Jilly, I'm so sorry all of that happened to you. None of it is right, and none of it is your fault.

I hope you leave your stories up for others to read. I think it's important that we all share our stories. Otherwise, the few of us who do are easier to call hysterical or whatever and it's easier for the men to continue to behave that way with impunity. I'm more convinced than ever that we women have to take the power and make the change as there are too many men invested in the status quo to ever really help out.

Years ago my young adult son was staying in Venice Beach for a few weeks. Lots of homeless in that area, with mental health and/or drug issues.

I warned my son to be careful and gave some possible scenarios.

Got met with comments about not being sensitive to the homeless or those with mental health issues!

While he was there he was approached by a male who asked for change. My naive son pulled out his wallet. The guy snatched the wallet and my son grabbed at him. Guy took him to the ground and started punching.

Luckily my son is 6ft tall and fit, but he had sprained a shoulder biking a week or two before, so he didn't have full use of one arm.

A local blogger was riding by and started recording, at first thinking it was two homeless people fighting. He quickly saw it wasn't and intervened. Police were called and my son even made a snippet in the late night news where they showed footage of the attack from the blogger. Druggie guy got away.

My son was lucky he didn't get stabbed or killed. Luckily he wasn't badly injured, but he learnt a valuable life lesson that might save his life in the future.

I kept my "I told you so" comments to myself.

After a very near miss attack at a DC Hotel, a friend gave me the book The Gift of Fear by Gavin DeBecker. It was actually life-changing. So much so that I now give this book to every friend who relates an incident she experienced, recommending it as if life depends on it! He teaches the innate depth of womens' intuition about safety, and how often we're enculturated to ignore it in the name of politeness, trust, gratitude at our own high risk. Please consider giving the book to yourself, and then passing it on to your daughters!

Advances in tech, wide availability of personal profiles on the net, and facial recognition now make it possible for predators to stalk victims like never before. It's great that this thread is calling attention to risk and what we can do about it for ourselves and others. Thanks, Annie, for starting the conversation!

Jilly (hugs) I’m sorry you were ever doubted.

I was single and dating for a while. The precautions I took were very different from the men I met. I bet none of them shared their locations with others when meeting me, made sure we only met in public spaces, carefully edited the information they divulged, parked a few blocks away but when departing walked the opposite direction until they were certain they weren’t being followed. The sad thing is, I took all of those precautions, and more, because they are second nature to me. I was never scared, just using common sense as a female.

Many women would view that reel and think, ” hmmm… good tip“ and add it to an arsenal they’ve been conditioned to build their whole lives.

And this is why women choose the bear every single time. I thought she had great tips which arr worth condidering. I’m going to share this with the younger women in my life. Thanks for posting it.

Yeah, unfortunately I stopped walking or bicycling on the greenway due to long stretches between access points and reports of flashers or other creeps. I will walk in my neighborhood but will also keep the headphones out.

I grew up in an inner city so I've always been pretty street smart about not leaving things in the car, locking doors and windows right away, and I only have certain areas I will drive with the top down on the Mustang, and generally always being aware of my surroundings.

Lits of good tips buried in that video. Unfortunately both the delivery and the medium in which she chooses to share this info make her sound less credible. If even half of what she claims happened to her is true I would give her two tips: move to a safer neighborhood and drop the ”I dare you to” persona that attracts a special kind of crazy person.

Kswl, I don't think she's claiming these happened to her...they are comments made by many different women about what *they* do. She's sharing their comments with her reactions to them.

Jilly I see you did decide to take your stories down. I understand and thank you for your willingness to share them with me.

Thank you, Annie. 🤍

Feathers, "The sad thing is, I took all of those precautions, and more, because they are second nature to me. I was never scared, just using common sense as a female."

And that's the he!! of it, no? That it is on us to perform all these extra tasks, take all these extra steps to keep ourselves safe when the onus should be on the perps to not be perps! And the consequences should fall on *them* when they undertake criminal activity. Instead it all falls on us to be the *perfect* victim before we're believed, and even then, his rep and future are more important than our restitution and retribution.

@smiling I've written before about "The Gift of Fear" as my go-to graduation gift for girls. I never know how many actually read it, but I hope it saves some from situations where harm could come to them. It probably would be better as a 12 year old birthday gift, but most of the girls I give it to for graduation I don't give birthday gifts to. One of my friends who told me about it many years ago, didn't read it until in her 30's and it was life changing for her, as well. She was working on her PHD at Duke and said, even at her age, in that place, she felt like it had benefitted her.

You may want to slow the video down Annie? She said, among other things, ”when I was kidnapped in 2020…”

To be very clear, I DO NOT think that women ”bring these things on themselves.” I have experienced many instances of harassment and attempted date rape, as I am sure many, if not most, women have in their lifetimes. Nevertheless, there is something less than believeable about that particular woman, which as I said is unfortunate because the video does contain some very good tips and ideas.

And yes, a person say, whose door is repeatedly broken down by neighborhood thugs should consider moving if means allow, or get a stronger door. Living like a victim and carrying a concealed weapon is not my idea of triumph over chaos.

kswl, I went to look at what you were referring to and again she is reading comments from other women:

There is no way of verifying who is posting these or whether or not they are truthful, so take from them what you will. If something makes sense and you find it useful, then that's a good thing. If it doesn't make sense to you, then ignore it and move on.

I‘m sorry Annie, I did not watch all the video, I just listened to some of it. I’ve seen this woman on Youtube and cannot stand her. HOWEVER, that in NO way invalidates the information she is passing along from others. I apologize 🙏

Whether we 'like' the presenter or not I think it is counterproductive to argue about anything other than the information in the video when the subject is so important to all women. There are many, many women who do not share their experiences. Thanks again for sharing this, Annie.

I think someone in the video shared a similar suggestion ... as a woman I always set my automatic car door locks to only unlock the driver's side door, when using the FOB or door button/handle, and keep the other doors locked. You have to click the FOB twice to unlock all the doors.

It annoys my DH and he doesn't understand why I would want it set up this way, but he is also one that sometimes forgets to lock exterior doors in the house! We've had some serious discussion over the years about leaving doors unlocked, specially when we lived in LA, where break-ins were common, even though we lived in a nice suburban area.

Many young women might not know that their automatic car locks can be set up differently, as they usually come from the factory with the FOB or door button/handle set up to unlock all the doors at the same time. Have them go into programing and change the setting.

Yes, it adds a small extra step for every day use, but it could save your life, or prevent you from being robbed, if someone ever tries to enter your car at the same time as you, when you unlock all the doors at the same time.

Is it clear that all of these women live in North America and have not grown up somewhere else or at least lived somewhere else as adults? I have known people who have lived, particularly in South American countries, where things like kidnaping are still not that uncommon. I had one tell me "oh, it's safer than it used to be. Well, if you don't leave your house by yourself because you could be kidnapped or robbed at gunpoint. And we live in a walled compound with barbed wire and broken glass on the top. Well, maybe it's not United States "safe".

I also know someone who was in school (in the US) with a girl who was abducted and murdered, and I know someone (in the US) who was the classmate of a boy who was tortured and murdered by a serial killer. Just because it doesn't happen a Lot, and things like that tend to happen in areas which are not as nice as the areas most of us live in doesn't me that it's not happening.