on women in five days. The offended man was roundly abused by men and women alike for his lack of sensitivity, both in feeling offended in the first place and then being pompous enough to rant in a public forum about his feelings, implying that a slight prickle about being mistaken for an attacker was worse then actually being attacked.
So I started thinking, why is it so hard for men to understand why women are scared of men? And I’ve come up with a thought experiment for any man who is finding this hard to understand.
Imagine that you live in a society where there are no women, where the population is made up of men who fall into two quite different groups. There are ordinary men, like you, and there’s another category of men – let’s call them ultramen. The ultramen are, on average, 15% heavier than ordinary men like you, and 15cm taller. A greater proportion of their body weight is muscle so they are stronger than you, and their longer arms give them more reach than you have. They can run faster, grip tighter, hit harder than you. It’s basically like being surrounded by vast numbers of All Blacks. All the time.
In addition to their physical superiority, they are much more aggressive. No-one knows whether this aggression is an innate quality of ultramen or if it’s connected with the way they are brought up (which is significantly different to the way you, as an ordinary man, were brought up) but it’s an undeniable fact that ultramen commit far more violent acts than ordinary men, both on other ultramen and on ordinary men.
It’s also an undeniable fact that most ultramen never commit any acts of violence against anyone, but there’s really no way of knowing which of them are dangerous and which of them aren’t. The most alarming-looking ultramen can be the gentlest, and the ones who look and sound most innocuous can be truly malign.
The violence committed by the ultramen happens in all sorts of contexts, both organised and sanctioned as well as informal. As well as believing that violence is an effective way to achieve their political ends, much of their preferred entertainment is stylised, ritualised violence. As well as organising and carrying out the majority of the state-sanctioned violence, they are also responsible for the great majority of your society’s acts of unsanctioned violence. The victims of the ultramen’s violence is sometimes other ultramen, but ordinary men like you and children can fall foul of them too, and it can happen anywhere and at any time. Sadly, ordinary men and children aren’t safe at home; in fact this is the place where they are most likely to be killed by the very ultramen who are closest to them.
Growing up as an ordinary man, you become increasingly aware that everything you do is subject to the scrutiny, and often the criticism, of ultramen, even those who have nothing to do with you. Passing you in the street, they are entitled to comment on your appearance, and to hazard a guess, often unflattering, as to your mood and personal circumstances. Partly because they are bigger than ordinary men, and partly because of the way they move through the world, the ultramen seem to take up even more room in the world than they really do. The ultramen dress for comfort; they wear trousers and jackets with pockets, so their hands are usually free. They stride out, they swing their arms when they walk, they walk two abreast on the pavement; their voices are loud and confident and their gaze is unfettered. They are permitted to look ordinary men up and down, to appraise them in a very open way, and to treat them quite differently from the respectful way in which they treat other ultras.
You and your fellow ordinary men inhabit this imaginary society in a very different way from the way the ultramen live in it. In order to conform to the conventions of this imaginary society, you are expected to wear constraining clothes which prevent you from striding out, and which often don’t have pockets so you are usually encumbered with a bag. The most noticeable difference between the way you and your fellow men dress, and the way the ultramen dress, is your shoes. Ultramen almost always wear comfortable shoes, with a flat and grippy sole, that enclose their whole foot and are securely fastened on. You feel compelled, for many social reasons, to spend much of your time wearing shoes that force you to balance on a high heel, and that have soles that are so thin that you feel every unevenness in the pavement and so slippery that you subconsciously examine the spot you’re going to put each foot on befoe you commit your weight to it. How would you speed up and run away from an assailant, if you needed to, in these clothes and shoes?
You might think that an ordinary man’s most rational response to living in a society like this would be, as far as possible, to avoid the ultramen. Unfortunately, although this is theoretically possible, it is very difficult. The ultramen are in charge of almost everything, and are almost everywhere. Although some ordinary men decide they prefer the company of other ordinary men, society’s expectation is that you will find an ultraman to settle down with, and have children. As an ordinary man, you are aware that in your society of about 65 million people, it’s estimated one in four ordinary men will experience domestic violence during their lifetime, and that every week, two ordinary men are killed by ultramen who they live with or have separated from.
And yet, and yet, it is still an undeniable truth that most ultramen do not commit violent acts. Not all ultramen. But still, every ordinary man will see the evidence of their agression and violence every day on the news, and far too many will experience it for themselves. How would you, as an ordinary man, imagine you would feel about living in a society like this?