Well that's fine for you, and thank you for couching your comment in all the "I don't speak for all guys" and "strong women are awesome" bits as well. But the whole "men are violent, physical protectors! Women should be grateful for their protection!" trope has been around for a long time, and I think it still is a…

All of this makes sense to me, but that's not what I was disturbed by. Like I said, yeah, of course having someone else around is comforting, and yes, sure different people have different preferences, for which they may have very solid personal reasons. But there's also a larger social context to these preferences,…

That is definitely not the sentiment that I disagree with or have any problem with.

No, wanting to be safe does not make anyone a bad feminist, but this is still creepy as heck to me. I'll just quote myself, from a response I made to a similar comment below, because otherwise I'd probably just end up repeating it anyway:

That's true, but it still doesn't make me feel the least bit comfortable with that phrasing in the article, or the similar comments here. It's a big ball of gender issues, right down to the basic issue that intruders are probably a whole heck of a lot more likely to be male than female. But thinking along the lines of…

For my part, it definitely "pushed my buttons". I feel bad about that because, here we have people talking about how they were worried about their safety in specific concrete situations, and I'm going all "femi-nazi" on them with comparatively abstract, airy social issues. But while I feel guilty about that, oh boy…

It's not anti-feminist to say that in your specific case, with the explanation that the specific man you have in mind happens to be tough and strong, and then contrasting him with a woman who just happens to be physically slight. It is anti-feminist to say "as a woman, I'm glad I have a man around to protect me from…

I don't disagree with the "it's creepy to be alone" bit or the " having someone around is reassuring" bit, but, you know, given obvious social and cultural context, it's kind of hard to interpret the "I have a dude instead of a weapon" bit in the original article, and the closely related replies here, in any other way…

(Goes to feminist website)