Newsletter September 5, 2024

After #MeToo Have Women Become More Afraid of Men?

Daniel A. Cox

Who is a bigger threat to a woman alone in the woods? A man or a bear? This was the question that sparked a viral debate on social media earlier this year. To the consternation and outrage of many men, most women said they would rather be alone with a bear. 

In many ways, the online debate over the relative danger men and bears pose to women mirrors #MeToo posts a few years earlier. But if anything, the man vs. bear social media exchanges appear more heated and volatile, reflecting a new dynamic in the post-#MeToo era. In the last few years, women have become more fearful of men. 

After 2017 there was a dramatic increase in the concern women reported about becoming victims of sexual assault. In 2017, 39 percent of women under the age of 50 said they often or sometimes worried about being sexually assaulted. A year later, that figure rose to nearly half (47 percent). Concern dipped during the pandemic years, but by 2023, a majority (55 percent) of women under the age of 50 said they worried about being sexually assaulted at least occasionally.  

There is enough fluctuation in the data that pinpointing the exact year perceptions shifted is difficult. On average, before 2017, 38 percent of women ages 18 to 49 reported at least occasional concern about being a victim of sexual assault. From 2018 to 2023 the annual average was 12 points higher—50 percent. 

Given the timing of the increase, it’s impossible to ignore the role of the #MeToo movement. The #MeToo movement precipitated a societal shift in the frequency and type of sexual harassment and assault coverage. A year after the Alyssa Milano took to social media to ask women to share their sexual abuse experiences, a poll revealed that nearly two-thirds of the public believed that sexual assault is a serious problem in the country. Women’s experiences of harassment and abuse circulated rapidly on social media, and algorithms ensured that these stories spread widely among certain users, such as young women, which may have helped create the perception that the U.S. was experiencing a dramatic rise in the rate of sexual assault. 

But that’s not the only way that the movement may have contributed to rising fears of sexual assault. #MeToo effectively undercut victim-blaming narratives that perpetuated the idea that sexual assault is the result of poor decisions, miscommunication or unlucky happenstance. As a result, it became more difficult for men and women to argue that sexual assault only happens to certain types of people, or people who engage in certain kinds of behavior. In the wake of #MeToo, there was recognition that sexual assault and harassment were pervasive problems in American society. Many have come to believe it could happen to anyone. 

But is #MeToo the only plausible explanation for the increase in the fear of sexual assault? There was a massive spike in murder rates in 2020, which certainly explains why more women reported being concerned about this type of crime. In fact, Gallup polls show a significant increase in public concern about a variety of crimes—car jackings, muggings, and murder—after 2020. Even as the violent crime rate fell over the last couple years, most Americans believe that the crime rate remains high.  

I’m not convinced the rapid rise in concern about sexual violence is simply a result of generalized anxiety about crime. First, the increase in fears about sexual assault occurred a couple years earlier than fears about other crimes. What’s more, fears about sexual violence are significantly higher than fears about other types of serious crimes, such as murder, car jackings or muggings. 

Today, a growing number of women are single, and many of them are living alone. They are less likely to be attached to a community such as a religious congregation, and many live far from immediate family members. Young women today are also more likely to live in cities surrounded by strangers, specifically strange men. With the rise of dating apps, their dating experiences more regularly put them in contact with men who have no connection to their offline lives, making personal safety a legitimate concern. And even if the worst examples of sexual abuse are disappearing from the workplace, bullying and sexually exploitative behavior online is increasingly common. 

It’s not difficult to see why single women would be more worried about the possibility of being sexually assaulted than married women. The marriage gap is massive. Sixty-three percent of unmarried women under 50 say they at least occasionally worry about sexual assault, compared to 39 percent of married women in this age range.

Regardless of their reasons, it’s clear that many younger women feel more vulnerable than they once did. Location apps and cameras on smart phones provide greater safety. In the early 2000s, Gallup found that only about three in ten women under 50 carried mace or pepper spray. In 2021, close to half (47 percent) of women under 50 reported that they carried either.  

Raising awareness about the prevalence of sexual assault was an important accomplishment of the #MeToo movement. There is no amount of sexual violence that society should tolerate—and there are still far too many examples of perpetrators avoiding accountability. But there is a danger in an incessant focus on the threat men pose to women. Not only can a sense of omnipresent threat spur feelings of anxiety, but it ultimately becomes disempowering. It raises the possibility that certain male behaviors that were previously considered merely annoying are recast as dangerous and harmful. 

It’s undeniably a good thing that we are having more honest discussions about sexual consent, harassment and assault. But it’s less ideal that so many conversations about the topic occur online. Social media algorithms segregate these conversations in ways that reinforce pre-existing worldviews. Women are inundated with examples of male sexual violence and most men hear little or nothing about these incidents and how they impact women’s lives. It’s especially unfortunate because an open conversation would help bridge the gap in understanding. Men might come to better understand how these fears influence decisions that women make. Nearly half of women, for example, say fear of violence prevents them from taking a walk or going for a run at certain times or in certain places. 

As much as I try to offer a balanced perspective, I recognize that it’s not entirely possible when discussing an issue that is fundamentally about an imbalance of power. Ninety-two percent of sexual abuse offenses are committed by men. But a meme isn’t a conversation. And more than ever it’s paramount that men and women talk to each other across the expanding divide that’s separating them. 

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