> What am I missing here? It's a common question men have about harassment or abuse of women, especially sexual. Why not just say no? Why not fight back harder

> What am I missing here? It's a common question men have about harassment or abuse of women, especially sexual. Why not just say no? Why not fight back harder? I'm no expert in the subject, but this is my undertanding: For one thing, generally men are raised to be aggressive -- never let anyone push you around. Women are raised to be inoffensive, pleasing, agreeable. Aggression is unfeminine; it scares off or alienates males; our culture models being the kidnapped princess awaiting rescue (still true in most movies, games, etc.), not the hero on the horse. EDIT: It might be as hard for a woman to respond aggressively as for you to smile sweetly when someone is abusing you. For another, they are physically overmatched. Probably their life-long experience and realistic assessment is that fighting males is dangerous. Also, these things don't happen out of the blue. People are 'groomed'; attackers establish their authority and push for more and more. They wait for the right moment, when victims' defenses are weak. The attacker may have experience with these situations. Lots of people are intimidated into doing things they don't want to do, often when they are young and little green, especially by authority figures and especially when believing something valuable is on the line, such as their career. What if you had kids and a mortgage? A sick spouse or parent and needed the health insurance? Finally, I don't know you at all, but I know that far more people say these tough things than rise to the moment when faced with danger, with anxiety and fear soaring and everything on the line. I think panic is a more common response. EDIT: But how sad that HN seems so male-dominated that we have to speculate about the female pespective. Wow.