When he realizes he is being watched
The man never enters the frame, but we can tell he is older, and he must be much bigger than she is: the girl, still seated, cranes her face to look up at him. The calm confidence behind her large glasses snuffs out; her shoulders tense up, rising toward her ears….“I see your hesitancy,” he says…“I’m just doing a live and talking to some people,” she says, and glances towards her phone. That’s when he finally leaves her alone: not when he notices that she’s uncomfortable, but when he realizes that he is being watched.
The video (in two parts), posted to TikTok by the teenage user @maassassin_, immediately goes viral. Women, young and old, saw in the exchange a microcosm of their own experiences of being young girls, and of being approached, harassed, groomed or merely leered at by older men in ways that scared them at the time, and which they only later learned to put into context. The video blasted into the public consciousness on the heels of two high-profile cases of sexual misconduct by adult men towards teenage girls: first that of the Florida congressman Matt Gaetz, who allegedly paid a 17-year-old for sex, and second that of Blake Bailey, the Philip Roth biographer who is accused of paying untoward attention towards his middle school students, and of sexually assaulting some of those students, as well as another woman, after they became adults. Gaetz and Bailey both deny wrongdoing.
It’s easy to “deny wrongdoing” if you don’t believe your doings were wrong, and it’s clearly way too easy for way too many men to think they have every right to predate on girls and women.
The incidents have prompted a miniature reckoning, with women reflecting on how much of their teenage years were spent navigating the sexual attentions of men many years their senior – and what it means when teenage girls’ experiences of male mentorship, early romance, and their own emerging adulthood is filtered so heavily through the lens of male desire and power imbalance.
And also of just plain creepiness. Of men in movie theaters, on subways, on park benches – being creepy. What does it mean that teenage girls’ experiences are filtered through that? It doesn’t seem altogether cheerful.
Those early experiences of male sexual aggression are maybe one of the most reliable rites of passage for female children. It’s more common than any of the other rituals that signal impending adulthood, more universal than the bat mitzvahs, or quinceañeras, or sweet 16 parties, or proms. By the time a girl reaches any of these milestones, she has likely already developed a skill set for navigating the unwanted attention of adult men…
Or maybe not so much a skill set as just an aversion. Just a fuck off go away leave me alone. I don’t remember it as anything to do with “navigating,” frankly, but rather as rage-fueled avoidance. That’s not a particularly good thing either.
The message that all of this sends to young girls is that womanhood is a state that consists largely of receiving unsolicited male attention, much of it benign but much of it threatening, exploitative or hostile, and that their ownership over their own bodies, their ability to peacefully occupy public space…can all be abridged by the whims of a man’s desire.
Can and will. Count on it.
The other day, I was walking through my apartment building. I walked out from one section through some doors, and saw a young woman at the vending machines selecting something. Coming through the doors, she would have heard me. I immediately averted my gaze before she turned. I tried, despite my size, to just not be there as I went back to my apartment. I do not want to do this to women. Ever. And yet, I know I have. I wish it were otherwise.
And there’s an enormous increase in the number of girls who want to be boys, now that the lie that it can be done is on the table. I can’t imagine why.
Andrew, that’s very interesting (and considerate). It seems a little like the dance one does in a public restroom (or is it just me?) to not accidentally look into someone’s eyes in the mirror over the sink – just to not pay direct attention to other occupants at all. Naturally I’ve never understood how men can tolerate urinals.
It is kind of you to say that is considerate, but I also have to tell you that it can be an act of will to avert my gaze. While I can say it is how we are socialized and conditioned, we still often consent to such conditioning, or just assume it to be our right as men, as you have pointed out. For example, I could not help but notice the young woman I mentioned seemed attractive, but I also knew that last thing she wanted or needed was an old fat guy looking at her.
You are not wrong about the public bathroom dance. And yes, urinals are really annoying.
