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Comment by EngineerBetter | Hacker News Reader

Your friend's problem is that she's a bigot.

She had friends of the same religion here in Eastern Europe, but they were the kind of people that were staying at after parties at 7 in the morning. The people she now tells me about don’t look like they have shared a drink with a woman late at night anytime during their life. It’s easy to accuse someone of bigotism when you haven’t interacted directly with any of the talked-about people.

Then you're the one who's bigoted for bringing up religion in the first place, when that's not really the reason for your friend to be scared.

I'm going to guess that the religion in question is Islam, which forbids alcohol. Her being okay with the kind of Muslim who isn't religious enough to follow this proscription doesn't disprove her being a bigot. "Doesn't look like they have shared a drink with a woman late at night anytime during their life" is a poor basis for being afraid of someone. Many don't choose that lifestyle. Some will judge you for choosing it. Fewer will physically attack you for choosing it...

If they're leering at her (she said she can "feel" their looks, which could mean looks of moral judgement or of objectification/lust), I can start to understand why she'd be afraid. But there is a subjective element to interpreting others' body language, and bringing religion into the complaint makes me think prejudice might be coloring that.

As far as I could understand by talking with other women they can feel when other men look at them in “that” way, and they can feel if they should be frightened or not, and that “way” can look the more frightening the more those men haven’t had regular and normal interactions with women, no matter those men’s religion, that’s what my friend was afraid about. And yes, men that don’t have frequent and especially normal interactions with women do look more frightening to women, and it so happens that certain religions do impose (for whatever reasons) that men and women should live almost separate lives.

I've certainly heard similar things from women about "that" kind of look, and I wouldn't have really questioned it if religion weren't brought in. They might be right about if they "should" be frightened. I'm not going to say otherwise, and I support their personally doing what they need to feel safe, based on whatever information they think is best.

However, when it comes to setting public policy that trades off against individual liberty, authoritatively stating which of N cities is safest, and so on, I think the bar should be higher. Statements should be based on hard data such as numbers of violent attacks. This isn't practical for individuals (imagine: "based on extensive personal trials, I was murdered ten times as often by people who...") but is on the scale of cities/states/countries.

Interesting thread about the relative safety of cities, but wait...hang on: now simply looking at someone is perceived as threatening? Not catcalling or showing aggression... simply making eye contact?? I’ll take a note to avoid all eye contact in the future. I’m not a city person so I had no idea how little it takes to be considered a threat.

In a big city it's generally considered bad form to look at others too much. Making eye contact is something I would avoid, but mostly because it can be seen as threatening (I'm assuming you're a guy) and can lead to you being ganged up somewhere dark if you do it to the wrong person.

It is not threatening in London to make eye contact with someone, however much people joke about people never talking to each other.

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