She may not know what she was "doing right," but I think it more likely she was doing something that helped foster positive outcomes.

Thirty years ago, when I was a kid, my siblings and I wandered around in Mexico sometimes miles from home without an adult, talking to the locals. Everyone was super friendly, we were never threatened. People would sometimes offer us food or toys like little hand carved slingshots. It seemed pretty safe, and we didn’t get hurt during the year we stayed, other than once my little brother went to pet a donkey in a field and got kicked by it. It was a different time then, so I guess my point is you might likewise want to consider how the rates of homicide have changed over the years, where the rates are higher, who’s most likely to be affected, and how it actually compares to other countries, before assuming that everyone’s in equal danger, or that anyone’s in more danger there than here...

The parent comment mentioned traveling in rural Mexico, which presumably does not refer to Mexico City.

I agree that homicide rates have changed over the years. I would be surprised if it was ever wise for a young woman to go hitchhiking solo in rural Mexico though. From the story it seems rural Mexicans agree with me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cities_by_murder_rate

In Caracas the locals also constantly emphasized the dangers. Random airport workers would tell us to not even leave the airport unless we had a driver outside specifically waiting for us. Even on Isla Margarita locals would look at us in a panic if we were out on the streets after dark "you can't be here!!" and would go out of their way to help us get home safely.

I did once wonder if I was going to get hurt when I was pulled out of the audience during a circus show in Leon for the clown's knife-throwing act. I was mostly sure it'd be safe and faked and funny, but they blindfolded me and I certainly had a few thoughts run through my head about what I was thinking being in the middle of Mexico having knives thrown at me.

It's not particularly wise for a young woman to hitchhike in the US either. I certainly wouldn't recommend someone do it right now in Mexico, and I have no doubt that people here and there all have fears about it, but fears don't necessarily mean it's extraordinarily unsafe.

I was never raped while on the street.

I also have lived without a car for more than a decade and accepted many rides from strangers. None of those rides ended tragically either.

I get told a lot I'm just lucky. It's a left-handed way of assuming a woman has no idea what she's talking about and can't possibly be competent.

No. It's a straightforward way of assuming that you are not actually in complete control of the universe and it doesn't matter how competent you are, things could have worked out differently. If you'd like to assert that you actually have perfect methods of identifying and avoiding Ted Bundy and any other potential psychopath, then you are going to have to show a lot more evidence than "and I'm ok!" - because it is an extraordinary claim.

The leader board is 100 names long. I've been here over a decade and was not an early adopter, so the site is more than ten years old. There have been, no doubt, quite a lot more than a 100 people who have spent time on the leader board. So one openly female member out of more than a 100 names is less than one percent.

For comparison:

This is a list of Women CEOs of the Fortune 500, based on the magazine's 2019 list. As of the date of publication, women held 6.6 percent of Fortune 500 CEO roles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_women_CEOs_of_Fortune_...

According to historical surveys, HN is an overwhelmingly male space. For example:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=591309

Yet, I continue to be told by people on HN that I somehow need to prove to people that I know how to handle myself when interacting with men and my claims that I know how to deal effectively with men in social settings is bizarre, unfounded, ridiculous and so forth. I find this profoundly baffling.

Please skip the part where multiple men pile on to inform me that my ability to score "useless internet points" on a "stupid forum" is irrelevant to this discussion. To my mind, it is the single strongest piece of evidence that I can present that people here should be able to readily see as real evidence of ability and skill on my part and not just more anecdotal claims that cannot be verified. So that's why I'm bothering to post this, in spite of the very long history of awful, dismissive replies any time I talk about this stuff.

The handle that was briefly on the leader board is here and shows that I joined in July 2009: https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=Mz

Nowhere have I claimed any ability to "identify Ted Bundy types." Suggesting this is my claim amounts to putting words in my mouth.

Occam's Razor.

One factor in me not being raped while homeless was that I was usually not alone. There is safety in numbers.

Suppose a woman went 6 years in Anchorage. There's a 99.8% ^ 6 chance of her not getting raped. 98.8% chance in other words.

Would a woman who had not been raped after 6 years in Anchorage persuade you that Anchorage wasn't a more dangerous place than most?

