[draugadrotten]

I am male and used to work in a call centre. I apparently have a good voice, and I was repeatedly asked out by random women calling the service desk. I even got a virtual stalker who kept inventing issues and calling daily just to speak with me. Since I am male, I was not threatened but amused, but I can see how a woman would feel vulnerable in the same situation.

[hycaria]

>Since I am male, I was not threatened but amused, but I can see how a woman would feel vulnerable in the same situation.

Why ?

[meowfly]

From an evolutionary biology perspective the stakes are totally different for different for men versus women.

For men reproduction has almost no consequences (biologically speaking) while for women it can be life threatening. Men are biologically advantaged to make as many passes as possible until they are able to mate while women are advantaged to find the best mate possible. I think it is fair that this shapes the lens in which both sexes see unsolicited flirting.

[hycaria]

This is a phonecall. Where is reproduction involved ?

I am a female myself and I think this is the kind of deep paternalizing tone that is plain wrong. Being amused and not threatened by something has nothing to do with gender but with personality. Why would a woman be more scared by a phone call than a man? All the suggestions I have here are plain hallucinatory (speaking about physical violence and reproduction over a phonecall ?!) and this issue has imo really nothing to do with gender.

[orthecreedence]

I think you actually hit the nail on the head:

> physical violence

Men are much more likely to be physically violent, in my mind, than women are. So a woman getting creepy calls from a man could actually mean physical danger. A man getting creepy calls from a woman would be much less likely to be dangerous. I want to be clear: I'm talking about perception here. There are women who are just as capable as being violent as men, but women as a group are not perceived as being nearly as violent as men.

> Since I am male, I was not threatened but amused

I think it shouldn't matter what his gender is. If a man got a creepy call from another man, then the danger would be just the same as if a woman got the creepy call from a man. I think the original poster was not taking into the account that a gay man could have stalked him, and that could have been dangerous, hence "I am a man therefor not worried" when really it would have been better to say "I was not worried when I got these calls from women."

That's my take on it, anyway.

[totalZero]

In the US, the average guy is five inches taller and about 30 pounds heavier than the average lady. Also, given a particular body weight, men tend to be stronger than women. Furthermore, 80% of people arrested for violent crime are men.

Seems pretty clear to me.

[hycaria]

This is happening by phone.

[totalZero]

You don't think it's possible to scare or intimidate someone over the phone?

[hycaria]

I do but I don't think this has anything to do with gender.

[acdha]

Do you know that the other person isn’t nearby? That they chose not to lookup your office location? That they’ll fail to find or social engineer details about you?

Sure, it doesn’t happen every time but it’s not hard to find examples of people who thought their stalker would remain remote until that person showed up at their home or office.

[draugadrotten]

Why. Like several of you have discussed in the thread: I was a young male at the time, filled with testosterone, 6'5" in good shape and recently having my compulsory military service... it's difficult to intimidate me physically. As you said, this was phone calls, but the location was well known and at least the stalker was both aware and nearby so the possibility of real confrontation was possible. I did not think the stalker or anyone else would bring a gun or anything, she was not talking that way. I think the possibility of a physical confrontation generally is more intimidating to a woman due to physical differences such as size and muscle mass, yet I know of female soldiers who would not be scared for anyone. (Generalisations aren't wrong just because there are exceptions, one just have to understand the difference between the two.)

Considering the examples in the thread's article, I am appalled but not really surprised. I think the "beautiful" woman also serves as an example of a woman who would get many favours from her beauty. Both beautiful women and men gets benefits in work from their looks and the lewd comments could be the other side of the coin. (quick google result: https://businessinsider.com/studies-show-the-advantages-of-b...) I appreciated the article writers diligent comparisons of faces and loved the use of the cat.