Why? A) It is problematic to accept help of that sort from someone in your social circle. It makes you "a charity case" and that term is quite insulting. Once

Why? A) It is problematic to accept help of that sort from someone in your social circle. It makes you "a charity case" and that term is quite insulting. Once you are marked as "a charity case," good luck getting any actual respect ever again. So, many people resist that because they don't want to be your bitch and would rather go hungry. B) Women face special safety challenges above and beyond that. The vast majority of men offering a woman a few bucks in charity will, sooner or later, conclude she "owes" them and want her to pay them back on her back, so to speak. So perhaps she had already been badly burned by that once, learned her lesson and was unwilling to risk it again.