Your comment here is hard to grasp given your previous comment. Mexico has a significantly higher crime rate than the US. As you acknowledge, being by yourself makes you more vulnerable. Being young makes you more vulnerable. A young girl hitchhiking by herself in Mexico is incredibly vulnerable. What are the odds that she will be raped or murdered over a few months of traveling? They may be 10 or 20%. They may be higher!

The fact that a girl had the most likely outcome happen doesn't prove or suggest anything. You can play Russian Roulette and you'll have a 5/6 chance of surviving. That doesn't mean it's a good idea to play. If someone plays three rounds, that doesn't make it safe.

I hope you'd agree that members of vulnerable populations should take extra precautions to mitigate their vulnerability. As per your own example, staying with other people in dangerous times and places.

Most rapes aren't cases of random strangers grabbing you randomly off the street. That's not how that works.

Most rape victims know their rapists. It's usually a social acquaintance of some sort.

Most college campus rapes or date rapes involve alcohol.

There is this narrative that we can't try to talk about what women can effectively do to protect themselves because that would be blaming the victim. But if you tell someone to lock your door to make it harder for someone to rob you, we don't have the same problem with such advice. We don't get all up in arms about how robbers just need to keep their hands to themselves and advice to protect your belongings is somehow victim blaming.

I agree that it's good and not victim blaming to offer advice to people, regardless of their gender, as to how they can live safer lives.

I agree that, in the US, most victims know their attacker. That doesn't mean it's safe for young women to hitchhiker in Mexico though. Similarly, you are vastly more likely to be killed by your own gun than any random gun out there. That doesn't mean you have nothing to worry about if some random stranger points a gun at you.

I never claimed what you are seemingly rebutting at all. I never said anything of the sort whatsoever.

I only suggested that this particular woman probably wasn't simply lucky. She was probably doing some things right that helped keep her safe.

It's an entirely different idea. It's the difference between saying "Lion tamers have lion taming skills and aren't merely lucky that they usually survive their shows." Versus "Because lion tamers exist, random people with zero lion taming skills are equally safe being locked in a cage with a lion."

Nowhere have I claimed any of this is "bullet proof." Just that consistent positive outcomes suggest an element of skill and knowledge that claims of pure luck erroneously dismiss as not existing at all.

edit: data tangent - if your Anchorage stats were about reported cases, the averages would need correcting for underreporting.

Nonetheless, I am consistently and insistently told that I am simply lucky as the entire explanation for those outcomes. It doesn't matter how reasonably I engage, I'm outright dismissed in a manner consistent with the idea that no woman is capable of having useful skills that substantially influence the odds that they will remain safe.

No matter how clearly I state that luck is always a factor in all situations and so forth, I get basically this la, la, la not listening! response.

This has been a consistent pattern across various forums for many years. Ergo, my conclusion that it boils down to an assumption that women can't actually be competent that I stated in some other comment here.

I'd guess that some social environments often behave like this, where information is difficult to objectively classify and measure, but someone with great people skills will be able to reliably get an indication of risk and intentions.

Maybe some extreme sports practicioners experience the same type of dismissal.

Funnily, come to think of it, investment/asset management falls into something that looks like a similar situation. In that case, it's very difficult to objectively assess whether great performance is luck or skill. I've always believed that some in the latter category are mistaken for being in the former. But it would be impossible to tell without having very specialized and specific skills, and almost impossible to do so in an objective and repeatable way.

Best practices don't actually require an assessment of intentions. Just like mountain climbers use safety gear whether the mountain seems like a suspicious character or not, erring on the side of caution socially doesn't actually require a determination of intent to reduce the odds of assault. (Inferring likely intent can be useful, but really shouldn't be a high priority per se when acting to protect yourself.)

You are at least the second person here to say something along these lines. Perhaps it casts light on a detail I need to somehow focus on more when such topics come up and which is a source of the profound disbelief and denial and assertions that a track record of success due to competence is simply not remotely humanly possible.

It's not even necessarily much luck: if the per-day probability of a violent attack while hitchhiking in Mexico were 1 in 50, which would still be extremely dangerous, it would only be slightly better than average results to go a month straight without an attack.