Gender

[Paddy™]

To Paddy - Women are generally much more paranoid about walking alone at night than men are. It's pretty obvious why.

Everyone is weary of walking home alone at night, but for some reason only women's fear is worth noting?

Men tend not to talk about or show signs of being afraid, even though men are the most likely - by far - to be the victims of assault, muggings, murder and random violence on the streets. What women may or may not think/feel about walking home at night is irrelevant to the reality of the situation; men are attacked significantly more often than women.

Women are universally considered to be more valuable than men, as a rule, and it's a rule which has served our species well. That our species has outlived all other hominids is largely due to that fact, because women are the limiting factor in a species' propagation.

If you don't think women are held in higher regard than men, consider the following hypothetical news report:

"Seven people burned to death last night in a blaze which engulfed most of down town New York. Two of the victims were women."

Sounds fine, like standard news reporting, yes? Try this:

"Seven people burned to death last night in a blaze which engulfed most of down town New York. Two of the victims were men."

Yeah, that knot you felt in your stomach as you read the second version is quite illustrative of the point.

Men getting mugged and killed on the street doesn't provoke the same kind of outrage as when it's a woman. That might go some way toward explaining why women may feel more paranoid about walking home alone even though they're less likely to be attacked than men: women's safety is more important than men's, so it gets more airtime, more exposure, more warnings and reminders to stay safe, constantly being portrayed as weak victims under surveillance from predatory men by the media, etc. So yes, "it's pretty obvious why".

This is not a gender issue, especially when women are said to be the victims of something which obviously affects men far more (i.e. street violence). Everyone's fear is valid, no one's fear is special.