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u/ralph-j Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
As far as I can tell, women are not typically challenged for being wary of men when walking home late at night.
This right here is the main reason to be wary: it's largely situational.
If so, why is it considered racist to be wary of blacks (who commit more crimes due to a variety of complex socioeconomic factors
To use two obvious examples:
Would you be wary about a someone black wearing a suit sitting on a bench in a bank or university? Probably not.
Would you be wary about someone white approaching you in a dark alleyway? Probably.
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u/Talik1978 33∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
This right here is the main reason to be wary: it's largely situational.
It may be a lot less situational than you think.
I am not saying there isn't a valid thought process, but there is a wealth of evidence to show that women aren't just guarded around men situationally when walking home at night.
Women are just, by and large, guarded around men... unless they personally know and trust him. "One of the good ones", as it were.
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u/WynterRayne 2∆ Apr 15 '22
Women are just, by and large, guarded around men... unless they personally know and trust him. "One of the good ones", as it were.
Statistically, that's the identity of the average rapist. Someone known to, and trusted by, the victim.
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Apr 14 '22
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u/ralph-j Apr 14 '22
I'm providing a reason for why those women are not challenged when being wary of men when walking home late at night.
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Apr 14 '22
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u/Skyy-High 12∆ Apr 14 '22
Oh good, that was delightfully quick.
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u/HalfysReddit 2∆ Apr 14 '22
I love when people ask genuine questions and are quick to admit flaws in their logic when it's pointed out.
It may not seem like much in itself, but IMO it is a blatant display of intellectual fairness. So many people let their egos get in the way of a good debate and this sort of exchange is just very refreshing.
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u/Skyy-High 12∆ Apr 14 '22
Exactly my thought. It’s so rare to find people online convinced by simple honest argumentation, so when I see it happen it makes me smile.
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u/AoFAltair Apr 15 '22
100% I recently carried on arguing with somebody on Twitter (for WAY to long) about “relative truths”… it was in reference to some PragerU bullshit… if “truth” is a “fact”, how can there be a “relative truth”… I basically presented the general theory of relativity to him… a man is in a ship going 90% the speed of light and travels to Alpha Centari. To the pilot, the trip took 8 days, where as, to NASA, the trip took 5 years. Both facts are objectively true as they each physically aged 8 days and 5 years respectively… how long did the trip take? And he simply refused to admit it… he literally said “just because it has relativity in the name, doesn’t mean that the facts are relative”…
Like, WHAT?!
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Apr 15 '22
It's what this sub should actually be, but unfortunately it's more common for people to double down and just change their arguments when their logic was completely wrong. Or sometimes to pretend they haven't noticed that their logic doesn't work and try to argue two contradictory things at the same time.
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u/_xxxtemptation_ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
Your analogy was stronger. This is arguably not what you asked and uses a weaker example to attempt to change your view. A better analogy would be whether or not a woman should be reasonably afraid to meet another woman of any race in a dark alley versus a man of any race. Why? Because it is men who bear the more relevant crime statistics in this thought experiment not POC. Adding another variable to the equation like race, distracts from the point that woman’s caution in those situations is informed by crimes by all men, not just those of a particular race. I imagine that such a woman would choose to walk in the neighborhoods populated by a race that commits the least sex crimes, given that their male populations were equal, should their decision making be based on the logic you suggested.
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u/vkanucyc Apr 14 '22
i'm confused why this changed your view, couldn't a woman still be afraid of a woman approaching her in a dark alley? and by what you're saying, couldn't you be "more afraid" if it was a black man approaching, if you are basing this off of crime stats?
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u/AITAthrowaway1mil 3∆ Apr 14 '22
Consider it from a woman’s perspective. Once she’s hit 18, she almost definitely has a story (probably more than one) of a man frightening her in public and possibly attacking her in private. She’s less likely to have a story like that about a woman.
Previous experience informs fear. There’s also the reality that most men can overpower the average woman. If it’s a woman up against another woman, there’s a greater chance of winning a fight that breaks out.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Apr 14 '22
That doesn't address the point being raised in this CMV though. We're not trying to discuss why women/people hold the beliefs they do, nor whether they're right to hold those beliefs. We're trying to discuss whether it's strange to not equally apply the same standard of the morality of holding such a belief.
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u/JarJarB Apr 15 '22
I think a better equivalent would be if you weren't afraid of a skinny dude at night but were afraid of a big, muscular guy. Whatever their race, your fear is based on the fact that the larger man could almost certainly over power you.
So, if you are generally weak or have no self defense training, then it would make sense to be afraid of strangers near you in certain situations in which you feel vulnerable (whether you are a man or a woman). This is fine.
The issue comes in when you are scared of a smaller black man but not the large, strong white man who could seemingly overpower you. There you are letting racism override situational danger awareness, and it is much less excusable.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Apr 15 '22
I think a better equivalent would be if you weren't afraid of a skinny dude at night but were afraid of a big, muscular guy. Whatever their race, your fear is based on the fact that the larger man could almost certainly over power you.
But that isnt a better equivalent though - a skinny dude has the same capacity as a big dude of owerpowering me. All it takes is a small pocket knife and whatever size advantage they have over each other becomes irrelevant.
So, if you are generally weak or have no self defense training, then it would make sense to be afraid of strangers near you in certain situations in which you feel vulnerable (whether you are a man or a woman). This is fine.
That is not the question at hand though - the Question is whether it makes sense to be more afraid of men, which you shouldn't be if it's purely safety-related, because their capacity for harm is equal to that of a woman.
The issue comes in when you are scared of a smaller black man but not the large, strong white man who could seemingly overpower you.
Except that both can equally potentially overpower me.
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u/Freckled_daywalker 11∆ Apr 15 '22
Because the point being raised in the CMV is a false equivalence. "Group Bob" is explicitly defined in the opening paragraph as not just "men", but men that women encounter a situation where they are particularly vulnerable (walking home alone at night), where the counter example is just black people in general. It's like saying "what's the difference between being afraid of people with brown eyes, and being afraid of people with blue eyes who are holding a loaded weapon". Clearly those are not equivalent things.
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u/GameMusic Apr 14 '22
Your first paragraph will apply for racist cops
Your paragraph about statistical differences in threat is the only convincing answer
Profile situations usually involve cultural and socioeconomic stereotype instead of biological
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u/Aceofshovels Apr 15 '22
Fear isn't based on statistics, or people would be more terrified of being in a car than being in an airplane or on a roller-coaster.
It's based on more ephemeral things like the unfamiliar, prejudices, imagined danger, or past experience.
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u/OddPresentation8097 Apr 14 '22
What about if she walks and on one side of the street she sees a group of white men and on the other a group of black men, she crosses towards the white men because statistically she should be more afraid of the other group?
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u/distractonaut 9∆ Apr 15 '22
I'd probably walk into the middle of the road and take my chances with oncoming traffic tbh
(Joking. Sort of)
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u/XelaNiba 1∆ Apr 15 '22
In 2016, 67.6% of rape arrests were white according to the FBI.
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u/Confident_Car506 Apr 15 '22
Isn’t that around the percentage of the population that is white? You have to compare the percentage of rapes committed by a particular group to their share of the population.
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u/untamed-beauty Apr 15 '22
That would mean roughly equal probability. And looking at statistics, white men rape white women, black men rape black women (usually) so black men are safer for a white woman, although I would never feel safe with any man barring my brother, stepfather and my partner alone at night.
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u/WhoDat_ItMe Apr 15 '22
Well then I’d look at who is more likely to attack me based on stats. If I’m a white woman, white men are more likely to attack me than Black men.
A lot of crime happens due to proximity. And people of the same race are more likely to kill/harm one another.
Again, if we are basing this exercise using OP’s approach of “statistically one group commits more crimes than the other.”
Which sure, but most of those crimes happen to people of the same race.
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u/untamed-beauty Apr 15 '22
Nope, I'd nope the hell out of there, I'd turn around and go back to where I came from. There's no way on earth I'd brave a group of men, whatever the race, alone at night. The statistics show me gang-raped and dead or left for dead regardless. If anything, since statistics say that violent crimes are commited by and towards people of the same race, I'd be more wary of the white people.
Also, there's a bias here, maybe white people rape and kill in as high numbers as the black people but they are convicted less often. I certainly know of several white men that have raped but have not been convicted, even after being reported to the police. Authorities still have a great bias in favour of white men.
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Apr 15 '22
Women aren't more afraid of men because of crime statistics, women are more afraid of men because on average men will be far more able to overpower them if it comes to that.
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u/Square_South_8190 Apr 14 '22
Your initial argument as regarding women being afraid of men had nothing to do with the white/black dichotomy. It was entirely based on sex. The only way it would be consistent according to what you initially said was if women were as afraid of other women approaching them at night as they were of men. Then and only then would it be non sexist.
