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"sorry officer I didn't know I was speeding"
At the end of the day, "making a woman uncomfortable" is verboten and human society has long shaped itself around sexual differences like this. The topic under conversation is just way #109.
Could it be you just don't think women's comfort is all that important? That could be discussed for a millennia and still be unresolved.
I hold a similar stance to haroldbkny, and here's my reasoning. Note, this is coming from someone who is small and short in stature and would absolutely be crushed by most other men around me in combat - no one has any obligation to be continuously cognisant of themselves around me or anyone physically weaker than them, as long as their behaviour isn't actively intended to be intimidating. People need to come to terms with their fears and manage them appropriately, they cannot continuously walk around expecting to be coddled by others. Especially when what makes people intimidated and uncomfortable is poorly defined and basically requires people to do mind-reading in order to reliably avoid these situations. You can't use other people's feelings as a yardstick for socially acceptable behaviour because feelings are inherently by their nature irrational, mercurial and difficult to predict, and if these are the standards which are to govern male-female interactions the only reliable way of avoiding accusations of wrongdoing is to stay away from women.
I believe that female baseline greater neuroticism, rather than any rational risk assessment about their probability of being physically victimised, is a bigger driver of the difference in reactions between men and women, especially considering that women are no more likely to be violently victimised than men (if anything, the reality is the polar opposite of women's feelings). I also think that our reactions to this are related to a protectiveness of women that we simply do not have for men. There are intra-sexual strength differentials too, but it's not very common to see this logic invoked in a scenario of physical power disparity between men. Virtually all discussion about physical strength differences are forever about how men can accommodate women and how men are to blame if women do something idiotic out of fear, it's never applied in an impartial manner.
And perhaps I would be less annoyed with this expectation if our ideas surrounding women in our current society were full traditionalist, which would make it at least consistent. But they're not. I have to act in line with the modern progressive ethos of women being just as Strong and Powerful and Capable as men in contexts where it would benefit them, then accept "But women are so weak and incapable and afraid, and are uniquely capable of being made to do things they don't want" in contexts where this reasoning could be used to justify special favours for women. Our modern attitudes surrounding women are this incongruent mish-mash of "Women Can Do Everything A Man Can Do" ideology as well as traditionalist ideas that prioritise their protection and require men to defer to their sensibilities, and these beliefs are selectively invoked to benefit women. It allows women to capitalise on the upsides of both strength and weakness, and avoid the downsides that these perceptions would normally entail.
Thanks, I agree with this largely, just one minor nitpick:
On more traditionalist, or traditionalist-friendly places like the Motte, they may say "But women are so weak and incapable and afraid, and are uniquely capable of being made to do things they don't want". But when it comes to actually dealing with progressives and feminists, it's even more insidious. For 100 years, people were pushing towards women having more rights along with responsibilities like men. Then the 3rd wave feminists came along and started to push back on this. They started insisting on special privileges for women. They claim that this is not because "women are so weak and scared" but because "men are evil and privileged" or "society uniquely hates women". I cannot abide this explanation, because I still see so many privileges for women, where women are already elevated over men.
So for this example, they'd claim that men need to be constantly cognizant of not making women uncomfortable, not because women deserve special consideration, but because women have historically been oppressed, and men and society don't care about women's feelings, and men need to correct this.
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I think if women want to be treated like adults, and have the privileges of men in modern society, then they should have corresponding responsibilities, and they should not get to lean on antiquated notions that their comfort and dealing with whatever irrationality they have has to be prioritized over other people's interests. If women still want such consideration, we should not pretend like they're not being treated specially.
Note before people accuse me: That's not to say men don't have irrationality too. But IME, men don't usually expect the rest of society to make it their problem.
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