On a related note, I recently became engaged. My fiancé and I have actually known each other as friends for some time. She linked with me on a dating site. She asked me if I would have made the first move. I explained that when I saw someone I knew on a dating site, I never made the first move, because I did not want that woman to assume that the only reason I was their friend was an ulterior sexual motive. Also, when I attempted to “like” women, I would sometimes send messages of greeting, usually talking about something we had in common, and I would always acknowledge that I may not be someone they are attracted to. On occasion, women would respond. One woman thanked me for being understanding! Most of the time, they said nothing, probably because they did not trust me to take rejection with grace, because men are not typically understanding or graceful.
A bit tangential, but I’m curious about what youall think, and whether you might have any helpful thoughts. I’ve noticed that an important way for younger people in STEM jobs to learn, and to advance in their careers, is to get informal help and advice from more experienced people. A lot of the learning in one’s early years in a STEM job is more experienced people looking over your shoulder at your work and making suggestions, or asking casual questions about what you’re doing and giving advice and suggestions, or offering to demonstrate something or guide someone through a process, or just shooting the breeze and sharing and checking/challenging ideas, gossip or opinions. There is formal mentorship and training, but the kind of thing I’m describing happens multiple times a day in a typical office. And men are by far the greatest recipients of this kind of casual unrecognised assistance–I, and so many women I see in my work, are basically left to get on with things on our own, to our ultimate detriment.
And to some extent this is understandable–what does it look like when an older man leans over the shoulder of a younger woman, or engages her in casual conversation? Men may be uncomfortable potentially being perceived as creeping, or overstepping; women, as we’re discussing, may be justifiably wary of any kind of attention from an older man, and let’s face it, lots of men in STEM are not the most emotionally aware and may get a little carried away at the idea of helping a young attractive woman. Is there anything we can do to make this kind of informal assistance and support more available to women without the potential threat, either to the woman or to the helper? The obvious answer is ‘more senior women’, but there will never be an equal number of senior women to senior men, and it’s still not fair for male junior staff to have a wider range of potential support than female junior staff.
guest, it’s not just age. My boss when I was working in Water Quality was younger than I was, and he gave much more informal mentoring to the men. I had to ask him questions over and over, up front, and then eventually I would get the response I needed, but the guidance in advance was…there…but minimal.
I also found that, in my Master’s, where I had a female advisor, she was very hands on, offering all sorts of help, spending a lot of time with me, and guiding me through the process. When I was in my doctorate, I had a male advisor, and he was very hands off (which was his style, anyway, but I noticed his relationship with the male students was much different than with the females). He was a very good man, he did what he could to support his female students, but he never developed camaraderie with them like he did with his male students. Was it discomfort? I didn’t get the feeling he worried much about that, but I don’t know what went on in his head. Some of the male advisors did work more closely with their female students, and I’m not aware of any problems.
Anyway, I don’t know if that answers your question, or just sort of adds on a couple more anecdotal instances…
For the record: A lot of us men hate them, and for the exact reason you posted.
When I was a teenager, if I called an 18 year old counterpart a “girl,” I would likely have been punched (for calling a 17 year old a “girl,” it was just a good yelling-at).
That’s a pretty elaborate gloss written on this interaction, with a heck of a lot of assumptions, mind-reading, and an overarching theme of infantilization of this young woman.
Maybe that’s just the way kids grow up these days – more engaged with the fictionalized world of Instagram etc. than with actual face to face interactions, and hence less capable of the latter – but I can’t imagine any of my peers at 18 sitting there like a rabbit in the headlights because some drunk rando was trying to talk to them in a public place.
You can’t beat the wall to floor urinals after your third pint though.
I feel like this discussion has gone too long without the obligatory “defenses”:
— He’s just socially awkward!
— In fact, he probably has Asperger’s, and your criticism is ablist!
— Oh, so men can’t approach girls in public any more? Do you want the human race to go extinct? DO YOU?