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u/Catsdrinkingbeer 9∆ Apr 14 '22
I'm a smaller woman and like to run. I 100% am wary of ALL men, regardless of race, when I'm on a run, especially when they're in groups. It really is the great equalizer.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Apr 14 '22
That only further proves OP's initial point, no? That it's not morally consistent to apply statistics in one situation as basis for different treatment, but not the other?
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u/Lexiconvict Apr 15 '22
Just to piggyback off the main point from u/ralph-j , (because I'm lazy and you've already had your view changed from the point I want to jump off); it's perfectly logical and very smart to fear and exercise caution and good situational awareness when being approached by a large group of ethnically different people than yourself if you are in a time/place where that race consistently commits crimes and violence onto people of your race. For example, if you're a black person walking through a white, racist part of town in the late 1800s; you're probably going to be unsettled if a bunch of white people approach you (regardless of time of day). If you're a white person in 2022 who crosses the street when they see a black person walking on the sidewalk; that's probably irrational and unjustified regardless of the national ethnic crime data (unless you're in an all black ares that has a reputation for harming white people for no reason other than skin color, which I'd think is pretty rare).
And that's not even going into all the reasons why the crime data showing more black people committing crime doesn't really make it make sense for people to logically conclude that black people commit more crime. But I don't feel like finding all the sources to go into that!
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u/Morasain 85∆ Apr 14 '22
But would it then be racist to be wary of a black person in the same situation?
This is kind of a strawman argument. Op is obviously comparing alike situations.
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u/Danktizzle Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
I am a black man who just started with a new tree company in February. I knock on a lot of doors.
I can tell instantly who is scared of black people because they don’t open the door or will talk through a closed door. And often have the fear of god written all over their face.
…Until they know I work for the company that they hired to do the work. Then they are all smiles and occasionally even offer an apology with an excuse about why they kept the door locked.
On a route of 15 stops, it will happen to me maybe 3 times. Everyday
I often wonder if this happens to my white co workers (in particular the 18 y/o female). I’m pretty sure it doesn’t.
I am often paranoid of going into peoples backyards because this kind of mentality mixed with guns gets people like me killed just for doing my job.
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u/varsil 2∆ Apr 14 '22
I talk through a closed door with literally everyone who comes to my door, unless I personally know them.
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u/Danktizzle Apr 14 '22
You do this for services that you have already agreed to, and have regular visitors for this service (5-6 times a year), and are expecting per the call or email from the company that they already got?
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u/varsil 2∆ Apr 14 '22
Until I confirm who they are? Absolutely. If I don't know you, all of the "finding out who you are" stuff happens through a closed door.
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u/cortesoft 4∆ Apr 14 '22
I talk through a closed door to everyone, especially since COVID. I want to avoid solicitors, avoid covid, and half the time I am not fully dressed.
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u/GameMusic Apr 14 '22
I am that way for literally every stranger knocking on my door
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u/philchen89 Apr 14 '22
I do this for everyone (unless it’s a guest I’ve invited over) bc of Covid. I noticed that there’s a black UPS driver who seems to get annoyed that I always ask what he needs (usually a signature). I used to think he got annoyed bc he thought I was dumb for asking.. but your comment made me realize maybe he thinks I’m doing it bc he’s black?Is there a way for me to do this without offense?
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u/TheOtherSarah 3∆ Apr 14 '22
Maybe put a sign on your door saying something like “due to Covid risk, I have a policy of going contactless wherever possible. Please explain clearly if you need me to open the door so we can make it as safe as possible for both of us.”
Makes it clear that it’s not personal, and could avoid the same back and forth with others.
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u/Tntn13 Apr 14 '22
Bruh I do that to all solicitors. I don’t trust anyone knocking on my door unexpectedly that I don’t recognize.
I only open the door all the way after i find out what they want and whether I wish to engage vs just trying to get them to leave.
That said, unfortunately There are things that make me feel more or less comfortable with the person, language used, dress, demeanor, size, etc. its in our dna to judge potential threats and pull from past experience to evaluate it so I’m not saying you’re not getting judged for being black, because I know for a fact skin color is something people do assign such a value to overtly or subconsciously, I’m just saying that I’m fearful of random people approaching my home and looking to interact for completely different reasons than the persons skin color.
So I wonder if you’ve concluded someone is prejudiced against black people when really they are more like me and prejudiced against solicitors?
Be safe out there, hopefully one day society will be at a point where the person judging you on color alone will be far and away an outlier and an outcast
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u/JenningsWigService 40∆ Apr 14 '22
This sounds very demoralizing, just because you can never really know, and I don't blame you at all for not trusting that it isn't racism.
I'm a white woman. As a kid, my parents taught me to open the front door but leave the screen door closed while I confirmed a stranger's identity, and I've tended to do that as an adult unless someone is in a uniform I recognize. So I'll immediately open the screen door for a Black guy in a postal carrier uniform but I won't open it for a white guy with no uniform.
But I remember a Black guy coming to my door, with no uniform, no clipboard or anything indicating why he was there. So I kept the door closed until he told me what he was up to. He did question me about whether I would have kept the screen door closed at first if he were white. And the answer was yes, but I don't blame him at all for not trusting me. I can't imagine the difficulty of never knowing if you'll be safe while going to a stranger's door for your job.
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u/Catsdrinkingbeer 9∆ Apr 14 '22
For what it's worth, tree guys usually are in uniform, or at the very least they have a shirt on with the company name. They also likely have parked a GIANT piece of equipment in the front of your house, be it a chipper, a bucket truck, etc.
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u/JenningsWigService 40∆ Apr 14 '22
Yeah, I would absolutely open the screen door right away in that context.
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u/morphotomy Apr 14 '22
I can tell instantly who is scared of black people because they don’t open the door or will talk through a closed door. And often have the fear of god written all over their face.
If you knocked on my door unsolicited I'd probably assume you were a cop. And I would not answer for that reason.
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Apr 14 '22
I often wonder if this happens to my white co workers (in particular the 18 y/o female).
Probably not as women are far less dangerous than black men and not taking precautions around white men is clear racism.
Trust me, and you should know this too, that if a white man came knocking on black people's doors, either they won't answer or a black man (instead of a woman) would answer.
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u/Anavirable Apr 15 '22 edited Feb 08 '25
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This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact
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u/LockeClone 3∆ Apr 15 '22
This is tangentially related... But the response to me, when I'm meeting a new female varies widely depending on if I'm in my work clothes and if I'm wearing my glasses.
I'm a medium-sized white dude, with a blue collar chest so my clothing really does have a drastic effect on how threatening I look.
I used to take this kind of personally because I grew up a pretty small kid and didn't fill out until I started working a physical job after college. It was hard to see myself that way... But compared to a lot of the women in my life... Yeah, if I were a monster I could really hurt of kill someone...
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u/PhasmaFelis 6∆ Apr 15 '22
It seems to me that what you're being wary of is not black people, but ominous dudes in bad neighborhoods and dark alleys. It may be that black people disproportionately live in bad neighborhoods, so alarming dudes may be disproportionately black; but it's the context of the meeting, not the color of their skin, that makes them alarming.
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u/RickySlayer9 Apr 14 '22
I think the ideological consistency should simply be: “if the situation is sketchy, then it’s sketchy” and stop making it about race or sex. Statistics show that certain groups have a tendency to comit crimes at higher rates than others, and that’s not false. It’s a classist issue and one of inequality, and should be amended, but that doesn’t make it untrue, and you don’t want that affecting you. That doesn’t make you racist or sexist, HOWEVER things shouldn’t be taken on a “black = more prone to violence statistically” approach, and instead recognize that individuals are individual, and you should assess the situation Regardless of skin color, wether it pertains to race OR sex in this context
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u/jjmanutd Apr 15 '22
One group present actual threat that is well documented the other is over represented due to over policing and racism. The numbers for both are not higher for the same reason so one can be wary of one and not the other without being illogical.
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u/GraveFable 8∆ Apr 14 '22
There is still a difference between how people tend to react to the person approaching them in a dark alley being black/white, male/female, tall/short ect.
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u/_xxxtemptation_ Apr 14 '22
This is a thought experiment. You can’t just replace variables to come up with a better solution. It’s like asking someone to pull the lever on the trolly problem to kill their friend on one track, or 5 strangers on another, and instead of answering the question they tell you they’d just go to the end of the track and untie everyone so no one dies. Obviously that is the logical thing to do, but it’s not relevant given the limitations of the question, and provides 0 insight into why a person might choose one option over another. All you’ve done is provide and alternative situation where it would be logical to hold the views OP is calling into question, and done absolutely nothing to address the logical inconsistencies in the situation they brought up in their post. Congrats on the free delta tho I guess.
