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Ever notice how many men see a woman doing something they think is risky (like traveling alone) and immediately assume she’s naive and stupid - instead of assuming she’s intentionally taking a calculated risk? They can’t imagine a woman might do something even mildly dangerous on purpose.

Once you start looking out for this, you’ll start seeing it everywhere. (I suggest Reddit communities dedicated to travel). These dumb dudes all think they’re hardcore Operators even if they’ve never been anywhere scary than London, and *they* assume all women are too stupid to calculate risk.

Naturally, these are the exact same guys who start frothing with rage around the “women would prefer to meet a bear in the woods than a human man” concept, because they don’t understand that every woman that dates cis men IS taking a highly calculated and very serious risk.

“This woman must be traveling alone in a place I, a big strong man, believe is Too Scawy and Exotic because she’s really stupid.” Meanwhile, they just assume a man doing the exact same thing knows the dangers perfectly well and is cool and brave.

I travel a lot alone in unusual places. NO one sucks more at risk assessment than comfortable white men who *think* they’re hard men. They’re the demographic who overwhelmingly get into the most stupid, easily avoidable dangerous incidents because they’re basically flightless island birds.

I salute and entirely support the legions of sex workers who have made very good money off of the profound overconfidence of dumb privileged men who think they’re the baddest motherfucker to ever book an airplane ticket to somewhere where they Speak Foreigner.

for example, I used to live in Cambodia, and you can guess the demographic of that guy who got shot in the ass by a security guard after he got wasted one night and refused to get off the hood of a government official’s expensive black SUV

Anyway dear cis men: for the love of God, stop offering unsolicited Travel Security advice to people unless they explicitly ask for it.

also, if you see a queer/trans person traveling alone, you probably actually *are* in the presence of a hardened operator who has genuinely useful security and travel advice

I had a conversation with some cishet guys recently in which I put them into silent contemplation for a few moments by saying "I've been to two countries where it was illegal for me to exist".