Letsrun called out in BBC article about Mollie Tibbetts and female runners

Bonkers wrote:

Is anyone else noticing an increase in the amount of harassment they face on runs? I'm a man and I've been harassed 4 times in the last 2 weeks. My girlfriend has also been harassed at least 2x on runs in the same span.

When you say you've been harrased are you talking about someone on foot threatening you or someone shouting obscenities from a car? In my many years of running I've never been confronted by anyone.

i venture wrote:

bred or taught wrote:

The potential of harm for women is real and omnipresent. Males are bigger and faster and more aggressive. Not conducive to civil peace. I wouldn't enjoy that risk.

LOL, the males on this board aren't bigger or more aggressive. Faster, maybe.

The thing is though that even a relatively scrawny 135lb runner guy could still overpower many women, especially small runner women. I weigh 105lbs and even though I'm very fit, I'm under no illusion that I could realistically physically match almost any male. Of course I would try, hoping I could slip a sharp elbow into vulnerable flesh, but while you guys make jokes about weakling runners I get to warily hope that you are just running by to pass me, not attack me.

On a practical note, one defense weapon is super gross but effective: your own bodily fluids. It is in human nature to recoil from human excrement and waste, so if you can muster any vomit/urine/poo (preferably all three) then let it fly. Personally, I'd rather have to take a somewhat embarrassing shower if it keeps me from getting raped. It's super fun realizing what easy prey you are in the animal kingdom scheme of things...

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Bonkers wrote:

Is anyone else noticing an increase in the amount of harassment they face on runs? I'm a man and I've been harassed 4 times in the last 2 weeks. My girlfriend has also been harassed at least 2x on runs in the same span.

When you say you've been harrased are you talking about someone on foot threatening you or someone shouting obscenities from a car? In my many years of running I've never been confronted by anyone.

Ohgod, the losers in passing cars... I only run on roads when it’s too muddy on dirt, but ohgod the losers in passing cars...

But harassment and being threatened are different. Last month a car had pulled up to me. I doubt any normal person in their right mind would approach a woman running alone to ask for directions, plus he had crept along behind me first for a bit. I didn’t wait to find out. I took off straight up into the foothills. Had he got out of the car, I’d’ve been dialing 911.

I coach a lot of female runners. This is something that weighs heavily on my mind all the time. I've had one physically assaulted while on a run in broad daylight, I just had one runner from NYC get assaulted yesterday. Here in San Antonio we've had several women get sexually assaulted and one was killed on a poplar running/cycling path. (all in broad daylight) I had one runner who had to get her runs in at 4:00 am to get all the other stuff in her life done as well during the day. (work, children, etc) I would get up and meet her for those runs and I'd ride along on my bike with her so she wasn't solo. We've now gotten a group of several ladies that also meet for those early morning runs/workouts. However, the original lady recently decided to change to a new coach and some of the adjustments was workout day's changed. This led to her running solo early in the mornings again. I reached out and asked for him to adjust the workout days to ours so she doesn't have to be solo ever that early in the am. We just know that it's far safer to have them run as a group. The risk is there, and for women it's far riskier. Yes, like most runners I've had insults and objects thrown at me while running. But what women routinely go thru is far worse.

I'm not some snowflake who feels simply being insulted is the worst thing in the world. But I have witnessed women getting verbally harassed and having some of the most vulgar comments yelled at them.

The point is that she had her phone and could have/should have called for help rather than threaten to call for help. If a call had been made, at the very least the authorities would have been able to locate the place of her kidnapping. Preemptive yelling and screaming also is very effective at dissuading potential would be attackers. Verbally confronting people tends to put them on the back foot and can buy time during an ensuing attack. Ignoring the situation hoping it will stop and/or trying to reason with an irrational person are not a winning strategies. If you're harassed, be swift in harnessing a response and be prepared to follow through.

I told some neighborhood kids to "get off my lawn," and waved my cane at them.

i now regret it.