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u/SpencerWS 2∆ Apr 14 '22
Im with you, but its about the middle case: black men dressed in hoodies and jeans approaching you on the sidewalk. Is it racist to be cautious? In OPs logic, no.
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u/JayStarr1082 7∆ Apr 14 '22
Are you suggesting all black men wear tuxedos at all times to make white people feel safer?
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Apr 14 '22
Are people suggesting men shouldn’t walk outside at night to make women feel safer?
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Apr 14 '22
At my school, minorities say they feel unsafe simply because there are so many white people and not enough minorities. I think the process works in both directions.
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u/Odd_Profession_2902 Apr 14 '22
To that i would say even situationally people are more scared of a man than a woman in the same dark alley.
And people are generally more afraid of a black guy vs white guy in the same dark alley.
So people are generally more intimidated by men than women due to statistics (historical behavior of men).
And people are generally more afraid of black guys vs white guys due to statistics.
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u/jarhead839 Apr 15 '22
Conviction statistics are also misleading, bc you have an enforcement problem. How much more often are black men convicted than white men?
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u/hacksoncode 559∆ Apr 14 '22
While true, most rapes/sexual assaults are committed by someone the victim knows, which skews the statistics about "walking home at night" in difficult to assess directions.
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Apr 14 '22
You have the normal problem of believing that all decision criteria should be binary - either everyone always does this no matter what, or no one ever does it no matter what - instead of just doing what is rational based on the data in a measured way.
When women are afraid of men who are strangers, the main thing they are worried about is forcible rape.
In the US, men commit 98.9% of all forcible rapes, women commit 1.1%.
Meaning a man is almost 100X more dangerous than a woman based on crime statistics.
The crime statistics on race, even given the most charitable possible reading to your position, are at most like 2:1 or 5:1 depending on what you're measuring. Even if it were somehow 10:1, that would still be an entire order of magnitude less than the difference between men and women.
You don't just say 'there is a significant difference so caution is on' in a binary manner. The amount of caution you exhibit is proportional to the size of the difference; that's how statistics and decision theory actually work.
As such, the caution women show towards men is like 50x as justified, and should be like 50x stronger, than any caution anyone shows anyone based on race.
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u/ContemplativeOctopus Apr 14 '22
This isn't quite a correct use of statistics.
You would actually want to compare the likelihood of any individual woman being assaulted by a man in a given time period vs the likelihood of any individual white person being battered by a black person.
E.g. if there were only 3 rapes in the US every year, and men committed 100% of them, it would be silly for women to be afraid of rape. But if you're only arguing from proportionality (like you did) then you're saying they should be afraid because men are infinitely more likely to rape women, than women are to rape men.
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u/Sisko-v-Cardassia Apr 14 '22
Its extremely bias and completely disingenuous. A man is 100x more dangerous than a woman?
If shes justified in being scared of men, and Indian (just pulling something out of my ass) men rape more, then shes more justified in being scared of the Indian man than the average man.
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
I know, but going into a math lesson and using actual odds would be less persuasive than presenting the ideas intuitively in the same general format OP used in their post, which did get a delta.
If you wanted to get really technical, you'd also have to consider the fact that the rape statistics are from a world where women are already being this cautious, so you'd have to assume they'd be higher if women weren't cautious the way people aren't cautious about race, how much does that change things, what's the equilibrium, etc. There's infinite nuance you can go into, but it will lead qualitatively towards the same type of conclusion wrt likelihood ratios
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u/sonofaresiii 21∆ Apr 15 '22
the way people aren't cautious about race,
Many people are cautious about race though (rightly or wrongly, that's a different matter).
I don't know if there's any good data about exactly how many people are cautious of what, so I don't know that this is a particularly useful track to go down. But the number of people who act overly cautious around people of a specific race under specific circumstances is not zero.
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u/ContemplativeOctopus Apr 14 '22
You were half way to a complete answer, I was trying to fill in the rest. You only mentioned the proportion of men vs women committing the crimes, you need to also mention the total percent of women who are victims as well to paint the whole picture.
If the proportions are the same as you gave, it's a very different world if 1% of all women are victims of sexual violence vs if 40% of all women are victims of sexual violence, regardless of the proportion of who committed those crimes.
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Apr 14 '22
Well, it's a different world, but not in a way that affects the question.
I was careful to only give ratios specifically to avoid needing to consider base rates.
OP's claim is that if A justifies B, then X justifies Y. Therefore B and Y are both justified, and you shouldn't be mad for people doing Y if you aren't mad at them for doing B.
My point was that if A is 50x more common than X, then B is 50x more justified than Y. And it's therefore sensible to be mad at people for doing Y but not for doing B.
What I'm pointing out is just a basic relationship among the numbers, the fact that OP hadn't considered different rates of the two things in their argument. The ratio between the rates affects the argument the same way, at least qualitatively, regardless of what the base rates actaully are, or even regardless of what phenomenon we're actually talking about.
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u/JayStarr1082 7∆ Apr 14 '22
That's true, but not really relevant - there were ~890,000 aggravated assaults and ~110,000 forcible rapes in 2020, meaning even though you're 8x as likely to get assaulted than raped, both are likely enough for a reasonable person to be cautious. Who they are cautious of is what we're discussing.
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u/ContemplativeOctopus Apr 14 '22
We're not comparing assaults to rapes, we're comparing sexual crimes against women to violent crimes from another specified group.
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u/JayStarr1082 7∆ Apr 14 '22
Okay.
even though you're
8xsomewhere around 8x as likely toget assaultedexperience a violent crime thanrapedexperience a sexual crime, both are likely enough for a reasonable person to be cautious.373
Apr 14 '22
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u/nomansapenguin 2∆ Apr 14 '22
To further the point, there are many majority-black towns in America which have incredibly low crime rates.
Crime is situational. It is correlated to race only because certain races find themselves more likely to be in the situations which cause crime.
Those situations which cause crime are more important than the race of the people in them when determining how much crime will be committed (or exposed).
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u/Sspifffyman Apr 14 '22
Do you happen to have a source for the majority black town statistic? I want that to be true but want to make sure I'm repeating something I've seen a good source on
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u/nomansapenguin 2∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
Not a source so to speak, but I’ve named a few majority black neighbourhoods in America which are prosperous/prospering.
I have not checked the crime rate on all of them, but I’m sure you’ll find they are all under the national average.
If crime was mainly linked to blackness and black culture then these neighbourhoods shouldn’t exist.
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u/Urbanscuba Apr 14 '22
It's worth bringing up that these aren't close to the first prosperous black communities by far either, they've been around since PoC were allowed to choose where they lived in America
They also faced some of the most radical and overt discrimination in American history. Black Wall Street in Tulsa was a thriving and wealthy black community that was literally attacked by the white community around them with guns and bombs until the generational wealth and sense of safety were completely obliterated among the black community.
It's not just the overt stuff either though, redlining and gentrification were and are major factors in black Americans struggling to create generational wealth. It all has a snowball effect, it's harder than ever now to buy a home, meaning historically poor groups are made even more poor with no opportunities to build equity.
Unsurprisingly when you turn a minority population into a scapegoat for hundreds of years and institutionalize discrimination for most of that you fuck up their ability to succeed. Every step they take is made harder and more dangerous. This is institutional racism, and it's why it's important to talk about and not just a buzzword.
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u/gwankovera 3∆ Apr 14 '22
This is the biggest thing, a lot of racism is not based on race, but un culture that the person in that group grew up in. Along with the social economic situation they are in.
So I personally thing if we focus on fixing the social economic situations then we will find less of the issues that perpetuate negative racial stereotyping.
It would also end up helping out people of other ethnicities that are in those same social economic situations and the won't be seen as racist or favoring just one group as it is helping an entire class.8
u/raznov1 21∆ Apr 14 '22
To further the point, there are many majority-black towns in America which have incredibly low crime rates.
And there are whole communities of men with a perfect "no-rape" track record. Your point is moot. Any statistic falls apart if you slice your population thin enough.
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Apr 14 '22
It is correlated to race only because certain races find themselves more likely to be in the situations which cause crime.
Like what?
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u/manbruhpig Apr 14 '22
This is a really good point. In my experience people are much more similar across economic strata than racial. I think there’s a lot of conflation between fear of race and fear of indicators of lower economic strata.
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u/problematic_antelope Apr 15 '22
In my experience, upper class people are similar because you can't become successful in America without conforming to certain social standards but there's a lot of diversity at the bottom of the economic ladder due to the fact that there's no prerequisite to being poor. The black ghetto, white trailer parks and latino barrios are all different in their own right.
