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

The BBC article says;

"After Runner's World published Ms Hamilton's story in 2017, male runners online began talking.

Responses on the popular Let's Run online forum ranged from "all runners get heckled" to "just get a treadmill".

Most women who replied noted that their fears were due to sexual comments and inappropriate behaviours.

"You have no idea what it's like to be a female runner and have to be cautious about running in certain areas or by yourself for fear of getting attacked," a woman wrote."

I'm guessing the thread below is the source material for this "stellar" journalism.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8494399

I've searched the thread for "treadmill" but can't find it. But maybe I just missed it. Can someone else confirm?

If you see a woman in a questionable suggestion, I would suggest asking her directly “Are you Ok”? “Do you need help?” etc. That’s what I would do if I saw someone in a dicey situation, female or male (I’m female). I mostly run with a group but I’ve always felt pretty safe running alone on my local trails because we have a great community of runners and most of them are respectful and look out for each other. Too bad there’s not more of that civility on this board.

Yes, an edit feature would be nice!

celery wrote:

The BBC article says;

"After Runner's World published Ms Hamilton's story in 2017, male runners online began talking.

Responses on the popular Let's Run online forum ranged from "all runners get heckled" to "just get a treadmill".

Most women who replied noted that their fears were due to sexual comments and inappropriate behaviours.

"You have no idea what it's like to be a female runner and have to be cautious about running in certain areas or by yourself for fear of getting attacked," a woman wrote."

I'm guessing the thread below is the source material for this "stellar" journalism.

http://www.letsrun.com/forum/flat_read.php?thread=8494399

I've searched the thread for "treadmill" but can't find it. But maybe I just missed it. Can someone else confirm?

I also can't find the quote from the supposed woman on this thread (as if the journalist really knows an anonymous poster on letsrun is a man or woman). But once again, feel free to prove me wrong if you find it.

Maybe the BBC article was referencing a different thread (which seems unlikely because it is talking about this same RW article), or maybe journalists like to just make stuff up because the whole industry is a joke. They couldn't even get "letsrun" correct.

#enemyofthepeople

mypredictor wrote:

Glad to see the site receive the cesspool distinction it deserves. This message board is 75% trolling idiotic responses by juvenile young men, thanks exclusively to the anonymity afforded by a lack of user profiles. The site owners know this is true and yet do not implement a login system because 1. they don't make investments in site infrastructure and 2. they know it'll cut down on ad revenue accrued by page views.

O wise one, kindly predict for me what difference a "login system" and "user profiles" would make? Also, if you wouldn't mind, what is "user profiles" and how would they be determined and implemented?, and what kind of "login system" would like?

Thanking you in anticipation.

"thanks exclusively to the anonymity afforded by a lack of user profiles"

so if the trolling is exclusively down to lack of user profiles then having user profiles means there will be no more trolling - REALLY!!!??? I mean if that's what its exclusively down to that will be the case wont it?

TYIA wrote:

mypredictor wrote:

Glad to see the site receive the cesspool distinction it deserves. This message board is 75% trolling idiotic responses by juvenile young men, thanks exclusively to the anonymity afforded by a lack of user profiles. The site owners know this is true and yet do not implement a login system because 1. they don't make investments in site infrastructure and 2. they know it'll cut down on ad revenue accrued by page views.

O wise one, kindly predict for me what difference a "login system" and "user profiles" would make? Also, if you wouldn't mind, what is "user profiles" and how would they be determined and implemented?, and what kind of "login system" would like?

Thanking you in anticipation.

My prediction is that mypredictor loves to control people for no reason, and was the best hall monitor in the whole 4th grade class.

some people live in cloud cuckoo land wrote:

"thanks exclusively to the anonymity afforded by a lack of user profiles"

so if the trolling is exclusively down to lack of user profiles then having user profiles means there will be no more trolling - REALLY!!!??? I mean if that's what its exclusively down to that will be the case wont it?

Congratulations mypredictor you've found the answer to the world wide problem of trolling, "user profiles" lol.

1. What is my best response if I see somebody being harassed and the runner is aware of it?

2. What is the best response if the runner is unaware of the person lurking/leering at said runner?

Thank you for asking.

