A fun probability fact I like is around the question “what is the likelihood of consuming any given water molecule twice?”, so like, consuming that water molecule, then excreting it somehow (sweating, urine etc.), and then consuming that same molecule again. The probability of that happening for a given molecule is so ridiculously small that it’s basically zero.
However, the probability of that having happened at least once in an adult’s life is effectively 1, — i.e. it’s almost certainly happened. This is because one cup of water contains around 144,531,378,240,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water, so we get a lot of chances to consume a water molecule twice.
The chances of being kidnapped or otherwise assaulted or harassed is quite low for any given interaction, but despite this, it’s something that a concerningly high proportion of women have experienced. I think for most women, it’s not a case of literally being terrified, but more than we take a wide variety of steps to reduce our risk, given that it is neither possible nor desirable to isolate oneself from every man who could possibly assault them. It’s no different to how people of all genders will often do things like taking a slighter longer, well lit route, or refraining from listening to music through headphones when walking through a city at night.
If I had a husband or partner who was available to go pick up something on my behalf, then that’s a straightforward and trivially easy thing I can do to reduce the amount of unnecessary risk I’d be exposing myself to. If that wasn’t something that was available, it wouldn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t pick up the item myself, but I would be a bit more cautious.
The culture of fear you describe does feed into how individual women perceive and manage risk associated with unknown men, but it’s also important to realise that that culture of fear exists in large part because of the direct lived experience of women who have learned that these kinds of precautions are necessary. For my part, whilst I’ve never been assaulted when picking up items from online sales, I have had a few instances of men being extremely creepy in a way that made me regret not being more careful. I had to change my phone number once because an Uber driver kept sending me dick pics, and a friend once had to get a restraining order against a delivery driver who kept coming back to her home and lurking outside her window. It’s only a small minority of men who do these things, but because our daily lives expose us to so many people, then it ends up being a very rational choice to take precautions to protect ourselves.
Edit: my comment cast a wider net than just “risk of being kidnapped”, because that felt to me like a hyperbolic euphemism designed to avoid saying the much more likely forms of harm that women face from predatory men. However, I want to add that the number of traffic accidents I’ve been involved in is non-zero, and equal to the number of times that an unknown man has attempted to kidnap me.
I was going to type something but it would never be so elaborate and accurate as yours! Its not just about the worst case, but high probabilities for a lot of potential problems.
Also, Bear Grylls consumed the same water molecule twice.
A fun probability fact I like is around the question “what is the likelihood of consuming any given water molecule twice?”, so like, consuming that water molecule, then excreting it somehow (sweating, urine etc.), and then consuming that same molecule again. The probability of that happening for a given molecule is so ridiculously small that it’s basically zero.
However, the probability of that having happened at least once in an adult’s life is effectively 1, — i.e. it’s almost certainly happened. This is because one cup of water contains around 144,531,378,240,000,000,000,000,000 molecules of water, so we get a lot of chances to consume a water molecule twice.
The chances of being kidnapped or otherwise assaulted or harassed is quite low for any given interaction, but despite this, it’s something that a concerningly high proportion of women have experienced. I think for most women, it’s not a case of literally being terrified, but more than we take a wide variety of steps to reduce our risk, given that it is neither possible nor desirable to isolate oneself from every man who could possibly assault them. It’s no different to how people of all genders will often do things like taking a slighter longer, well lit route, or refraining from listening to music through headphones when walking through a city at night.
If I had a husband or partner who was available to go pick up something on my behalf, then that’s a straightforward and trivially easy thing I can do to reduce the amount of unnecessary risk I’d be exposing myself to. If that wasn’t something that was available, it wouldn’t necessarily mean I wouldn’t pick up the item myself, but I would be a bit more cautious.
The culture of fear you describe does feed into how individual women perceive and manage risk associated with unknown men, but it’s also important to realise that that culture of fear exists in large part because of the direct lived experience of women who have learned that these kinds of precautions are necessary. For my part, whilst I’ve never been assaulted when picking up items from online sales, I have had a few instances of men being extremely creepy in a way that made me regret not being more careful. I had to change my phone number once because an Uber driver kept sending me dick pics, and a friend once had to get a restraining order against a delivery driver who kept coming back to her home and lurking outside her window. It’s only a small minority of men who do these things, but because our daily lives expose us to so many people, then it ends up being a very rational choice to take precautions to protect ourselves.
Edit: my comment cast a wider net than just “risk of being kidnapped”, because that felt to me like a hyperbolic euphemism designed to avoid saying the much more likely forms of harm that women face from predatory men. However, I want to add that the number of traffic accidents I’ve been involved in is non-zero, and equal to the number of times that an unknown man has attempted to kidnap me.
I was going to type something but it would never be so elaborate and accurate as yours! Its not just about the worst case, but high probabilities for a lot of potential problems.
Also, Bear Grylls consumed the same water molecule twice.