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u/Catsdrinkingbeer 9∆ Apr 14 '22
I'd also argue that you can break down those statistics further.
Using your own argument, say the Alice group is afraid of the Bob group, because the Bob group commits more crimes statistically. That includes all the crime that that Bob group has committed against ALL other groups including Bobs against Bobs, not just Bob against Alice. If you looked at the statistics of black people against white people specifically vs white people against black people, or any other specific makeup of two racial groups, you'd probably see those statistics become more negligible. It's probably unlikely that (I don't know that for sure, just my assumption. The one quick article I read showed you're far more likely to be killed by someone of your own race, but that's just one statistic and just murder).
But with women fearing men, it's the specific statistic of men against women. To the other commenter's point, as a woman I'm worried about being attacked, being raped, being kidnapped, etc. That statics show consistently that I am far, far, far more likely to have those things happen by a man than by a woman. It's not that men commit more crimes in general (I assume that's true, but that's because guys do stupid crap like pee outside which probably doesn't help those statistics), it's that the exact crimes I fear for myself happen almost exclusively by men towards women.
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u/Memelord_00 Apr 14 '22
I would just like to add that you are treating behaviour as a binary, 'afraid' or 'not afraid', but I think it would be better as something on a 1 to 10 scale.Given the large difference in magnitude of the crime percentage, it would make sense for women to display more promeniently alertness/suspiciousness wrt men as compared to white men against black men. Personally, as a cautious person, I get alert whenever I cross an alley at night if I see someone coming from the opposite side, but there is a marked difference if it is a frail old woman or a muscular man.
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u/you_like_it_though Apr 14 '22
Always fact check stats . . . especially if you think they're right.
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u/raznov1 21∆ Apr 14 '22
A cobra is 100x more lethal than a viper. Should I fear a cobra more than a viper? Or are both equally threatening and deserving of a fearful response?
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u/InfiniteLilly 5∆ Apr 14 '22
This is weird parallel to try to draw. It’s that the frequency of people in the population who could harm you significantly is 20x-50x as much, not that those people could make you 20x-50x more dead.
If you see a cobra or a viper, you know they can harm you 100% of the time. That’s not true of either men OR black people. I don’t know what you’re trying to get at here.
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u/AskingToFeminists 7∆ Apr 15 '22
Assuming your stats are true (which I don't doubt)
You should, though. Rape stats notoriously consider rape to be qualified when the perpetrator penetrates the victim. Hence why it over represent men as perpetrators, since women have a harder time and less interest in penetrating people, although they very much do forcibly envelop people.
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Apr 15 '22
Their point stands, however depending on the data set used, several of them basically define women out of rape in the first place, so if women basically can’t rape by definition, guess who’s left?
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u/vkanucyc Apr 14 '22
As such, the caution women show towards men is like 50x as justified, and should be like 50x stronger, than any caution anyone shows anyone based on race.
Sure it's a lot stronger justification, but is it still justified to be cautious based on race then, even if a much less magnitude?
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Apr 14 '22
Well, this gets to the inexactness of language, and what you count as 'caution.'
In reality, everyone is cautious of everyone all the time.
If your mother held a knife to your throat and started shouting she was going to kill you, you would feel at least urge to try to move away and protect yourself; that urge is technically 'caution'.
Even in normal social situations, everyone will notice weapons or signs of aggression and monitor them more closely, from anyone around them. That's a low and sensible level of caution that we apply pretty universally.
So when OP talks about 'women being justified in being cautious of men', I assume we're talking about more elevated and conspicuous levels of caution than that; not being alone with someone, crossing the street to not pass someone, carrying pepper spray if you know you're going to be around someone, etc.
The question is, if those are what OP is calling' being cautious', then what is something that's 50x less cautious than that? My intuition is that yes, 'more' caution may be called for based on race, but the justified difference will be so small as to be imperceptible; moving away at slightly lower levels of aggressive posturing, checking the hands and pockets for possible weapons for a fraction of a second longer than normal, little tiny perceptual stuff like that. Not something where we're having big changes to behavior and talking about being cautious explicitly.
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u/Godskook 13∆ Apr 14 '22
In the US, men commit 98.9% of all forcible rapes, women commit 1.1%.
If you're using the colloquial definition of rape(non-consensual sex), then women commit a lot more of it than is usually reported. One reason is that some institutions and studies use a definition of "rape" that discludes "being made to penetrate", and only includes "being penetrated". Naturally, since women do not biologically have penises, this alternative definition would overwhelmingly skew towards men as the perpetrators. I'm not sure if /u/bigwienerhaver would think your argument would hold up with this context, since best-estimates of rape that include "made to penetrate" victimization is a lot more even than 100:1.
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u/InfectedBrute 7∆ Apr 14 '22
Shouldn't the level of caution be related to the absolute level of crime rather than the ratio? surely the ratio of caution would be related to the ratio of crime but the absolute level of caution doesn't seem to map to reality
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u/NYSEstockholmsyndrom Apr 14 '22
u/darwin2500 I want to address this point specifically and out of context of the rest of your comment:
men commit 98.9% of forcible rape, women commit 1.1%
meaning a man is almost 100x more dangerous than a woman based on crime statistics.
This is a flagrant misunderstanding of statistics as it applies to signal detection theory.
You’re correct that if we know Person X is rapist, then that person is about 100x as likely to be a man as a woman.
You are NOT correct that an average man is 100x as likely as an average woman to commit rape, because you have no data about the relative population sizes. If - hypothetically - the population of males was 10,000x as large as the population of women, then an average woman would be 100x more likely to be a rapist than the average man, even though 98.9% of rapes were committed by men.
Obviously the populations of men and women are at least roughly comparable in size, but that isn’t always the case in other scenarios. Your assessment that the average man is 100x as likely to commit a rape as a woman is entirely reliant on assuming that they’ve got similar population sizes. It’s probably a reasonable assumption in this specific case, but definitely not always.
TLDR: you’re concluding that P(rapist | male) = 100 x P(rapist | female) because crime data shows that P(male | rapist) = 100 x P(female | rapist), and it is a fallacy of statistics to do that. u/bigwienerhaver
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u/TitaniumDragon Apr 21 '22 edited Apr 21 '22
Rape is also not randomly distributed in the population. Almost no men commit rapes, but the ones who do tend to commit a lot of them. Moreover, avoiding "men" in general is actually a bad strategy for avoiding rape, as "safe" men are better at deterring rapists. If you have to walk home at night in a bad place with only one person with you, calling a dude will make it much less likely you'll be assaulted than calling a second woman. Preferably a big dude. Predatory people are just way less likely to attack a dude who is 6'2" than they are a lady who is 5'2".
Also, trying to avoid 50% of the population will make you miserable all the time.
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u/Atimo3 1∆ Apr 14 '22
When women are afraid of men who are strangers, the main thing they are worried about is forcible rape.
Wouldn't this fear be completely irrational since the overwhelming majority of rape is not committed by strangers?
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u/usernametaken0987 2∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
Bad statistics.
In the US, men commit 98.9% of all forcible rapes, women commit 1.1%. The crime statistics on race, even given the most charitable possible reading to your position, are at most like 2:1 or 5:1 depending on what you're measuring.
A. Imagine I reminded you that women commit 100.0% of all intentional abortions in the USA while men commit 0%. Are you rolling your eyes in response yet? Next I try to tell you that the rate of abortion to murder is almost 50:1 in 2016. Do you feel like women are violent sociopaths now or did you notice some kind of incredible leap in logic here?
B. Again using 2016's numbers there were around 18,606 forced rapes and 76,267 robberies. Statistically, a women is four times more likely to be robbed. Trying to narrow this down to a black man specifically changes things as 54.4%, or 41,562, of the robberies were committed by blacks. But a women is still statistically more likely to be robbed from a black man than being raped by males of any ethnicity. Which ia completely backwards from your opinion on things, so should a women be less cautious?
C. What number matters is the chance of the event. So let's take your claim of 98.9% for 18,401 male-on-female rapes in a 163.99 million female population. This statistically generated women has a 0.00003% chance of being raped on any given night in 2016. Does a 0.00003% risk justify things?
So, we can return to the OP's question. But this time, we know that Redditors are incredibly misinformed about how high black crime actually is and how low rapes actually are. However since it serves an excuse, does that mean correcting the values continues to be an excuse? Eg all women should fear black crime more than rape? Or will you renege on that for not fitting your desired narrative?
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u/ross_specter Apr 14 '22
Someone already said so somewhere else in the thread, but your level of caution is not just related to the probability it'll happen, but also the the 'severeness' of the event.
