Interviews men

I conducted interviews with men about safety. I started by asking about their own experiences with safety and then moved on to safety for women. During the interviews, I played them audio clips of women sharing stories about the last time they felt unsafe. Here are the four uncut interviews.

Quotes from the interviews

Where do you think men's understanding of women's safety usually comes from?

I think your parents have a very big influence on that. If I say it in a personal way, I think my mother was my biggest influence on how to approach women, maybe, or how to be around them.

What her preference is, is always the most important. So if she has a preference to which place to go, hers or mine, it's most likely her place, because that's a safe place.

How often do you think women experience harassment?

I think the big problem is that men do not have the slightest clue of the things they are doing. To them, it may seem like it's innocent. Just kind of fooling around or maybe even flirting.

I think to a lot of women, it can really escalate quickly into something that they're not comfortable with. There lies the big problem. Like situations where men have no idea of the consequences of their actions.

Have you ever seen friends cross a line in how they approach women?

If we are out with friends and one of the guys meets a girl he likes on the spot. I think that's like a really vulnerable place, you know, because then you need to be careful. And I think a lot of guys also in my friend group really cross the line there.

Have you ever felt like, without meaning to, that a woman might have felt unsafe in a situation because you were there?

There are definitely moments where I feel like, oh, I hope she doesn't think I have bad intentions or something like that. But there's things I then do, just take more distance, you know, create more distance. So, walk slower, you know, so she can walk off by herself.

What do you think of the voice recordings of women telling their story?

That was really, I didn't expect it to be that traumatizing, you know. Those stories really grab your attention. Really just crazy stories from all different situations and men from all ages also. So, yeah, I wasn't really .., I didn't know there were so many stories and that women had to go through these situations so many times.

What is it like hearing stories from women on how they felt unsafe because of men?

A guy started grabbing my friend and pushing her against the wall just during her normal workday, she told me all about it. That makes me mad because to this day when she's walking alone like from her bike to the to the pub or like the small tiny walks she does alone, she still looks behind her. She's still like oh I couldn't do anything so she's still very scared at some points.