There may have been a few things she could have done differently but all in retrospect and obviously maybe she had no choice in some of them. But after reading the story, there were a few things that popped out to me as something I don’t do anymore as a female runner. She was running with headphones and at dusk (730-8pm) I believe. I don’t use headphones anymore specifically so I know what’s around me. Also I don’t run early in the morning or when it starts to get dark in the evening, but she may have not had a choice in that (ex: work). Also looking at the street she was abducted on, it was definitely an isolated country road with maybe a house here and there. I know it is a small town, and probably not a lot of places to run. I stay on populated roads or around neighborhoods for the most part, even if it means running them multiple times. It’s kind of sad that this is what we as females have to be aware of. 10-15 years ago I probably wouldn’t have thought twice about going out on a deserted trail or road on my own but now I just don’t want to risk it. I’m very aware of my surroundings now so if I notice anything sketchy with cars (following me or going back and forth), I immediately get to a busier area.

I think the key point here is preparing the response and an action plan and we both agree on it. I am simply loathe to speculate on any should haves on her part because one, we have only his version of what actually happened and two, it’s just too much of a tragedy to lay any blame on her. She was young, probably too trusting, obviously unprepared for the worst in people. She paid a horrible price for it. Hopefully the fact that we’re all talking about it now will make the next girl in her situation do things differently and survive.

I tend to get very aggressive when my training is interrupted. I’ve got really enraged a few times and been at the point where I had to really hold myself back from attacking men harassing or jeering me. Each time I went like this, they all backed off. I remember shouting at a group of three young men in an absolute rage who had been shouting at me and realising one of them was actually shaking with fear.

That said, I’ve always done it in a public place. I tend to think it’s better to be aggressive back, because there’s a reasonable chance any attacker won’t wantvto risk injury and anyway, I’d rather go down fighting.

Many women are very timid and conditioned though, and I bet a lot of male harassers out there (as opposed to attackers) count on that and would back down rather than get in a fight.

I was attacked once when walking home from a night out. A man, with his pants undone and doing you know what tried to pull me down an alleyway. I resisted and then followed a bit of a tug off war, during which I kicked his leg bones with my impractical but heavy shoes. After a few minutes he gave up. Some residents had heard me screaming and phoned the police but I didn’t call them until the next day as I had a race early the following morning.

I’ve also hit a drunk man who tried to grab me out running. In another context, I had a man tried to pin me down and hold my hands and I’m afraid I bit him really badly. Not to say I’m not aware of the dangers but my personal reaction is to get angry and inflict injuries on an attacker, and I’ve never hit angry enough to deliberately inflict real injuries as they’ve always backed down.

Hope I’m never unlucky enough to meet a real homicidal maniac.

I agree women tend to be timid and conditioned to accept some amount of harassment from the general public. In general, girls are discouraged from expressing anger/rage toward other people. I take the opposite view, actually. I thing anger/rage is a healthy and protective emotion under the right circumstances. I grew up with parents who encouraged me to fight back and hold my own with aggressors- and the experiences I had in my youth feeling comfortable fighting back/sticking up for myself saved my adult life twice. I was attacked once by a friend's boyfriend (who I knew, well) and another time by a total stranger. The worst thing you can do when attacked is panic, shut down and hope for the best. I fought back both times and, while bruised, bleeding and hurt, I managed to struggle effectively enough to extricate myself and get away. The second guy didn't know what he was getting himself into when he attacked me over 10 years later. By that point I had taken several self defense classes and was far better prepared (and fed up/angry).

SDSU Aztec wrote:

Bonkers wrote:

Is anyone else noticing an increase in the amount of harassment they face on runs? I'm a man and I've been harassed 4 times in the last 2 weeks. My girlfriend has also been harassed at least 2x on runs in the same span.

When you say you've been harrased are you talking about someone on foot threatening you or someone shouting obscenities from a car? In my many years of running I've never been confronted by anyone.

2 people slowed down to yell obscenities from their car, 1 person honked their horn to make me jump, and I got a "run forest run" from 2 meatheads on foot. My response every time is to flip the finger and drop a few f-bombs.

These clowns are always shocked when I react aggressively back at them. It's like, you're the one randomly harassing a stranger, what did you think would happen? My philosophy is if I give it back to them maybe they'll think twice the next time they see someone running. Who knows though, I really don't understand the mentality of these people.