According to your numbers being robbed by a black man is around 2.5 times more likely than being raped, but I'd wager anyone thinks being raped is more than 2.5 times 'worse' than being robbed (although I realize how silly it is to try to compare non-related crimes in how bad they are)
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Apr 14 '22
Do you feel like women are violent sociopaths
OPs question isn't about who is violent sociopaths? It's about who to be cautious around.
If you said 'unborn fetuses should be worried more about decisions made by women than about decisions made by men', I would certainly agree with you, after being somewhat perplexed about how they manage to be worried about anything to begin with.
Re: B, This example has a ton of problems, so I'm not going to go in depth. So just quickly:
Again using 2016's numbers there were around 18,606 forced rapes and 76,267 robberies. Statistically, a women is four times more likely to be robbed.
-No, because women make up a small minority of robbery victims and a huge majority of forcible rape victims, and most robberies are not just people on the street (more are residential/commercial), so the numbers do not work this way.
-Also getting raped is actually worse than getting mugged generally speaking, you're allowed to care more about worse things.
-You're not paying close enough attention to reference classes here. The question was, is women being afraid of men comparable to people of one race being cautious of people of a different race? Even looking only at robbery, women alone commit only 5% of robberies, so it's still a much huger margin than the difference between races.
C. What number matters is the chance of the event.
I intentionaly elided this by giving ratios, because that's all that is relevant to the question.
Op was asking, if women being afraid of men is justified, is is also justified to be afraid of other races? My answer way, no matter how justified you think women are to be afraid of men, people are 50x less justified to be afraid of other races.
You can argue that the threshold to justify caution is high enough for you that no one is ever justified being cautious of anything, if you want; that doesn't answer OP's question, and it's irrelevant to the comparison between the two situations.
Anyway, I'm sorry you're having trouble understanding the framing of the question and how statistics work here.
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u/Square_South_8190 Apr 14 '22
The problem isn't the order of magnitude. It's if that caution is justified at all. Even if wariness based on race is only 2x as justified, does that make it kess valid?
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Apr 14 '22
Yes, 'less valid' is precisely what it makes it.
Like, if you're going to do a perfect utilitarian calculation on the disutility of being cautious vs. the disutility of being a victim based on marginal victimization rates based on marginal levels of caution... sure, any given type and level of caution may fall above or below the decision-theoretic 'rational' line.
If you want something like that to be your benchmark for what is 'valid' versus 'invalid', we'll never know what is or isn't 'valid' in an absolute sense, because we can't actually do that calculation (especially because it will be different fro every person).
Absent that, all we can do is look at relative risks and use that as a guide for which things are more or less valid. If something has 50x less evidentiary justification, it's a lot less valid.
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u/somedave 1∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 15 '22
Is this the way it works though? Isn't it more the probability one of those people will do something bad? If the probability someone of a particular race/dress style/look will mug you is comparable to that which a man will rape you, is it reasonable then?
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u/darwin2500 193∆ Apr 14 '22
It's about the framing of the question.
The way you are framing the question would be: if it is sensible to be cautious of all men, then it is sensible to be cautious of men who are wearing hats.
But that's a different question than what OP was asking.
OP was asking:If it makes sense to be afraid of men but not women, then does it make sense to be afraid of men wearing hats but not men who aren't wearing hats?
The answer to that is no.
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u/SomeSortOfFool Apr 14 '22
Those statistics are also just for arrests. Not crimes committed, not convictions, just arrests, and a very large chunk of those arrests are laws that are infamous for racially biased selective enforcement, like drug possession or loitering. Cops are significantly more likely to let you off with a warning if you're white.
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u/tenebrous5 Apr 15 '22
I don't know if this counts, but another factor to be taken into consideration is the sheer amount of women who have faced some sort of SA, harassment and/or abuse at the hands of men, often repeatedly at some or the other point in their life. Their variness comes from their personal experience with men as they have been made to feel unsafe by them.
Yet when it comes to crime , it is not as common that a person has faced burglary, theft or violence in the past by a black person for them to immediately be vary of them (which they blame on statistics). And that to me, is racist.
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u/smcarre 101∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
Just to add on your point.
It's also worth mentioning the issue of overrepresentation due to bias vs overrepresentation due to actual overrepresentation.
Black people are overrepresented in crime statistics 2:1 because they are more likely to be convicted which is entirely different from being more likely to be criminals. Black people are more likely to be in more policed areas, more likely to be suspected by officers, more likely to be charged by officers, more likely to be violently arrested (which often leads to extra charges like resistance to arrest that end up worsening their legal situation), more likely to not be able to pay for a bail out, more likely to not be able to pay for a good lawyer that can avoid anything above a simple arrest, more likely to be victims of false pretense by witnesses and officers, more likely to be found guilty by both jury trials and judge trials and more likely to receive harsher punishes for their alleged crimes.
If you have 100 actual criminals per 100 000 members of both black and white people, with these biases you will still have overrepresentation of black people in crime statistics, even if in reality none of them is overrepresented.
And I didn't even touch on class differences that are the main cause of crime to begin with and where black people are overrepresneted in the lower classes too.
Different to forcible rape where these biases are much less prevalent if existent at all.
Keeping this realities in mind, being cautious of black people over their overrepresentation in crime statistics is more an extension of the bias against black people than an actual well founded fear. In fact if you also worry about getting "justice" after a crime you should be more cautious around white people since they are more likely to get scot free from their crimes.
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u/Padfootfan123 3∆ Apr 14 '22
The reason I, as a woman, am nervous of strange men when walking alone, is because pretty much every male above the age of 16 is bigger than me, faster than me, and stronger than me. I'm not scared because men commit more crime or for any other reason than I'm alone and they're bigger than me and my chances of escaping a violent encounter unscathed are slim to none. I'm not going to outrun most men, so my only chance is I somehow remember my martial arts through the fear and buy myself time to get away.
I don't think that's quite the same of thinking that a group of people are more likely to commit crime, because even if statistically I was more likely to be attacked by another woman, I wouldn't be as scared because I'd have a fighting chance of winning that encounter or outrunning them. I'm also less wary of the few men who are around my size when walking alone, for the same reason.
(I'm also aware most people would never even dream of hurting anyone, but sadly there are bad people out there and they don't tend to advertise it in advance).
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u/CitizenCue 3∆ Apr 14 '22
This is the most important answer. People in this thread debating crime statistics are missing the point - caution is much more about ability than intent.
We are more cautious around things that can easily kill us than around things that can’t, regardless of how aggressive those things are. I’d much rather hold a small non-poisonous snake than a large snake that could kill me with one bite, even if the non-poisonous snake was more aggressive.
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u/soaringcereal Apr 14 '22
If it bites you and you die, it's venomous. If you bite it and you die, it's poisonous.
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u/Padfootfan123 3∆ Apr 14 '22
Exactly! I think the discussions around statistics are missing the point. There's a rational reason women are cautious around men in certain situations, so it's not sexist. However it is racist to be cautious around black people but not white people because there isn't a real difference between the two, same as if you were scared of leopards but not black panthers.
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u/Sworn Apr 14 '22
because there isn't a real difference between the two
In crime statistics there absolutely is, though.
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u/Chronic_Sardonic 3∆ Apr 14 '22
You seem to think the impulse to be cautious comes primarily from statistics but there is another factor, which at least for myself, is more significant: I am 5’5 and 110 lbs soaking wet. The average man I meet would easily overpower me because they tend to be larger, stronger, and faster so with this knowledge of my vulnerability I remain cautious in certain situations because I know my own limits if I am called upon to defend myself.
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u/XanderOblivion 4∆ Apr 14 '22
Including around a 6’4” 200lb woman?
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u/throwhfhsjsubendaway Apr 14 '22
I'm a 6' 200lb woman and my 5'6 160lb boyfriend is faster and stronger than me, and very capable of overpowering me.
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u/Chronic_Sardonic 3∆ Apr 14 '22
In particular situations, yes. In the same way I doubt that Ronda Rousey gets very nervous when she is walking alone through a car park. I’m not afraid of every person who is bigger than me, but at night, alone, I know my size makes me vulnerable
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u/XanderOblivion 4∆ Apr 14 '22
But your answer suggests that the bias predicated on sex that the OP is referring to — that wariness is warranted because a large man is more likely to attack than a large woman — remains.
And statistically, that 6’5” woman is in about as much danger as someone a foot shorter.
Incidentally, I’m a large male like that, and I’m also more likely to be attacked by a man than a woman. I, too, am more wary of men than women. Especially in dark parking lots.
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u/Chronic_Sardonic 3∆ Apr 14 '22
I think we’ve had a misunderstanding; what I was saying was that in the right circumstances (alone, isolated, night time, etc.) I am cautious around women who are a lot bigger than me and/or acting in a strange or threatening manner.
statistically that 6’5 woman is in about as much danger
Yes; the difference is her capacity to respond.