— Let me explain to you using evolutionary psychology why it’s ok for adult men to hit on young teenage girls….
See all the important, thoughtful contributions we’re all missing here in our “echo chamber”?
guest@5,
I’m not in STEM, but I have had to train and supervise younger colleagues, many of them women, and I really don’t think it’s that hard of a line to walk. You don’t have to be paranoid, just conscious of what you’re doing and how it could be perceived by someone who doesn’t assume your good/innocent intentions. You can make jokes, but not the kind of flirtatious banter that television characters do. Keep a respectful distance physically — you almost never need to actually look over someone’s shoulder or touch them, and if it really seems necessary, you can always ask first. Avoid comments on appearance and clothing unless it’s incredibly banal (“hey, new haircut?”) or professionally necessary (“are you planning to change before you go to court?”). Same for questions about someone’s romantic life — I might ask how someone’s partner who I met at an office party is doing, but that’s about the extent of it.
And the thing is — those rules all work fine for male colleagues, too. I don’t keep a professional distance from the women and then engage in backslapping, bro-ish discussions with the men. I don’t get drunk with subordinates of any gender. And that all still leaves plenty of room to be warm and friendly: you can talk about hobbies and tv and books and film and music, you can have a friendly lunch or a cocktail at happy hour.
Papito @8,
I don’t think it’s “kids these days.” Girls of all generations have to calculate whether it’s safe to yell at a random creep, and very few of them have ever thought it smart to punch one. It’s very easy for you to sneer at this girl for being a “deer in headlights,” when you’re not the one who had to sit there wondering whether yelling at this guy would make him more aggressive and angry, and even put you in physical danger.
Also he interrupted her, and put her off balance with his confusing request, and was so rude that he felt free to sit down with her when she was obviously interacting with one or more people on her phone. He treated her like public property in a way that people just should not do.
I can think of several times in my life where I’ve looked like a “deer in headlights” when confronted by some weird, aggressive stranger in public. You never know when such a person is going to get violent, or decide to stay and engage with you longer, or even start following you to your car or the door of your home or workplace if you try to leave.
Sure, I’d like to be that character in the movie who can throw an instantly withering putdown that causes the offender to slink away humiliated, or growl “fuck off” at this person, secure in the knowledge that I’m going to win any fight that starts, or that I won’t just end up with an annoying person yelling at me for the next half hour. But I’m not a movie character whose encounters are scripted, and I’m not a skilled martial artist who can effortlessly take down any attacker. I’m an ordinary person who just wants to get on with his life. And 99% of the time, the best way to do that is to give the weird stranger as little to react off as possible.
So yeah, I’m not going to fault a teenaged girl for not reaching the “obvious” conclusion that a creepy dude who had already demonstrated a complete lack of respect for boundaries and an apparent glee in making her uncomfortable was going to suddenly behave like a sensible person if confronted.
Seriously. We all have occasions when we wish we’d really shown that asshole a thing or two…but didn’t. There’s even a French phrase for it: esprit de l’escalier, wit of the staircase, i.e. all the brilliant things you would have said if only you’d thought of them before you were on your way upstairs to sleepybyes hours later.
There’s a lot of projection going on, not just in the gloss on this wee video, but in the comments. Take a closer look at the video itself. Where is this woman? Is she out in the moors? Is she in a seedy bar on the wrong side of the tracks?
No. From the contextual clues in the video, she is near a less populated bar or pool area of a hotel, during some sort of a gathering. From the indications given in the video, she is staying there with friends. Why she is there remains unclear: some sort of rite-of-passage party, like a bar mitzvah, or a sweet sixteen for her little sister? A couple of families together on vacation? Or perhaps a school trip of some sort, a debate or band competition, a field trip. In any case, this is a relatively closed environment with many associates, including the fellow who she states “saved her.” How? By making a remark from the balcony, apparently.