Women and others who might find themselves harassed during a run need to learn to tell someone to go F off and throw a punch.

What if we blamed this on the GUY who harassed and killed her, and not on her? I’m seriously sick of hearing about how she shouldn’t have been running alone, shouldn’t have been running at that time, should have called sooner, should have learned to defend herself. Why couldn’t the guy have learned to not harass females and then kill them when he didn’t get what he wanted?

Acknowledging this message board in a news article is a zero sum game.

FemaleRunner123 wrote:

I was attacked once when walking home from a night out. A man, with his pants undone and doing you know what tried to pull me down an alleyway. I resisted and then followed a bit of a tug off war,

Tug off war? I think that was what he was looking for haha.

You are absolutely correct.

Even in the raw, predatory animal kingdom, animals are well-adapted to making an instant calculus regarding risk/reward. A big component is the instant assessment of "how much damage will the prey cause me?" Think about mountain lion behavior, for instance, the first curious scan to determine is it worthwhile? This is a key moment in the overall dynamic.

For women running, the calculus is quite simple and similar, and it's proven by the examples given above. By real women, on this thread we know they aren't trolls.

PLAN 1

Resist, strongly, immediately = nothing worse will happen than was ALREADY GOING TO HAPPEN, i.e. a homicidal maniac will attack anyway. At least he's going to get damaged, hopefully severely. Go down fighting and at the very least mark/injure him for easy ID and apprehension. But for the other 90 percent plus of sh1tty "opportunist" attackers/scum, the calculus has been changed. These stupid fVcks assume women are easy prey. Under our current sad current reality, it's a woman's task to signal to him "Rossoid, that's the worst idea ever, I will show you why..."

NET RESULT = 90 percent better. Many attacks averted, NONE worsened.

PLAN 2

Be meek, unassuming, try to exercise "avoidance" by walking away, no eye contact = arousal of hunter instinct, the sh1thead thinks, "she's afraid, I'm getting hard, I want to follow/abuse her..." etc. No disincentive. Quite the reverse, this ENCOURAGES aggressive assault. Meantime, the true homicidal maniac is not somehow "dissuaded" by consideration of feminine weakness.

NET RESULT = zero change in outcomes. ALL attacks will have bad consequences for the woman.

The what-if analysis demonstrates conclusively, that the best plan is a. to be ready b. to signal immediately readiness for a hard fight and c. hard fight.

calig, I love women who stand up for themselves, you sound hot! But I'm not going to approach you on a run, lol! Lucky for you indeed you had advanced parenting and see the benefits.

"Journalists" are in the profession of pitting us against each other. Choose the topic: class, race, gender.

Bonkers wrote:

fu2u2 wrote:

The key is women should be taught and encouraged to respond to any form of harassment they encounter. If women tended to respond back to the harassers two things would happen (in general): 1) men would quickly be socialized to not act like jackasses and 2) women would realize responding deescalates the situation rather than escalate it. What doesn't work is ignoring the situation and expecting the jackass to stop on his own accord. Clearly a dude who feels compelled to call out sexually to a strange woman and/or make threatening overtures (e.g., follow her around) does not have good judgment or impulse control. Hence, assume the worst and cut it off at the pass. Often just yelling and/or verbally abusing him back is enough to end it.

Wasn't she killed after she stopped to confront the dude though?

He said attack happened after she threatened to call the police (he had a lot to lose if the police showed up). I don't know what happened in this incident - it's not really clear that the final assault was sexual. The point is when you're approached by a person who is bigger and stronger you really don't know what's going on in his possibly demented mind. There always has to be a Plan B that is not based on the assumption of an environment of complete safety. That's true for both males and females.

martin545 wrote:

There's a difference between aggressive flirting and a rapist. Sometimes it's hard to tell.

https://s3.amazonaws.com/mgm-content/sites/armslist/uploads/posts/2011/09/28/201511_01_ruger_lcp_380_subcompact_auto_640.jpg

Aggressive flirting?

Flirting should never be aggressive. Playful, suggestive, but never aggressive.