No, no one can hold their own against a mob. Or when people won’t play fair. Just happens that women face more times that kind of things. For example, it is quite common that men who want to abuse a women, try to get her drunk first. You might be an expert in self defense, have a gun and be trained and yet, not be able to defend yourself if your drunk.

Another example. In the Vegas shooting there was several army members (both sexes) that couldn’t do anything to defend themselves because the predator payed dirty.

Well, the problem we face as women is that not only we are the target of this kind of men more times than men are, but that society put the blame on us for being there. And they start saying things like you “why women go to those places?” “What was she doing there?”. And the answer is similar than the ones in the Vegas shooting. They were there enjoying their lives, at a concert. They didn’t know that a mass shooter would attack. The women who are attacked don’t know there would be a mob there and need to go out to live their lives.

I might choose to stay in my country, but women here can’t. Not just that, my choosing to not go there and not fight for their rights, have the cost of limiting my rights in my own country, since it allows people in may country to use the false argument that since they aren’t forcing me to wear a hijab, the fact that getting a woman drunk to rape her is “not really rape”. And when I say “getting drunk” I also mean “spiking her drink”.

What you don’t seem to realize is that I’m not allowed to “not gamble”. As long as I exist as a woman, I’m forced to play with a loaded dice. Even if I live in Europe. And it is the same in US.

So yes, Taliban are the worst. But there is a lot of bad in our own countries. Also, if we want to hold Taliban accountable, isn’t reporting of their hate and misogyny needed? Well, many male reporters don’t have access to women there. So if you want to interview them, a woman need to “roll the dice”. And those women want to speak up. And when they do, they pay with their lives. The answer is not to say “they shouldn’t take a risk”. Because what that do is men learning that death threats are valid. And the perfect way to control women is basically saying “if you do that some fanatics would kill you, so if you do that and you are killed it is your fault”. In a way it is the same in the west, when people ask what a raped woman were doing or pointing out how she lived her life or her clothes instead of asking, why that men is a rapist?

The woman attacked were living their lives in very normal ways. The groups of men who can’t stand women being free, group to attack women who dare to live their lives. You don’t understand because that doesn’t happen to men (unless they are gay).

By the way, in my country people go out past 10 as a completely normal thing to do. Young people party all night and it is normal. In general, it is safe. The risk that you might face are basically 3:

1. If you are a woman get raped if you drink too much, get your drink spiked (so women won’t leave their drinks alone) or trust the wrong men. By the way, wrong men look exactly the same as good men. A men who looks decent might offer to walk you home just to be the real threat. It is a lottery and would continue to be until men are hold accountable of their actions.
2. Someone pickpocket you.
3. Worst case scenario: being targeted by neonazis that now dress differently and call themselves differently for being of color/gay/dress in a way they deem “leftist”.

That’s it.

Also, doctors and nurses might have night shift. And many people might work at nights. So stay home is a bad advice.

The way we have made the streets safer (at least for white heterosexual men who wear nice clothes) is to put the blame in the ones who commit crimes, no excuses or blaming the victims. Period. Now we need to do the same with what remains. You hit someone, you go to jail. You rape, you go to jail, no “I misunderstood” or “she was a slut”.

The reason I said that you implied that is not because you meant to said that we should stay home, but because it is the logical consequence of your words. And the reason is that predators and bad people would seek out women. We might be attacked anywhere because the only common denominator for where attacks happen is that we are there. If you look at the data, many times women are attacked by someone known to them. Many times at their own homes. Public places are supposed to be safer, yet we see attacks like the one to that youtuber. And it would keep happening until all society turn their look to those men and say “that is wrong”. After all, in a group of men where one is a rapist and brag about “getting drunk women so he can get their way” and the other remain silent, sends the message to the rapist that what he does is OK. And if they celebrate him, other men in the group might start doing the same. They might end encouraging each other to rape women. They won’t call that rape, of course, but that would be what they would be doing.

That is why saying things like “roll the dice” reinforce the wrong idea. To you it doesn’t mean that. But for rapist mean “if she went out of her house past 10, she must have wanted”. Well, maybe she just was a night nurse going to work… Or maybe she just want to be free in her own country and city. That is the thing.

If we want freedom, we need to stop offering excuses to murderers, rapist or violent people.