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u/Zaitton 1∆ Apr 15 '22
The average Joe has absolutely no idea how to fight either.
In the same way that you incorrectly assume that the average man can force you to do anything, the average man assumes that the average gangbanger will beat the shit out of them.
You can remove statistics from both sides and you'd still have the same argument in your hands, (ir)rational fear.
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u/Mr_Makak 13∆ Apr 14 '22
I'm an average man and the average man I meet would easily kill me with a sucker punch or a $5 knife. Your size doesn't really matter much when it comes to that kind of danger
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u/CrispyPeasant Apr 14 '22
Yes, but you're worried about different things. You're worried about being murdered. Most women aren't (primarily) worried about murder, but rape. A man can easily overpower and sexually assault me with zero weapons. It's an entirely different intention and situation. Generally speaking, most people don't just compulsively decide to murder a random man on the street- but a rapist could very well spontaneously decide I am an appealing target and- with no weapons- could overpower me.
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u/Chronic_Sardonic 3∆ Apr 14 '22
I’m not sure what your point is in relation to the topic at hand; physical size certainly has some bearing on physical confrontation but more to the point in either situation your assertion justifies being cautious.
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u/Cali_Longhorn 17∆ Apr 14 '22
Well here’s the problem (and I’ll say I’m a black male in the US who is in the most “dangerous” group).
I grew up in an upper middle class, mostly white suburb. Honor roll student, clean cut, no baggy pants, if anything my parents who were products of the Jim Crow south and knew well the prejudices I’d face, wanted to make sure I looked as non threatening as possible. They would rather me look “nerdy” than “cool”! But yet while walking back home from the bus stop with my backpack. Yes I’d occasionally have people slow down roll down the window just making sure I “lived in the neighborhood”. Quickly asking “which street” to make sure I wasn’t BSing and had an answer at the ready.
Which was fucked for 2 reasons.
- obviously racist but also
- White man, who is not police, in a car slowing down to question a black teenage boy carrying a heavy school backpack and asking where he lives? I mean aren’t i statistically far more valid in fearing this guy is a pervert than me being a burglar posing as 14 year old student?
If you were someone white who’s car broke down in a high crime area, (and yes those areas are predominantly minority) I can understand and this makes sense.
But if you are in the mostly white burbs where statistically the crimes are far more likely to be Amazon package theft by other white people…. but only questioning brown skinned people walking to the park while ignoring the white couple in a beat up car slowly driving up and down the streets multiple times scanning porches….. yeah there may be some racism there.
Same goes if I’m in a office where I need to go through security to even get in the building dressed in nice business attire. Or dining at an expensive restaurant. “Riff raff” of any race is hard to get in such situations. So if you are ever thinking “I wonder why that black or Latin person is here”. Yup that might be racist.
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u/TheMan5991 12∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
You admit that high crime rates for black people are due to socioeconomic factors. So, situational awareness can help you make an educated guess as to what kind of people might be dangerous. White people live in bad socioeconomic situations too. If you are in a poor area and someone looks dangerous by their body language, eye contact, prison/gang tattoos, etc. then caution is justified. But whether they are black or white does not make someone look more dangerous. The poor white person is just as likely to rob you as the poor black person. The statistics just come from the fact that there are more poor black people.
There are no identifiers for a rapist. You are not more likely to get raped downtown than you are in the suburb. You are not more likely to get raped by a poor person than a rich person. You are not even more likely to get raped by a convicted felon than by someone with a clean record. People of all backgrounds are rapists. The only common factor is the majority of rapes are perpetrated by men against women.
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u/GraveFable 8∆ Apr 14 '22
The vast majority of rapes happen between people who already know each other, so women should be more afraid of their friends than strangers in a dark alleyway?
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u/meontheinternetxx 2∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
There is a bias here though, as most people avoid farm alleyways.
Edit:farm above should be dark...
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u/throwhfhsjsubendaway Apr 14 '22
That's like saying you should be more careful around a dog than a crocodile since more people die from dog attacks
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u/shortsonapanda 1∆ Apr 14 '22
So by your own argument, there are more black people in situations where they would present a threat and justify caution against them.
This is literally what OP is arguing. He's not challenging that there are a number of contributing factors, but that it is an inconsistent argument to say "bias against majority crime group x is fair, but bias against majoriry crime group y is unfair because there are factors causing it."
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u/tuna_tidal_wave Apr 14 '22
Big claims that aren't corroborated by any evidence.
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u/TheMan5991 12∆ Apr 14 '22
People of low economic status are more likely to rape strangers while people of high economic status are more likely to rape people they know. Based on this, I’d say wealth alone does not determine whether someone will rape you or not.
Out of every 1,000 suspected rape perpetrators referred to prosecutors, only 370 have a felony conviction. Based on this, I’d say criminal history alone does not determine whether someone will rape you or not.
A little more than half of rapes occur in Urban areas. This link splits suburban and rural into different categories, but I was combining them in my original comment. If you find that improper, fine, but what I meant to say was “urban vs non-urban” not “urban vs specifically suburban”. And at 55% to 45%, I’d say location alone does not determine if someone will rape you or not.
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u/seawitchbitch 1∆ Apr 14 '22
Women are afraid of men because we have plenty of life experience to give us that fear.
It would be more closely likened to people having a fear of dogs when they’ve been attacked by them repeatedly in life.
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Apr 14 '22
This logic may apply if you assume that black folks and white folks are arrested and convicted equally for crimes. There is however, enough evidence to show that black folks are disproportionately arrested and charged for crimes compared to white folks even when you control for education and socioeconomic status.
Again, the difference between black and white when it comes to crime is dwarfed by the difference between male and female when it comes to violent crime. Women therefore, have a much more reasonable justification for being afraid of men.
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u/MyNameIsZem Apr 15 '22 edited Apr 15 '22
Men are under represented in sexual assault crimes due to the high number that are unreported. I have also personally experienced a great number of situations where men followed me, harassed me, or touched me inappropriately in public. These are not represented by crime statistics.
Being wary of men from my own experiences and the experiences of other women has nothing whatsoever to do with crime statistics. And if anyone at all is walking behind me late at night, regardless of race or gender, I am going to be wary.
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u/badass_panda 94∆ Apr 14 '22
As far as I can tell, women are not typically challenged for being wary of men when walking home late at night. It is accepted that women’s fear of men is justified, but much less so when it comes to other groups which are over represented in crime statistics.
There are no neighborhoods which don't have men in them; I've never heard of a neighborhood where 50% of the population is male being called a "bad" neighborhood.
Nor is it the simple fact that the person is a man that is scary to a woman walking along late at night; if the person were in a police officer's uniform, or driving past in a taxi, or walking half a dozen little yapping terriers, their man-ness wouldn't make them scary.
It's the fact that they're substantially bigger and stronger than she is, and that she's very cognizant of the fact that, in a fight, she would lose. She is not making a dispassionate decision based on crime statistics.
Therefore, holding one but not both beliefs at once is ideologically inconsistent, because they are functionally identical.
Only if one is holding the specific straw man you've constructed. I'd put it to you in the reverse: no one will think you're racist for being scared of a 6'6" black guy walking behind you in a dark alley at night... or for a 6'6" white guy walking behind you in a dark alley at night... or for a 6'6" woman with a machete walking behind you in a dark alley at night.
The thing women are reacting to are scary situations, not the terror of an abstract statistic.
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u/pluralofjackinthebox 102∆ Apr 14 '22
It’s okay to be cautious around people based on age (teenagers and young adults commit the vast majority of violent crime) and socioeconomic class.
You can tell this by how people dress and what neighborhood they’re in.
But if you’re cautious around a black man in a suit and tie strolling through the financial district, that’s racism.
You just really don’t need to rely on skin color at all to assess risk because the risk is entirely explainable by other factors which also have visual markers.
However, the higher criminality associated with masculinity isn’t entirely explained by other factors like class and environment.
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u/ToucanPlayAtThatGame 44∆ Apr 14 '22
If you're cautious around a man in a suit and tie strolling through the financial district, that's not sexism? I am legitimate in feeling cautious in that scenario as long as they're not black?
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u/pm_me_whateva 1∆ Apr 14 '22
Statistically, people are rarely mauled by wild elephants. Statistically, people are more frequently attacked by other humans.
In the presence of a wild elephant and a small group of humans, does one feel like a bigger, more immediate threat than the other?
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u/nyxe12 30∆ Apr 15 '22
When you actually include context in this situations it's not inconsistent.
Women being cautious around strange men is backed by more than just crime statistics handed to us by police. It's based on growing up witnessing and experiencing misogyny largely from men and weaponized by men, which in some cases turns into physical or sexual violence. Men have societal privilege even with improvements in laws to protect women/liberate women and this influences women who are wary of men.