1. Intervene any way you can, but the best would be to walk up and ask her if she needs help. "Hi, do you need any help here?" If the harasser left before you could get there, same thing holds. "I saw what happened, do you need any help?"

2. This is much trickier because she doesn't know your intention, regardless of what you say. I would suggest to wave or call from a distance so she knows you're approaching, give her a good 5-10 feet of space, tell her what you saw, and ask if needs help. "I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I saw ____ and am worried for your safety. Is there anything you'd like me to do?" Helping could mean confronting the creep, running with her, ahead/behind her, waiting at the parking lot, etc. This is a weird/scary situation, so give her a minute to weigh options. If she declines, tell her your name and what direction you're going so she knows if she'll run into you again.

I'm especially curious what other women think RE: point 2.

When suddenly getting harrassed and or attacked, what we forget is that one, and especially females become partially paralysed. In that condition, even the simplest of tasks becomes next to impossible. What we require is a quick trigger such as those medical alert system where you just press the button to activate it. Carrying a deafeningly blaring horns or whistles should also come handy. And maybe a type of horn that once activated continues to blare until manually stopped. This kind of measures would scare of at least 90 % of would be attackers who would run for their lives and will think twice in the future. Secondly, as the device would be connected to outside help like the police with indication of location, help would be on the way. GPS makers should come up with a way to incorporate all these in their watches.

Ultimately you can't really control other people even if what they're doing is blatantly wrong. It's better to focus on what you can do to make things better.

It is not meek to not respond to catcalls - quite the opposite, it shows disdain.

explosive temper wrote:

chad thunderbuns wrote:

catcalling women is unironically the best way to correct their poor behavior in modern society, i'm considering starting to do it more often and i'm guessing it will result in success

Try it. You do it to the wrong person, you may be in for a real surprise dipsh&t.

omg are you going to yell at me? i'm literally shaking

Yeah unfortunately they don't produce much of their own content (mostly recycled stuff) and so have to rely on mass clicks for revenue. Thus the race to the lowest common denominator on the message boards. You learn to sift through the crap to find the interesting stuff.

You're preaching to the choir, we all agree that these things ought not happen and the individual perpetrating the threatening act is morally incorrect. The question is: what can be done for this harassment? Pre-violence proof is hard to come by if trying to prosecute. Also these behaviors tend to come from lower class men. In this country, a large number of lower class men (I'll agree with whatever sociopolitical explanation of that lower class you suggest, the origin isn't the point in question) are minority and have sociopolitical views of women that reflect second and third world cultures. In the US, there has historically been a group of individuals that attempted to protect establishment females from the advances of minority men through intimidation, and that group no longer holds public acceptability, as it should not. Aside from rounding up lower class men, or intimidating them with violence, I don't know what the alternative to controlling their behavior 24/7 is. Because we have an uncontrollable group of threatening individuals whose violence we can't prevent except with stereotyping, the only enlightened individual we can provide advice to in this scenario is the woman. It's unfortunate, but only women's response to threatening behavior can be changed. Unless we wish to obstruct 2nd/3rd world country men from arriving in this country, or rounding lower class men up into work and reeducation camps, or intimidating them from ever speaking to middle and upper class women through frequent and public acts of violence.

A girl wrote:

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?

nice +1

Every male runner I’ve known has been harassed at some point. I’m sure women get it much more but still.

Phantasy Star wrote:

ALL white, Asian, and Eurasian women should carry a gun while running. Yes, ALL.

American cities are teeming with illegal immigrants and urban "youths." They're spreading to rural areas as well.

#truth

Phantasy Star, just because your grandma was a comfort woman in Iwo Jima doesn't mean your pathetic hapa as will be accepted by whitey. Ivanka doesn't want to vank you and never will, no matter what you say about the immigrants.

See ya. wrote:

mypredictor wrote:

Glad to see the site receive the cesspool distinction it deserves. This message board is 75% trolling idiotic responses by juvenile young men, thanks exclusively to the anonymity afforded by a lack of user profiles. The site owners know this is true and yet do not implement a login system because 1. they don't make investments in site infrastructure and 2. they know it'll cut down on ad revenue accrued by page views.

Fair enough, but why are you here then, I expect you're one of those people who watches Fox News so you can be appropriately outraged.

Not in the least, and I'm not here all that much anymore. Fox news is for half-brains; LR is a far more educated populace.