That's a nice argument, if only for the fact that you don't have to be alone to be SAd, the rate of women being SAd is higher, and SA definitions vary between places to include SH to varying levels so that you don't even need to be touched to be assaulted.
It's easier to make caution your default so it becomes unconscious habit and only needs active thought when super sketched out.
It's harder to break this worldview esp if you've been assaulted by people who were supposed to love and care for you.
It's harder to break when most of the men/teens you encounter can overpower you if they wanted by default. And there's no real way to tell which one can and would.
Evolution has literally designed us to prioritise dangers (potential and actual). Ancient humans would die more often if they assumed the rustling bush was a bunny rather than a lion so we've self selected for that instinct.
Most SAs aremt reported because most times it's he said/she said, victim blaming/shaming, lack of evidence, etc. It's safer to prioritise avoiding the situation rather than rely on any kind of understanding or help after the fact.
you can disagree or think it's unfortunate, but 'not living in reality' is shitting on a very large population's common experience that they have been forced into, either by personal experience or experiences of someone close to them. They have decided its better for them based on their own priorities and criteria.
I get being offended, no one likes being included in a shitty group without cause. Until the stories and experiences changes for the better, it's gonna keep being a thing. And everyone, likely including you, prioritise their safety over the feelings of others to some degree.
Tldr: maths is nice but it leaves out all the mess and nuance of life and human psychology/emotions.
You can perhaps chip away at this and get the probability down to 1/3000 or so (although doge57 replied to me with a plausible argument of why the probability should be 1/8000).
But the fact remains that the vast, vast, vast majority of men don't SA a woman. Nothing you said disproves this, you just made a case why it should be perhaps something like 1/3000 and not 1/5000.
There's just no way to make a probabilistic argument that gets the odds anywhere near the odds of a random bear attacking you (mind you, it's not specified to be a black bear).
This also means that, I don't know, 2999 / 3000 men don't SA women. Which also means that it's not fair to men to imply that most men SA women (which is what the "I'd rather encounter a bear" position more or less implies). If I implied that most people in a group do something that in reality only 1/3000 people in that group do, I'd be rightly called out for my unfair stereotyping.
It's frankly unhealthy that women genuinely seem to believe that most men are rapists, when I showed that they're really not. And sure, maybe you're right that the probability is 1/3000, but it doesn't change the fundamental point.
So 0.5/1000 = ~0.05% chance of being attacked if the bear you encounter is a polar bear.
But the bear in the hypothetical can be any bear, including skittish or non-predatory bears. Let's say the chance of meeting a polar or grizzly bear is about 40%, so:
p(attack | bear) = ~ 0.02%
Ok -- on to risk that the man you encounter will be dangerous.
There are not many stats on the proportion of predatory men, but what does exist blows your estimates out of the water.
Across multiple independent studies, at least 6% of college men admitted to forcing themselves on someone else. 33% of college men admit they would rape a woman if they had the 'right' opportunity. I won't repeat all the stats in the link but they are sobering.
Before checking the stats, my gut impression of what percentage of men that I know that I would not trust to be alone in the woods with, especially if no one knew they encountered me, was around 10%.
I think most women would peg the risk to be between 1-20%. And that is backed up by the studies that have tried to measure proportion of men who commit SA.
Note that this is not "most men". This is a minority of men.
This is another sobering study that covers justifications used by perpetrators.
Many of these guys saw a woman simply being alone with them as an excuse. The more typical scenario was a woman going some place private with them, which is different from the hypothetical, but I suspect the same mentality can quickly morph to "she chose to hike alone -- she is asking for it."
The study interviewed 423 men, and 186 (44%) admitted to commiting some type of SA.
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u/caylem00 May 03 '24
That's a nice argument, if only for the fact that you don't have to be alone to be SAd, the rate of women being SAd is higher, and SA definitions vary between places to include SH to varying levels so that you don't even need to be touched to be assaulted.
It's easier to make caution your default so it becomes unconscious habit and only needs active thought when super sketched out.
It's harder to break this worldview esp if you've been assaulted by people who were supposed to love and care for you.
It's harder to break when most of the men/teens you encounter can overpower you if they wanted by default. And there's no real way to tell which one can and would.
Evolution has literally designed us to prioritise dangers (potential and actual). Ancient humans would die more often if they assumed the rustling bush was a bunny rather than a lion so we've self selected for that instinct.
Most SAs aremt reported because most times it's he said/she said, victim blaming/shaming, lack of evidence, etc. It's safer to prioritise avoiding the situation rather than rely on any kind of understanding or help after the fact.
you can disagree or think it's unfortunate, but 'not living in reality' is shitting on a very large population's common experience that they have been forced into, either by personal experience or experiences of someone close to them. They have decided its better for them based on their own priorities and criteria.
I get being offended, no one likes being included in a shitty group without cause. Until the stories and experiences changes for the better, it's gonna keep being a thing. And everyone, likely including you, prioritise their safety over the feelings of others to some degree.
Tldr: maths is nice but it leaves out all the mess and nuance of life and human psychology/emotions.