Mleake said:
Then again, I have no requirement to comply with your desire for me to stay away. Sad though it may be, I can go where I like on public land. So can the OP's hypothetical stranger. Maybe the woman in the OP's hypothetical is by the stranger's long-time favorite fishing spot.
And, if somebody warned me off public land, I'd probably call the police about it.
My first bit of advice would be, if you are a lone female who is not comfortable with the idea of encountering strangers in the woods - don't go into the woods (or to the lake) by yourself.
MLeake, do you not see the contradiction here? You're proclaiming your right to go where you like on public land, but you're telling me that I'm wrong to do so -- at least if I'm by myself.
Yes, I am wary of male strangers, whether I'm in town or in the country. The reality is that in principle, any full-grown man is -- potentially -- an "inherent threat" to a woman, for the reasons I gave in my post above. For me, and for many other women, going armed is a huge equalizer: it means that we can exercise our right to "go where we like on public land," and elsewhere, in the knowledge that we can protect ourselves if necessary, without being dependent on someone else to "take care" of us. (Trust me... that dependence is a demeaning thing for an autonomous adult.)
But -- and this should be obvious to everyone here -- a couple of things go along with choosing to go armed, no matter who one is: exercising one's judgment about who is and isn't likely to be a genuine threat, and being willing to act on that judgment. And
most men are not in fact threats.
A couple of examples: I'm a birder, in a not very serious way, and sometimes, after work, I like to go off on my own to local birding spots around the city, some of which are fairly isolated.
So I was out walking one evening in a birding "hotspot," and saw a guy sort of meandering down the trail toward me, and he had a camera and a big pair of binoculars slung around his neck. OK, that's pretty much a zero threat, as far as I'm concerned -- we passed on the trail, exchanged a few words, went on our different ways.
Another day, in a different place, I pulled into the parking area and saw two young guys on the viewing deck at the end of the trail from the lot. No binos... they were just sort of hanging out. So I said to myself, "Self... let's wait in the car and give them five minutes, and if they leave, great, if not, maybe we'll go somewhere else -- no point courting trouble here." A couple of minutes later they came back up the trail to the lot, and I got the dog out of the back and went on with my walk.
I will be darned if I'm going to deny myself the pleasure of outings like that, just because I might meet someone who sets off alarms.
In the OP's scenario, the approaching stranger
has already failed to respond when told to stop -- if he's well-intentioned, perhaps on his way to a favorite fishing spot, why wouldn't he respond? At that point, my internal threat index goes way up: either his intentions aren't friendly or there's something else the matter with him. I'm not about to respond with lethal force at that point, but protecting myself will be a priority.