Would you go for a walk at 9pm?

Or, like me, perhaps apprehension is your default setting after sundown.

Hostel v Hotel

A few things have happened recently to make me really notice the difference between how men and women ‘feel the fear’.

I first started thinking about this subject when my son was planning a trip to New York, and I was fretting that his safety might be in question if he stayed at a Hostel¹, and I was almost going to stump up the cash for the ‘hotel upgrade’, when Mr.D breezed into the discussion with a sharp ‘Oh for God’s sake, he’ll be fine, he’s a six foot two man. You meet interesting people in hostels, it’ll be way better than a hotel!’.

And that decided it, silly me, I was just being over-protective. 

It hadn’t occurred to me, that just by being a six foot two man, it gave you the inherent confidence to mix with whoever was about, and wander around the streets of New York without fear.

Wow! I wander what that’s like?

As a five foot six woman, I have always come from a place of fear.

By that, I don’t mean that I have spent my entire life cowering in a corner, far from it! What I do mean is that in certain situations, like walking by myself in a City after dark, I make it a point to act in a certain way, in order to give myself the best chance of not being attacked.

I worked in the west-end of London for about 20 years, and often worked late, which meant I needed to walk to the tube station by myself in the dark.

I would walk quickly and ‘with purpose’ to wherever I was going, in the hope that I didn’t look like an easy target.

I figured when it came to selecting mugging victims or worse, there was a checklist involved, and I was determined to check as few of those boxes as possible, to reduce my risk of being attacked:

Muggers checklist:

• Large open handbag?

• Teetering slightly on uncomfortable shoes?

• Unsure of exact direction of travel?

• Had too much to drink?

• Easily overpowered?

• Unlikely to ‘give chase’ due to size, shoes and general clothing?

I liked to think I did not check any of those boxes, and am happy to report I was never attacked or mugged on the street.

Except once, after a Christmas Do, I’d had too many drinks… and to be fair a toddler could have taken my work bag off me without too much trouble.

I did ‘give chase’ (WTF?) but fell over before I could get into any real trouble, thank Christ!

Apart from that, I managed to come out of my London tenure unscathed.

But imagine, if you could just walk down the street at night without a care in the world? Without having to do the mental checklist?

What a bizarre notion!?

When my son returned from said solo trip to New York, I asked him whether:

• He had walked around the streets at night?

• Had he felt ‘safe’ doing so?

“Yes and yes!” He replied. “Obviously I avoided the crazy people shouting at walls, which they have way more of than in London, but other than that it was fine.”

In fact, it hadn’t even occurred to him, to not feel safe.

That’s the difference, a female’s default is often fear, and their’s is confidence.

A friend of mine recently revealed that her husband was so into his 10k daily step count, that he’d often go for a walk at 9pm if he hadn’t reached his target by then!

We both agreed there was no way we would voluntarily be walking about at night, no matter how adrift our step count was!

But of course, he didn’t even have to think about that, because like my son, he’s a six foot male, and so has an in-built confidence that he will be fine.

In fact, it probably doesn’t even enter his head that he wouldn’t be, and that’s the difference.

Harper Steel and Will Ferrell.

Will & Harper

I recently watched the Netflix documentary ‘Will & Harper’, starring Will Ferrell and his friend Harper Steele (formerly Andrew Steele) as they went on a road trip across the United States. 

Harper was a comedy writer on SNL and so they have both worked together for years and are firm friends. 

Harper lived for around 60 years as a man (Andrew) and then decided to transition to a woman post-covid. The long periods of isolation led Andrew to acknowledge his lifelong feeling that she was in fact a woman.

Here’s the interesting thing, as a man he was drawn to seedy bars and seedy people. He would often seek out the worst dive bars and go in by himself looking to chat to strangers, as an excellent way of meeting interesting new characters.

If there was a dark alley in his path, he would intentionally go down it with no fear for his own safety… to check out if it harboured anyone with an interesting story to tell.

The thing is, he didn’t back up this behaviour by saying that this incredible courage was due to studying Taekwondo for 20 years.

He wasn’t a towering man like Will, or one with bulging muscles who could send you reeling 20 ft across a room with an inch-punch, he was just a man.

The running joke in the SNL writers’ room was that if you were planning a trip to somewhere that Andrew had visited, you would never ask him for a recommendation… as he always went to the worst places.

Fast forward to her new life as a woman, Harper, and she was ‘feeling the fear’.

It wasn’t just that she couldn’t run as fast in her heeled shoes to escape any troublesome situation, she just had a ‘feeling’ that she was vulnerable and people might give her trouble… even before walking into these places.

Welcome to a woman’s world!

Off on a Tangent

This all reminds me of one of my favourite bits in Victoria Coren-Mitchell’s autobiography, the brilliant For Richer, For Poorer: Confessions of a Player, when she describes the first three times she went by herself to a casino with the intention of playing poker.

She went in, hung her coat up, had a look at the poker tables, bottled it, and went home. 

The next time, she hung her coat up and got as far as inside the poker room, bottled it and left.

By the third attempt she actually plucked up the courage to take a seat at one of the tables and play.

I love her for admitting the first two attempts. 

A poker room is a hugely intimidating environment for a woman… but on the plus side there is never any queue for the loos at the tournament break. 😉

Having conquered that early fear, Victoria then had huge success in the poker world and went on to be the first ever person (not even just the first female, but the first EVER PERSON) to win two European Poker Tour Main Events (EPT London 2006 and EPT Sanremo 2014).

In a sea of hoodies and shades, she was majestic in lifting that trophy in her floral print dress at the final table of EPT Sanremo! 👏

Victoria Coren Mitchell, the world’s first two time EPT Main Event winner.

It is so true that before we (women) will even sit down to compete (with men), whether it’s at a poker table or perhaps in a boardroom, we need to know we’re better than at least half the competition. 

Whereas a man, will just give it a go! 👏

This is not about male-bashing, far from it, they can’t help it, they don’t choose to behave like this, it simply doesn’t occur to them to do otherwise. 

It’s not just about their often physical superiority strengthwise, it’s a mindset.

I wonder what it’s like to just feel inherently confident.

Like the UK justice system has an ‘innocent until proven guilty’ foundation, men have a ‘confident, until proven otherwise’ mindset.

Whereas women have a ‘shitting it, until proven otherwise’ mindset.

Mystifying.

K8x

Join in the comments below:

Have you ever had a fab time at a hostel?

Would you go out for a walk after dark to make up your daily step count?

Thank you for being here, please ❤️ (below) if you enjoyed this piece, it really helps others find it.

1. Hostel the film of the same name was one of the few we banned our kids from watching when they were young, as it’s quite horrifyingly real.