Modern men may work out and pump iron – but they’re still cowards
We’ve all been there.
You’re reading your book when a fellow passenger plays music on their phone at full blast.
Many of us will sympathise with Radio 3 presenter Petroc Trelawney. He complained about the phenomenon but admitted he was ‘quite a coward’. So, rather than remonstrate, he chose to ‘seethe internally’.
Trelawny’s confession coincided with an American study of 4,500 participants. It revealed that both men and women find a willingness to intervene more attractive than mere physical strength.
A potential partner who stepped in to save a hypothetical victim from a threat or altercation was thought more desirable than one who hung back, however handsome.
Unsurprising perhaps. Yet it is revealing. While people do their Ironman runs, build bulging biceps and post pictures of corrugated torsos, what really counts isn’t muscles but the moral courage to intervene. Partly because, like Trelawney, we recognise how difficult and potentially dangerous it is to do so.
We don’t always get to find out whether we – or our partners – are cowards or crusaders. But when a situation arises that reveals the truth, it can be surprising.
I loathe confrontation. But I get wound up by selfish behaviour. If I see people dropping litter, leaving their car engines running, vandalising a monument or stealing seashells from the beach, I remonstrate. Sometimes they stop. Sometimes they tell me to sod off.
When it comes to violence, I find it so unbearable – I view Attenborough programmes through my fingers – that I feel compelled to step in.
I’ve tackled a man who was hitting a toddler in a buggy – how could anyone not? Yet plenty of people walked past.
I recently saw a thug assaulting his girlfriend at a petrol station. This vast, shirtless, meat mountain of a man was backed up by his mate, who claimed to be a knife fighter – and showed me the scars to prove it.
The thug towered over the girl, fists clenched, shouting about what he would do to her, as she whimpered, crouching on the floor, her arms over her head to protect herself.
She was 19 – barely older than my 18-year-old daughter. My protective instinct roused, I rushed over, told the men to leave her alone and assured her that I could take her somewhere safe; that she shouldn’t tolerate this.
Another passer-by – a man – backed me up. We were hardly intimidating adversaries; the passer-by was shorter and slighter than me and I’m no tank.
As the men chased the girl around the forecourt, we alternately remonstrated and stood between victim and assailants, who alternated between obsequiousness and threats towards us.
Despite our efforts, she eventually got back in the car with her assailants, who drove off with her. I hate to think what happened next. The petrol-station staff had inexplicably failed to call the police.
Some studies suggest that women are more likely than men to get involved in an altercation, perhaps because of empathy. But the stats are inconclusive.
I’ve always assumed that women are less likely to face retaliation if they do intervene – but there is no concrete evidence for this, either.
There are many instances of both women and men stepping in only to become victims themselves. Take Sandy Seagrave, 76, who was walking past a house in Sussex in December 2019, when she saw Daniel Appleton, 38, attacking his wife, Amy, 32, on the driveway.
With extraordinary bravery, Mrs Seagrove went to Amy’s aid, only for Appleton to break off from beating his wife and bludgeon Mrs Seagrove to death with her own walking stick. He then used it to beat Amy to death.
So we shouldn’t judge those who don’t step in. Yet I confess I have done so.
Many years ago, I was on holiday in Mexico with a boyfriend. After a romantic fortnight of our gazing into each other’s eyes, our driver, José, who had chauffeured us around for two weeks and whose family we had met, got into a road-rage incident on a dual carriageway.
José got out of the car to confront the truck driver, only for two more men, both wild-eyed as if on drugs, to descend from the cab and surround him. We watched, appalled, as one man punched José – who staggered but stayed upright.
‘We must help!’ I squeaked at my beau.
‘Don’t be silly,’ he replied. ‘It’s too dangerous.’
But I couldn’t bear it. I jumped out, stood between José and the truck-drivers, and put my hand up like a referee. ‘Stop this!’ I demanded bossily.
They were so taken aback by this crazy Englishwoman that they did stop, got back into the truck and drove off. All was well.
But I had seen my boyfriend in a new and unflattering light. The relationship didn’t last.
Perhaps I shouldn’t have been so harsh. While I’ve sometimes been brave (or foolhardy), like Trelawney I shrink from confrontations on trains. There’s no escape if a confrontation escalates.
We all have our limits.
Annabel Venning is author of Following the Drum: The Lives of Army Wives and Daughters, Past and Present