Do you sincerely believe this is a kind of “saving” a grown woman should need? The world takes all kinds, but I have more faith in women than that.
Seriously, this is a tempest in a teapot, and a very small teapot at that. The scariest night of her life is the time a guy she didn’t know talked to her? At eighteen? I don’t get it.
There’s no witticism required here, no bon mot, no cutting remark or particular cleverness required. “Sorry, man, I’m talking to my friends here” would do it. “Oh wait, you want to sit next to me? Sorry, I’m busy.” Is that so hard? If you want to raise the bar and be witty, how about, “Hey dude, wanna be part of the video?” Why make this more complicated than it has to be?
I am the father to a ten year old girl, and I consider it part of my job (and my wife’s, but I’m the primary caregiver) to make sure she is not helpless by the time she becomes an adult.
Of course, if she were in a “seedy bar on the wrong side of the tracks,” people like you would blame her for that.
@Screechy
No, people like your mother would.
I’m not your mother, and I refuse to wipe your rhetorical ass.
Seedy bar on the wrong side of the tracks is where my friends and I would have breakfast at her age.
But those were different times.
Papito what do you mean a tempest? I haven’t made any tempest out of it, and I don’t think Moira Donegan did either. I don’t think I presented the situation as terrifying or threatening; I see it as intrusive and rude, instead, and also as smugly confident of having every right to pester someone because hey maybe she’ll spread her legs.
That’s all I’m talking about, really – women’s right to be in public without being hassled. Yes sure sometimes they can just say no, go away, but the point is they shouldn’t have to say anything.
I got the impression from watching the clip the other day that she was quite young, younger than 18. Sorry I got that wrong, but I don’t think 18 is so definitely Woman that it merits a scolding.
I hadn’t seen #17 when I commented. Erm – let’s keep it civil.
“receiving unsolicited male attention, much of it benign but much of it threatening, exploitative or hostile”
And the the nastier stuff is often masked by a benign facade, hence schrodinger’s rapist.
I’m tall and solidly built. I wouldn’t hurt a cat, let alone a woman, but women to whom I’m a stranger don’t know that. I work near the central city. During work hours it’s very busy, but by 6:30pm, it’s pretty hollowed out. It’s not unusual for me to be walking to where I park late at night, which means pitch black on a winters night. I realised, some years ago that a solo woman walking toward me, in the same direction as either they approached me or I approached them, would routinely cross the street. I’m dressed in professional attire and I’ve made no moves to any them any specific attention mind. It was the epihanay for me that Schrodinger’s rapist was alive and well. Were those women over-reacting? Clearly. Except not. How were they to know that the most attention they’d get from me would be nothing, or at most an ‘evening’.
I now make a point of being the one to cross the street where convenient, or too clearly avert my gaze if walking toward them, or to keep a clear distance and make some unnecessary noise if walking behind them. it is surprising how much it has reduced what is clearly risk management behaviour on the woman’s part. It’s sad that this is necessary, but I’d rather carry that bit of sadness and reduce someone else’s fear and stress.
Weirdly, the other night I was carrying a large (empty) cardboard box back to my car and two separate women walking toward me gave me big cheery smiles and one even said hi as they walked past. Co-incidence or somehow sends a signal that I’m no threat?
As for teenage girls experience. It broke my heart a little when a friends daughter announced a couple of years ago during dinner that guys were gross. Sure enough, it was her first experience of older guys making obviously sexual comments to her and a friend. She was 12. What followed was the three adult women at the table sharing lifetime of experience and advice, and every adult at the table assuring her and her friend that they had done nothing wrong. It’s deeply messed up and it’s hardly any wonder that young women are prepared to mutilate themselves to get away from the way our society treats them.
