The write talks a lot about how we have intuition that we often ignore or talk ourselves out of but that often it can save your life.

I guess it's a bit like animal instict that tells the deer who is being stalked to run, that kind of thing

He was talking in the last chapter about men who approach women in car parks and offer to help them with their grocery bags. He said it could be innocent but what you have to ask yourself is what is his motive?

Does he work for a charity that helps women with their groceries?

Does he have a serious plastic (or paper) grocery bag fetish

Or does he have some sexual interest in me

And if he does, are you ok with that

Really interesting, thought provoking stuff

I mentioned that scenario because it was quite amusing but there is some much more serious stuff in the book

interesting

I've always wanted to read that book. it's been out for years, I remember the writer being a guest on Oprah's show

something like maybe 15 years ago

Someone recommended it and I got it from amazon, you should get it, very interesting read

I have read some things along those lines before, nearly all written by men. It is a really interesting thing too - if you are a man then listening to your gut and following your instincts is good advice.

We as women hear this all the time, we are told that our social programming to be polite and not cause a fuss means that we fail to react when we are in a genuinely threatening situation.

But there is a disconnect here. Growing up and living your life as a woman, even in the modern world is vastly different than the experience men have.

We live with low to moderate levels of threat all the time, everywhere. Smaller framed women live with more of it than I do at nearly six feet tall.

All our interactions with males contain some level of threat assessment all the time. Males routinely interact with us in ways that range from subtly threatening to overtly aggressive as accepted behaviour.

So if we freak out every time a guy sits too close, stands too close, looms over us, stares, makes comments about our appearance, interrupts us, talks over us, walks behind us in a parking garage...

slows his car as we walk down a street, offers to help us...before we even get into the aggressive public comments and come-ons, catcalls, groups of men making comments or following you, etc

Our ability to assess real threats is not broken. We simply lack the psychic ability to determine whether THAT guy is actually going to do what all the other ones are suggesting they can.

It is hard to communicate all this to someone who doesn't live it, they genuinely DO NOT GET it.

Fogwoman: And don't forget to smile at strangers. Can't you give them a smile? There you go!