Quite a few posts have been made on this sub regarding the phenomenon of the 'male bumbler' myth, often in reference to this 2017 article of the same name.

The world baffles the bumbler. He's astonished to discover that he had power over anyone at all, let alone that he was perceived as using it. What power? he says. Who, me?

The concept describes the incentive that men have to purposely be perceived as incompetent as a strategy to extract labour from others, or to excuse bad behaviour - because to be seen as oblivious is quite frequently preferable to being seen as overtly malicious. More importantly in the context of navigating romance as a woman, this strategy can be deployed by men to frame boundary-crossing behaviour as an innocent misunderstanding or blameless social obliviousness. Think of a recent post on [REDACTED] where a woman described a man forcing a kiss on her and acting nonchalant after blatantly committing assault and holding her forcibly against her will. He obviously knows that what he is doing is wrong, but the plausible deniability is a shield against any claim that there was malicious intent, and hence deflects any inference upon his character. He isn't a bad person, he just didn't know.

At the same time, women are forced to engage in a level of hyper-awareness when they engage in social interactions, especially with men and especially in the context of romantic interactions, because women are always conscious of possible threats. This presents us with two competing incentives when dealing with men:

1 - The need to protect ourselves

2 - Avoid assuming malice

Because there are necessarily only two possibilities when dealing with a 'bumbler' - that he is ignorant or is a completely manipulative monster, women are hugely disincentivised socially from trying to protect themselves preemptively and 'pop' the bubble of plausible deniability - lest they be making an outlandish accusation (men?? being creepy??? never). The important thing to note however, is that men do not actually need to actively convince women that they have benevolant intentions to benefit from this. In fact, it is a valuable point of leverage for men to create ambiguity because the looming threat of violence that pervades every interaction that they have with women is a bargaining chip.

This particularly lends itself to sexual exploitation and pressure to engage in sexual activity to circumvent violence. Men know this - we know this because 'The Implication' exists. You might have no proof apart from gut feeling, but all it takes is an implicit threat. Men can use the fact that society accepts their feigned ignorance to hold women hostage with the power of The Implication. He never has to actively commit violence to benefit from the fear created by the violence of other men.