Papito, as a woman, one who has been female my whole life, I can tell you that I would have probably reacted in a way that you would find as disagreeable when I was her age…and I was living back in the time when you believe women would have punched him. No. Men are in general stronger than women; most women are stronger than I am. I don’t know the situation that girl/woman has been living in, but I can assure you, when a woman has been abused since she was a little girl, she is not going to bravely say “no, I’m busy”. Chances are she won’t say anything at all. And she will be tense. And by the time she reaches 18, she will have been grabbed and goosed and catcalled and bullied and shamed and followed so many times that she will either be used to it and accept it, or fight back, or let it get to her, or just…do nothing. Depending on the personality of that woman. Depending on the history of that woman. Depending on what she has been taught.
When I was first required to go to self defense class by an employer, they were teaching us to do something…kick or bite or something. By the last one I took (again at the requirement of an employer), they were telling us to go limp. NO ONE KNOWS WHAT THE RIGHT MOVE IS TO MAKE IN THAT SITUATION. BECAUSE THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT MOVE TO MAKE IN THAT SITUATION. BECAUSE MEN WILL RESPOND DIFFERENTLY TO WHATEVER YOU DO.
I hope your daughter grows up with a better experience, but you are not her only teacher. Everybody in school, everybody in the neighborhood, everybody on TV (if she watches) is teaching her as well. And teachers are often as bad as students; they can be very cruel to children, whether intentionally or unintentionally.
Meanwhile, I am as grateful as I always am for the deep, profound insights of a man into the ways women should act when confronted with a scary situation. Thank you very much.
There are unwritten rules about urinals which are rarely broken. The most important is: eyes forward.
Since I’ve been in the wheelchair I’ve noticed that random women on the street give me much less of a wide birth than they used to and now usually make eye contact and nod or say hi (disclaimer: I live in a rural area, results might vary elsewhere).
I’m visibly not a threat now.
This seems unlikely to be a coincidence.
This fact alone is a good illustration of how careful women have to learn to be around men and how they have to assume every man is a threat unless they have good reason to believe he isn’t.
iknklast:
You are spot on about self defence. There’s no general, universal strategy for the exact reason you say: when an assailant can overpower you, there’s no guarantee that either fighting or going limp will be of any use. A lot of nonsense is taught as fact and I think that’s harmful. For instance, I don’t advise people to hold their key when they feel threatened and try to stab an assailant with it, unless they really know what they’re doing and have practiced. Getting into position to stab someone with a key can compromise escape routes, generally narrows options and really isn’t likely to help much, especially if the guy already has hold of you.
I’ve taught a lot of self defence classes for both sexes and although I covered a lot of physical stuff like how to break holds, how to keep balance, how to get an assailant off-balance and so on, most of my classes were about situational awareness, forming good habits and knowing when to run.
Which brings us right back to the tragedy of women having to be careful around men.
Holms:
And of course, the second rule of urinal club is…
1. If the bathroom is empty, use the one furthest from the door.
2. If one or more urinals are in use, use the one furthest from anyone else
If a man wanders into an empty bathroom and uses the middle urinal, then that man is a dangerous psychopath.
