As a woman who got harassed nearly every day in the country I lived who responded to at least 40% of those with yelling and middle fingers, it’s not fun, it takes a toll on you, and some days you have to choose your battles carefully. That being said, I carried a taser gun and it made my life easier. When I left to another country that was safer, I gifted said taser gun to an American girl who was in that country in exchange and was sexually harassed by a taxi driver who drove her somewhere “hidden” and tried to kiss her and she found it hard to handle things after that.
You’re absolutely right, and I wasn’t trying to criticise her for any of her decisions here. Honestly without the host intervening she was probably making the best choice to keep herself safe.
It clearly would’ve been easy for everyone involved to dismiss the moment and let it go if they’d chosen to, and it seems like she didn’t feel like she could do anything until her host stopped things and gave her implicit permission to confront the guy.
I’m AMAB NB myself, but grew up pretty cis-passing, and I would’ve been pretty oblivious to most of the things she was doing here because my upbringing allowed me to be.
My point in making that comment was to help other oblivious AMAB folks see that the extraordinary part of this situation wasn’t the fact a woman was assaulted, because that is going on constantly. The extraordinary part is the attention it received, and the fact both her and the host took action to make sure it got attention.
That’s the moment-to-moment safety, and being with a group dealing with one guy you’re safer, yes.
The other issue is though, she’s on live TV. That means if she makes a thing out of it, she knows that there’s a chance the narrative turns her into the “angry woman”, the “karen”, a punching bag for misogynists nationwide, and possibly the target of an online hate mob. She couldn’t forsee what the outcome would be, and the much bigger danger lay in that unknown, and in the moment her immediate impulse seemed to be to smooth the issue over as quickly as possible to avoid any kind of attention.
With hindsight it’s good that that didn’t happen - although online hate mobs will latch onto some very esoteric targets that we don’t always hear about so there’s no guarantee there - and the fact an older man stepped in on her behalf before she said anything probably helps with that, because now the narrative looks more like a gentleman stepping in to rescue a helpless girl. That’s truly meaningless, I know, but those few seconds of hesitation on her part completely change the impression a lot of people would get. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is, and it’s a reality a lot of men completely miss.
This is also part of the difference that good allyship can make. He is the respected older man, so he can leverage his privilege to help her. Of course that also means he pushed her to do something she wouldn’t on her own, and I don’t know how I would’ve handled that situation myself. I guess also his reaction was immediate too, and I think I wouldn’t have wanted to let the moment go. You see something like that and it should make you angry, and leveraging that anger into a constructive response is maybe the best thing you can do. He at least asked her what happened, so if she REALLY didn’t want to address it she could’ve denied what happened.
As a woman who got harassed nearly every day in the country I lived who responded to at least 40% of those with yelling and middle fingers, it’s not fun, it takes a toll on you, and some days you have to choose your battles carefully. That being said, I carried a taser gun and it made my life easier. When I left to another country that was safer, I gifted said taser gun to an American girl who was in that country in exchange and was sexually harassed by a taxi driver who drove her somewhere “hidden” and tried to kiss her and she found it hard to handle things after that.
Edit: made some things bold
You’re absolutely right, and I wasn’t trying to criticise her for any of her decisions here. Honestly without the host intervening she was probably making the best choice to keep herself safe.
It clearly would’ve been easy for everyone involved to dismiss the moment and let it go if they’d chosen to, and it seems like she didn’t feel like she could do anything until her host stopped things and gave her implicit permission to confront the guy.
I’m AMAB NB myself, but grew up pretty cis-passing, and I would’ve been pretty oblivious to most of the things she was doing here because my upbringing allowed me to be.
My point in making that comment was to help other oblivious AMAB folks see that the extraordinary part of this situation wasn’t the fact a woman was assaulted, because that is going on constantly. The extraordinary part is the attention it received, and the fact both her and the host took action to make sure it got attention.
I would hope if things escalated the camera man would have intervened…
That’s the moment-to-moment safety, and being with a group dealing with one guy you’re safer, yes.
The other issue is though, she’s on live TV. That means if she makes a thing out of it, she knows that there’s a chance the narrative turns her into the “angry woman”, the “karen”, a punching bag for misogynists nationwide, and possibly the target of an online hate mob. She couldn’t forsee what the outcome would be, and the much bigger danger lay in that unknown, and in the moment her immediate impulse seemed to be to smooth the issue over as quickly as possible to avoid any kind of attention.
With hindsight it’s good that that didn’t happen - although online hate mobs will latch onto some very esoteric targets that we don’t always hear about so there’s no guarantee there - and the fact an older man stepped in on her behalf before she said anything probably helps with that, because now the narrative looks more like a gentleman stepping in to rescue a helpless girl. That’s truly meaningless, I know, but those few seconds of hesitation on her part completely change the impression a lot of people would get. It shouldn’t be this way, but it is, and it’s a reality a lot of men completely miss.
This is also part of the difference that good allyship can make. He is the respected older man, so he can leverage his privilege to help her. Of course that also means he pushed her to do something she wouldn’t on her own, and I don’t know how I would’ve handled that situation myself. I guess also his reaction was immediate too, and I think I wouldn’t have wanted to let the moment go. You see something like that and it should make you angry, and leveraging that anger into a constructive response is maybe the best thing you can do. He at least asked her what happened, so if she REALLY didn’t want to address it she could’ve denied what happened.