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Originally Posted by EdwardTH
Well I'm married to one who's worked downtown for about a decade and haven't heard anything quite like that, however I get your point. Talk to any woman period and you'll hear said stories. I'm sure she's witnessed some crazy and scary stuff but still, doesn't offer any tangible proof that it's worse now than it was 20 years ago. This notion that it's somehow worse than ever seems to be entirely subjective and based purely on perception and recency bias.
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Here are the things that seem to be worse for women in downtown Winnipeg (and yes yes, based on a very small sample size): street harassment from male pedestrians and motorists (spoiler alert always pick-up trucks when it's the latter). A lot of clear cases of serious mental health episodes that seem unpredictable (because they are). Rangey, troubled, troublesome-looking people staring you, walking alongside you, asking you for money.
A downtown area is going to have some of this stuff, but the issue is how pervasive and widespread it seems to have become.
Maybe these things seem like small potatoes to some. But I don't know if any woman needs to justify her safety concerns, or should be expected to bear street harassment and feeling unsafe as a matter of routine. How safe you *feel* in an urban environment matters, not just *how safe you ultimately end up being.*
And like Esquire noted, we can throw around crime statistics and real vs. perceived safety all we like, but a lot of otherwise urban-minded people (eg, women) aren't going to bother going downtown alone, or any more than necessary.