I’m not going to pretend to know what it’s like to be a woman and have to deal with this sort of thing on a daily basis. The following incident might serve as a clue, though. Almost 20 years ago I was studying in Leipzig, and overall it was one of the highlights of my life. I did have one very uncomfortable experience early on, however. I was walking around the “Innenstadt” in the middle of the day when a tightly built, middle-aged Russian man halted me in my tracks, apparently to ask me what time it was. This, it quickly turned out, was just a pretext for starting up a conversation and start following me around while talking as if we were already the best of pals and ignoring my (not so) subtle hints that I just wanted to be left alone. Throughout our rather one-sided conversation I was under the distinct impression that he was trying to get me away from the crowd. He even claimed we had met once before. I told him I really didn’t think so (which was true: I had only recently arrived, and anyway I’m pretty sure I would have remembered), but then he wanted to show me where this alleged former meeting had taken place and tried to lead me into a deserted back-alley. When I didn’t take the bait, he changed tactics and invited me to his home to show me his
etchingsBuddha statues. I made up a story about having a train to catch, but he said he was going the same way, his apartment was right next to the train station, it would only take a minute etc. In the end I had to be very blunt and tell him in no uncertain terms to stop following me before turning my back and walking away.Hardly horror movie material, I know. Reading that last paragraph again, even I can see how unconvincing it looks: This was in the middle of the day in a crowded city. I’m no Mike Tyson, but back then I wasn’t a total wimp either. I have served in the army. Unless he was armed, or had collaborators (which is always a possibility), I might have been able to fight him off. Still, for what it’s worth, here are some lessons that I take home from the experience:
1. Throughout our interaction, he was smiling and friendly (too friendly, like a sales-person trying to impose an artificial sense of communality on a reluctant prospect customer) and showed no outward signs of hostility or aggression, yet every alarm bell in my head was ringing without end, and every warning lamp was flashing red. Indeed I felt immediately threatened, and to this day I’m convinced that I was right. I have no idea what he wanted to do to me*, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t something that I wanted to have done to me, and I’m glad I never found out.
2. Nothing about my story would stand up to the kind of hyper-skepticism that women are routinely subjected to (“freaked out because some guy offered to
buy him coffeeshow him his Buddha statues”). I would not be able to point to any evidence that would stand up in court, yet I defy anyone to go through the same experience and conclude that the guy only wanted to show them his Buddha statues.3. I see no possibility that the guy didn’t know I wasn’t interested. To Hell with the “Asperger’s” excuse! He most definitely did have a theory of mind and knew perfectly well how social clues work, which is exactly how he was able to use them against me and effectively rule out any polite, “face-saving” way of ending the conversation (again the sleazy sales-person analogy is apt).
4. Even if (and I only mean this hypothetically) the guy only wanted to show me his Buddha statues, he had no right to expect me to just assume that that’s all he wanted. In the absence of telepathic powers, there was no method (or set of criteria) I could have used to conclude that he deserved the benefit of the doubt without reaching the same conclusion for every robber, rapist, or serial-killer on the planet.
* I’m almost hoping he was “only” after my wallet…
Sorry to get punchy there, but the “someone like you” line was a cheap shot, and I’m used to a higher degree of sensibility here.
Yes, creeps are everywhere. Bjarte’s story is familiar to me, and I’m a guy (take it from me, there are never any etchings). And no, do not mistake superficial friendliness for good intentions: too much friendliness is a really bad sign. Meeting strangers can be fun, and strangers can even become friends, but developing a good sense of what people are about is key. In order to develop that sense, though, you really have to interact with a lot of people; there are no shortcuts.
But back to my initial point: the writer put a picture of children on the top of her post. She is writing about children. The video, however, is of a woman. She is old enough: to join the Navy, to leave home, to get married. I was brought up, by those old-hat, crypto-colonialist second wave feminists, not to call someone like this a girl. And when I watch the video itself, all I see is a young woman, in a controlled environment, who doesn’t know how to talk to a stranger. One can almost see the “stranger danger!” bells going off in her head. If that’s “the scariest night of her life,” she has been woefully coddled.
My perspective is probably skewed because we are all strange people in my family, and early bloomers to boot. My father ran away from home at 15 and joined the Marines. He was following in his father’s footsteps, who joined the Navy at the same age. My grandfather met his wife when she was a nurse at the hospital he was sent to during WWI. Neither one of them was eighteen yet; they’d both lied when they signed up. My mother ran away from home at about this young woman’s age, and worked her way through college. When I got to fifteen, I also left home (with her blessing), to work and then go to college. By eighteen, I had done things like: get an apartment, get a job, travel abroad by myself, go home with strangers, etc. And yeah, I remember back then running into people my age who couldn’t handle themselves whatsoever and feeling very perplexed by that. I avoided hanging out with “normal” people.