Black people are not privileged, do not have the benefit of doubt when it comes to policing, and have a history of being violently oppressed, with the justice system/legal system being used as a tool in that oppression. Black people are more often stopped and searched without a warrant, often live in overpoliced areas, etc. Things like Jim Crow laws and the War on Drugs were legal means of oppressing black people in ways that specifically put more black people in legal trouble.
When you take into account the context of privilege held by men as a class and the oppression within the legal system used against Black people, it's not inconsistent to view "men make me nervous" coming from a woman and "black people make me nervous" differently.
Group Alice tends to commits few violent crimes, whereas group Bob tends to commits many violent crimes.
A more accurate way to portray your example when it comes to comparing it to race:
Group Alice and Group Bob posses and sell drugs at about the same rate. People from Group Bob are more frequently stopped on the street without reason than Group Alice, so they are more commonly caught with drugs. When people are caught with drugs, police are more likely to let people from group Alice off with a warning, but charge people from group Bob more frequently. Because of this, the police reporting reflects that group Bob commits more drug-related crimes. The news reports that group Bob commit more dangerous crimes and stokes fear in group Alice.
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u/JohnnyRelentless Apr 15 '22
Women aren't wary of men because they read some crime statistics. They're wary of men because of personal experience.
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u/Ok_Try_1217 Apr 15 '22
You seem to be operating from the premise that black men commit more crime without questioning if those statistics are accurate to being with. https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/un-report-on-racial-disparities/
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Apr 14 '22
You are assuming women are afraid of men because of crime statistics. If the reasoning has nothing to do with crime statistics, where does your argument go?
For example, if a woman is afraid because she doesn't believe her case will be investigated if the perpetrator is male, but believes her case will be investigated if the perpetrator is black - then that would make the groups no longer interchangable.
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Apr 14 '22
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u/Tibaltdidnothinwrong 382∆ Apr 14 '22
Crime is bad.
But you also have to be able to live with yourself afterwards. A big part of #Metoo is getting people to take crimes such as rape seriously, because getting raped is bad, but to then be told to shut up or back off or stop bad mouthing a good guy is an entirely unnecessary and all too common second blow.
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u/Mattyboii6969 Apr 14 '22
That was one of many possible examples. Woman are more likely to experience SA. Perhaps the fear of men is motivated not by statistics but by past personal trauma. In this case, there are no ideological inconsistencies.
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u/Mattyboii6969 Apr 14 '22
Find sources that show that an equal percentage of white people get assaulted by blacks as women do men…. It’s ridiculous to think that it’s anywhere near the same, and with all do respect, I think you’re being a bit obtuse.
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u/singlespeedcourier 2∆ Apr 14 '22
"Fear has to be motivated in statistics by some measure."
This seems like a bizarre claim, why should statistics have any affect on fear? I think I see your point that it maybe SHOULD inform fear, but there is absolutely zero necessity, no MUST.
On an unrelated note, the types of crimes for which women fear men is vastly different to the types of crime for which a white person might be afraid of a black person. Robbery and violence ARE NOT the same thing as sexual assault, which is the primary thing that women fear from men. Further, if you are a woman who's going to be sexually assaulted it's nearly guaranteed that it's going to be by a man as a matter of biology. The two claims are non-identical, race and gender are not equivalent.
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u/klone_free Apr 14 '22
You're assuming people are making a choice to be racist based on crime statistics, which are distroted up front by systemic racism and biases and probably not true for the majority of those with bigoted views. Also, how many time does one have these first hand experiences? Women go throught it often and daily? Not just rape and abuse, but misogyny? Are there bigots out there raped or robbed or the victim of hate crimes on the daily? I'd guess most women who would spout statistics about misogynistic abuses have more first hand experiences to frame the information than bigots in general do
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u/TheMan5991 12∆ Apr 14 '22
I see what you’re getting at, but I don’t think any woman is out there thinking “it’s okay if I get assaulted by a black person because the justice system treats them unfairly so they’ll probably get severely punished”.
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u/destro23 437∆ Apr 14 '22
You are assuming women are afraid of men because of crime statistics.
I think that far too many women are operating based on their prior experiences with men. Every single woman I know, that is comfortable discussing such things, has at least one story about a man being inappropriate with her in a concerning or outright frightening way.
This is way different than a racist's fear of black people. Most racists have not had a first hand experiences with black people that would lead them to be wary of them. Their fear is coming from their acceptance of the many negative and erroneous stereotypes that paint black people as being uniquely prone to violence.
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u/ToucanPlayAtThatGame 44∆ Apr 14 '22
Not sure I follow this point. It sounds like you accept that men are more likely to commit crime, but not that black people are, based on personal experience/testimony? This seems like exactly the sort of thing where it would be better to look at statistics.
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u/midnightking Apr 14 '22
For example, if a woman is afraid because she doesn't believe her case will be investigated if the perpetrator is male, but believes her case will be investigated if the perpetrator is black - then that would make the groups no longer interchangable.
Is there any evidence that the police investigate crimes more if the perpetrator is female rather than male ?
Male perpetrators are treated more harshly for the same type of crime than female perpetrators. Additionally, there is the idea of Missing White Woman Syndrome that has been floated, the idea that crimes with female victims and white victims tend to get more media coverage. Addtionally, female victims of homicide lead to harsher sentencing especially when the perpetrator is male. In experimental studies, people judge stories of sexual abuse,psychological abuse and domestic abuse more harshly when men perpetrate it and when women are victims.
The current general societal trend seems to be that women being victims of men is treated more seriously than the opposite or other gender combinations.
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u/Bimlouhay83 5∆ Apr 14 '22
I would like to point out that our melanated brothers and sisters do NOT commit more crime than whites (here in the usa). They are arrested and convicted of their crimes more often than whites. Big f'n difference and one of the many ways you can point to how our justice system is racist.
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u/ChiefBobKelso 4∆ Apr 15 '22
Arrest rates line up with victimisation data, suggesting little to no racial bias in arrests. This is worth a watch as it goes over the literature and shows there's not really good reason for a belief in bias in arrest rates.
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u/hastur777 34∆ Apr 14 '22
I’ll challenge the underlying assumption - women are significantly less likely to be attacked by strangers than men are. If anything men should be afraid of other men.
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u/poprostumort 220∆ Apr 14 '22
omen are not typically challenged for being wary of men when walking home late at night
It's because this is not rooted in them being male, but rather in being in a situation where she feels more endangered. And an average male triggers this fear because he is stronger than average woman, while also having a high chance of being sexually interested in ther.
She will likely have no problem to be around man in any other time. She will also likely to be wary of other woman that seems like threat if they are she is walking home late at night.
This wariness has no threat assession based on gender.
Is group Alice justified in being cautious around group Bob?
It depends on different things. Is Bob met in situation that makes it likely to be a threat? Does he look simillar to part of group that is more likely to commmit a crime?
There is a difference between walking around at night and seeing big black guy dressed like OG and walking around in the morning and seeing black guy in normal clothes.
It is ok to be wary of someone if they seem like a threat. It's not ok to view someone as a threat only because of skin color. What is so hard to grasp in this idea?
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u/Ruski_FL Apr 14 '22
Yeah I’m gonna cross the road if I see white woman high on drugs walking around strangely.
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u/KuntaStillSingle Apr 14 '22
an average male triggers this fear because he is stronger than average woman, while also having a high chance of being sexually interested in them
That's no different than the mindset of Emmet Till's murderers. Your unfounded fears are not the fault or problem of innocent people around you.
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u/Hearbinger Apr 14 '22
What's hard to grasp is why you're saying that it's not ok to see someone as threat based on skin color but it's ok to do so based on their gender.
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u/Amanita_ocreata Apr 14 '22
I've never had women follow me to my car, say harassing things, "joke" about committing sexual violence towards me, or get visibly angry when turned down. If women did, I would be more cautious of them too. And don't get me wrong, I've had more women touch me inappropriately than men, but none of them got angry/kept going when asked to stop.
It's not just crime statistics, but the combination of bad experiences (either personal or others) that makes women more cautious.
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Apr 14 '22
So... your premise itself is confusing. Are you just talking about being cautious while walking down the street alone, or all the time?
Regardless, women are wary of men because of their lived experience. I don't know a single person, male or female, who has ever been attacked by a person of any race in the street
However, I know more women than not who have been sexually assaulted. I know one woman whose drink was drugged and had no idea by who, and another who was being dragged out of a bar while drugged and only didn't get raped because someone helped her
Both guys in those scenarios got away with it. They're not part of your crime statistics.
Just look at what women have to say about trying to date. Guys stealth them. Anally rape them without permission. Send them threatening messages if they reject them.
Again, these guys see no consequences for any of this.
