Just a little about the other survival reaction not talked about enough - the freeze response.

We all here about the flight or fight response to a stressful situation but what is being introduce more into the education of survival responses is the freeze response.

We can see this in nature from opossums playing dead to fool predators into not eating them and dear freezing in the headlights of cars and being hit because of the freeze response.

I could go on but my point is that this can be applied to humans.

I especially want talk about how when a man is being inappropriate to a woman or girl and harassing or abusing them a common response to women talking about these experiences where they froze is usually followed by others asking ‘Why didn’t you say something?’ i.e. why didn’t you fight? Or ‘Why didn’t you just leave?’ i.e. why didn’t you flight?

These women and girls are then feeling that they are responsible for the abuse because they should have done something about it.

What people don’t usually take into account is they WERE doing something. They were freezing. This tactic is useful for not escalating a situation and to try and escaped without a more serious situation arising from agitating the abuser. It’s just as much a survival tactic as fighting or flighting and is a response that happens just as often.

So no, it’s not a women’s fault she didn’t do anything to stop abuse, she was just trying to survive.

Imaging living in a world where you are guilted into thinking you caused abuse to happen to you by freezing to try and survive an interaction a with dangerous man who could easily kill you or seriously harm you.

Women are out here trying to survive and are told that if they let a man abuse them it’s their fault for not standing up for themselves instead of just letting it happen.

No, you didn’t want that man to grope you on a train and you didn’t ask to get sexually harassed drinking a coffee at work.

You didn’t do anything because you were surviving.

Never let a person guilt you into thinking you should have stood up for yourself instead of freezing to survive a dangerous encounter with a scrote.

Edit: Just want to mention some more responses that I’ve learned for the wonderful people who have commented.

Faun: to smile and appease someone to not escalate a situation with a scrote, seen in society as ‘She was asking for it.’

Flop: To go limp and to not give an resistance to preserve a women from even more harm if she agitated a scrote when he is sexually assaulting her.

So happy my post had helped me gain an even more rich understanding of women’s survival responses. I hope this post and it’s comments can give support and comfort to women who were shamed for their responses to dangerous and scary interactions with scrotes.