My son is academically precocious, though his ASD keeps him from independence to a great degree, because he dislikes change and traveling (also, BTW, stop talking trash about autistic people, please. Autistic people are capable of learning to interpret physical cues). My son has been perfectly capable of getting around the city by himself using public transit since he was twelve, and that’s been key in his emotional and social development. He’s sixteen now, and finishing his first year in college, where he lived on campus, but he’ll be fine using transit to get to a different college for his second year. We’re going on vacation without him for a couple of weeks (he lined up a college class in order to have an excuse to avoid it), and he’s perfectly capable of commuting to campus, shopping, cooking, etc.
My daughter has the run of the neighborhood now, and when COVID lets up she’ll be able to use transit too (right now there’s not a lot of visiting friends going on). Right now she gets around on her bicycle, which limits her range. I’m pretty sure my daughter has even talked to strangers already, and I think that is a good thing. Learned helplessness is in itself harmful to children, and it’s within our power as parents to make sure our kids don’t develop it.
I don’t disagree with any of that. As I said, I had the impression the first time around that she was “a girl” i.e. under 18, although I’m not sure I’m as adamant about 18 as the cutoff point – but then I don’t have a daughter so I don’t need to have a firm position on it.
I do agree about learning to navigate city life early. I grew up in Princeton, an hour or so from Manhattan, and by 15 I was going there on my own. I think I remember a conversation with my older sister (who lived there, just off Gramercy Park, the lucky) about a weird guy on the street and what to do yadda yadda. But I don’t recall feeling jittery or worried about any of it.
It occurred to me just the other day how odd it was that my freshman year (first year) of tertiary education was in the UK and on the way there I spent 2 weeks in London by myself, and I don’t recall that anyone worried about it for a second. I was 17 and a few months. They were right not to worry, I was fine. I was fine and blissfully happy, going to a play every night for about 10 cents, and taking red buses to wherever they ended up. They were right yet it seems odd to me – I think I was pretty scatter-brained then and I didn’t even have an A to Z.
On the other hand for spring break 6 months later I went to Paris, and that was a whole different thing. I’ve mentioned it before so sorry for the repetition but great god almighty it was a shock, how relentlessly I was followed and pestered and hassled and not allowed to enjoy myself walking around alone. There wasn’t any way to “manage” it – I scowled and walked faster and told them to go away but it did absolutely no good. I remember one asshole who followed me for at least an hour.
Anyway, about the female young person in the video – no of course it wasn’t that scary. Maybe her annotations were jokey? I don’t know. She was rattled and awkward, that’s all. But again: why shouldn’t she be? Socially speaking, it’s weird to bounce up to a stranger and sit down. It’s a power move, it’s brash, it’s what too many men assume they have a right to do to women wandering around loose.
Papito, I can accept what you say, but the problem is that most women do not grow up in the environment you described. I, too, was able to run free and roam. We lived in the country, and the only danger to me was my older brother – who was, I admit, extremely dangerous.
But when I went to school, or places other than school, the creepiness of the boys did not lead me to develop those sorts of skills because I was shy (too used to being abused) and I was not as big as they were. It is simply not appropriate to base all your assumptions on your own upbringing, particularly since you are male and would have a different reaction than females.
Yeah, she may have been coddled. This may have been her first experience with scariness, and it seems minor since the man went away. For a lot of women, they don’t go away. And there is often damn little women can do about it, except never go out…and then they might be subjected to older brother (see first paragraph) who can also be a sexual predator and violently abusive.
In short, there is no right way for a woman to deal with this situation, whether she is 8, 18, 28, or 80. The men are nearly always in the power position. And being in the Navy? Women get harassed, assaulted, and raped regularly in the services, and have come to realize the brass isn’t going to do much about it, and in fact, they may be the one who ends up in trouble. Being a woman in the services doesn’t necessarily lead to tough as nails women who can handle every situation, regardless of what the movies present.