I hate to wade into this discourse but I feel like lately I’ve seen a lot of conversations along the lines of
man: I’m sorry about what happened to so-and-so, but what I don’t understand is why she didn’t just say no! nonverbal signals are sometimes hard to interpret and just saying no would solve so many problems.
woman (or male ally): it’s because men are usually stronger than women and more likely to lash out in anger, and women live in constant fear of violence from men so saying no is often scary or dangerous.
and like. I don’t doubt that that is an experience many women have had. but I want to state for the record as a woman that out of the times I can recall that I’ve failed to say no to something that I didn’t want or that made me uncomfortable or upset, 0% have been because I was scared of the guy in question reacting with anger or violence and 100% have been due to a thought process like “well it seems really awkward to say no right now … I mean it’s not like a big deal … I don’t want to make things weird …”
which doesn’t mean I’m a bad person or deserve to have bad experiences!! but the remedies it suggests may be somewhat different and I hope we can be realistic about the relative frequencies of these things