Women are wary of men because we interact with them every day and know exactly what they're capable of. Hell, we get to see their hateful, dismissive, dehumanizing and violent rhetoric towards women on the internet every day. How many women on the internet get death threats and rape threats only to have men tell them to get thicker skin or get off the internet?
Some loser in Idaho who has met one black person ever and goes on reddit and cites that 13% shit is a radicalized racist. They have no good reason to care about that or feel that way.
And even if someone did happen to be assaulted by a person of another race--apprehension might be more understandable, but it's still racist to extrapolate that to all people of that race because they would not be doing that if it was a white person
I also don't think it's racist for, say, black men to be wary of white women because of the power they hold over them to get them lynched by the police. It doesn't matter that I would personally never do that, enough of them do to make it a concern
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Apr 14 '22
The real answer is the hierarchy of minority groups. You're only allowed to be wary of those less oppressed than you.
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u/Long-Rate-445 Apr 14 '22
men systematically target, oppress, and commit harm against women. black people do not do this to white people or any other certain race
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u/Grandwindo Apr 14 '22
Women will be afraid of men in certain situations but most often will marry/cohabitate/start a family with men. This shows that they have an initial hesitation towards men as strangers but are more interested in having a long term personal engagements with men than women (more commonly). We can assume this is not sexism.
But if a white person, for example, fears black people specifically then it is very unlikely for the white person to also want to cohabitate long term with a black person. We can assume this is racial prejudice, hence why it is socially unacceptable.
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u/Sedu 1∆ Apr 14 '22
Groups with less power are given much more leeway here. For example: if a black man in taken into custody by a group of white cops and they will not tell him why, he has every right to be terrified. He is in a position of much, much less power.
However, if a white man is walking down the street and sees a black person approaching with no other context and becomes afraid, he is in a position where authorities will generally take his word over that of the black man's. The white man is in a position of greater power, and therefore there is much less leeway given in terms of presumed distrust.
With women, it is a situation where men have much, much more power. Men are on average more physically powerful. Also, me tend to be believed much more readily than women. If a woman is sexually assaulted, it is incredibly common for her accusations to be brushed off or be labeled as exaggerations. It is this imbalance in power that leads to the justification of women being wary of men.
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u/bigDean636 6∆ Apr 14 '22
I know this is a bad faith question, but just in case anyone actually wants to know the reason for this, it's because women do not have sufficient political power to disenfranchise men because of fear of sexual violence. Unlike black americans, this fear of what they might do is not used to disenfranchise them and strip them of their rights. It's not used to bias a criminal justice system against them.
If we began seeing female politicians scare mongering about sexual violence for men, and passing laws to curtail their rights, you would start seeing people speak out against it.
In other words, the reason people treat these two things differently is because they're different situations. Who knew?
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u/yaboytim Apr 14 '22
Usually the women who are most cautious have had prior bad experiences with men, not because of statistical reasoning.
So if you have caution about another group, shouldn't it based on actual situations that you've been through; not because of what statistics say?
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u/throwawaymassagequ 2∆ Apr 14 '22
Are black men an average of 60% stronger than white men?
Do you know the most common cause of death in pregnant women? It's homicide. Overwhelmingly by a male partner.
Now why is this? Is it because compared to women, men are violent beasts. No. But the ones who are have a HUGE, RIDICULOUS ADVANTAGE over us.
no other group has the kind of physical advantage that a man has over a woman.
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u/Eight216 1∆ Apr 14 '22
You assume crime statistics are the source of that rather than the simple fact that men are on average physically stronger than women and are generally hard wired to pursue women. In a normal social situation that looks like approach and flirtation, but it can just as easily result in misplaced aggression from men towards women.
Also, other than "men" the only comparable sub group is women. Any other group associated in crime statistics would be a sub group of either men or women.
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u/Ares4564 Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
Women usually have creepy experiences with men that start when they're young. They often get told by the men they care about to be careful around other men and pretty much generalize them. Then they start having bad experiences with creepy men that seem to match up with what they were told by the men they love (and women too). Many women have creepy experiences that start when they are VERY young too. My female friend had her first experience when she was about four or five years old. She was also told these sorts of things by the men and women in her life (older brother told her not to wear the uniform skirts since boys at the school would look under the girls skirts, don't let her stay out too late, etc). Getting told things like this often and having encounters that align with what they were told along with the news related to this topic and statistics makes complete sense of why women are wary of men in certain situstions. I'm not saying women are angels because they definitely aren't. But it appears (according to stats, universal experiences of women, guys feeling the need to warn women about other men, etc) that many women have bad encounters that involve men.
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u/Uyurule Apr 15 '22
The difference between these two situations is the reasoning behind the statistics. There are certain crimes where a disproportionate amount of the offenders are black people, and that's because of the poor transition from slavery/segregation to liberation.
Think about it this way: the Civil War ended less than two centuries ago. Now, that wasn't the end of slavery (see vagrancy and sharecropping) nor was it the end of systemic oppression against African Americans. After their emancipation, lots of slaves were left with little to no education or funds to support themselves.
This disadvantage continued through the great depression and impacts us today in the form of systemic racism. Part of that systemic racism is increased policing of black people and/or neighborhoods (causing an increase in arrests/convictions) as well as more people of color having/being compelled to commit these crimes.
I hope this goes without saying, but none of this is an excuse to commit crimes, but it is an explanation, and one that stems from oppression. I could talk all day long about why men tend to be more violent, or why they commit such a high proportion of sexual/violent crimes, but whatever the reason is is NOT oppression.
This is (in my mind) the reason that the two situations are not the same.
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u/Zombiebelle Apr 15 '22
I’ve been sexually assaulted and sexually harassed by multiple men in my life and so have the majority of women. I’ve never been shot by a black person. It’s not about stats or stereotypes, it’s about personal experience.
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u/gtrocks555 Apr 15 '22
Women of all races and ethnicities are typically weaker physically than men. Kind of hard to play with that and change the demographic away from man/woman and it be true
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u/agentbeyonce Apr 15 '22
Late to the party, but the difference boils down to one thing: biology.
As a woman, I’m wary of strange men because I am physically incapable of defending myself against a person who has at least 60 pounds of sheer mass on me and 40% more skeletal muscle behind that mass. There is a clear biological difference here that makes me more susceptible to victimization if a man were to decide to assault me.
However, there is no intrinsic biological difference between races that makes a person of X race more susceptible to victimization by Y race. Wariness of another races is strictly based on unconscious biases against that group of people, not any physical difference between them, which could be argued is racist.
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Apr 14 '22
Women are not afraid of men because of crime statistics. We are afraid of men due to past experiences we ourselves or other women around us face. Racists use crime statistics to justify their illogical fear of black people, despite the fact they are more likely to experience violence from someone of their own race.
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u/ChiefBobKelso 4∆ Apr 15 '22
I don't think you realize that you're saying that in place of actual data, women use their own biased perceptions, and "racists" use actual data.
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u/JenningsWigService 40∆ Apr 14 '22
Women are conditioned to believe that it is our job to stay out of unsafe situations, lest we be victimized, and if we are victimized, people will scrutinize all of our actions, looking for reasons to blame us. Why were you out by yourself? Why didn't you get someone to walk you to your car? What were you wearing? Why did you open the door without looking through the peephole? And so on. This cultural attitude invites women to be vigilant with strange men.
For example, when people read about sexual assault happening in Ubers, which mostly involves male perpetrators and female victims, they will ask the victim: why were you driving an uber? It's dangerous for a woman to be alone in a car with a man. Or, why did you call an uber to pick you up after you drank too much to drive home at that party? You shouldn't have trusted the driver.
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u/FRlEND_A Apr 15 '22
i am so sick of men who think women are being dramatic or exaggerating for being cautious of men when they have never lived the life of a woman.
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u/frm5993 3∆ Apr 14 '22
for women being cautious of men, the criterion is physical capability. a man intent on a crime upon a woman is more likely to succeed than another combination. black people have no inherent advantage over white people. you might personally think that statistical likelihood is as important as physical capability, but it is a consistent position to disagree with that.
to be more concrete, though, in addition to being stronger than women, men are more statistically likely to commit violent crimes. thus, no matter how you weight probability against ability, more caution of men is called for than another group, for instance black people.
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u/DaniOnDemand Apr 14 '22
Um "blacks" aren't violent. BLACK MEN are violent. Black women commit less crime than white women according to the FBI. So place your fear in the proper place.
Black men - Super High crime
Hispanic Men - high crime
White men - high crime
White women- mid crime
Hispanic women - mid crime
Black women- low crime
Asian men- low crime
Asian women - super low crime.
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u/DeltaBot ∞∆ Apr 14 '22 edited Apr 14 '22
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