99.9% of the people I meet want to be kind and help. You just need to "tune into that frequency." Fantastic anecdotal article that speaks to the goodness of humanity.
It takes only one bad apple to spoil the entire barrel. (Literally: the bad apple produces ethylene which spoils the rest of the apples in the barrel).
Examples of this phenomenon are everywhere. One bad cop makes the entire force untrustworthy, two to three unruly kids can make a classroom unteachable, et cetera.
And a 0.1% chance of a bad encounter with a stranger as a vulnerable person can make it not worth approaching strangers at all.
You can stay at home your whole life, avoid travel, avoid meeting people. From my experience (60+ years now) the best times of my life have involved taking those "chances".
Part of why hitchhiking works is because you are putting yourself out there at the mercy of a stranger—making yourself vulnerable as it were.
My sister had her credit card blocked by her bank while travelling in Belize just before coming home. She got a ton of help from locals who understood her predicament.
But you generally don't have to talk to a lot of them before you encounter one that's been sexually assaulted on her travels.
Does that mean women shouldn't travel alone outside of "safe" countries? I am not in any sort of position to make that call. But I'll be supportive of my daughters if they decide to do so.
"From my experience (60+ years now) the best times of my life have involved taking those "chances"."
You are not focused on giving, it is all about getting. And why is staying at home your whole life something looked down on? Just think of all the carbon it saves going into the atmosphere, if you can that is.
You get one life. If you choose to live it to maximize personal safety you'll never know all the wonders you sat out.
For women I suspect the “killed by a rando” number is low, but the sexual assault number is higher.
Ah, thank you.
"Wont someone think of the (lots of?) women?"
Honestly: how are you defining "a lot" here? A dozen or two? That's a vanishingly small proportion of humanity, my friend. And would you even hear the tales of those who travel the world and don't get killed? I am just saying that you are making a big claim, but provide no evidence.
Or would you have us believe that a certain number of these kinds of murders are OK, because they're just "rounding errors" or "edge cases?"
What's the over/under number?
Negligible odds of death I'll buy, but a very large number of my women friends over my life have been sexually assaulted (and probably far more than I realize, it's not like it's something you bring up during holiday dinner). I'm often shocked by how few men realize how prevalent this is.
The idea that "women who aren't comfortably traveling the world alone depending on the kindness of strangers are living a life ruled by fear" seems naive at best.
Even back in the days when hitchhiking was much more common you would almost never see a single woman by herself, for good reason.
My original point still stands: the commenter made a big claim: world travel is (more) risky for women (than not world travel), but provided little evidence to support said claim.
And it kinda takes the fun out of such a trip if you have to be on edge in order to protect yourself all the time.
Jesus.
The only people who say this are white men.
"You just need to "tune into that frequency."" Is especially gross. You were raped and murdered by a stranger? It's your fault for tuning into the rape-and-murder frequency instead of the give-me-stuff frequency. That's what the implication is. Ewww.
Goodness of humanity? Possibility of it, yes, yes, but have you seen the homeless counts rise in the U.S., richest country in the world?