Specifically I’m talking about a man will frame another man’s actions as dangerous or antisocial, so as to make her afraid, so as to enhance his own role as potential protector.

I think a woman could definitely do this too, just it would be a different kind of danger. Less physical and more social danger.

But death is way more permanent than shunning, so women’s instinctual fear of men (that the man might kill them) is probably deeper and riper for manipulation than men’s fear of women (that the woman might tell lies about him to reduce his social status).

An example that was on my mind was when I was driving through a parking lot the other day, I turned the corner at a perfectly normal speed. A man and woman were crossing the travel way, heading to an ice cream place. As soon as I saw them I stopped. Again normal speed, stopped like thirty feet from them from my already low speed.

But he reacted in a way that framed the whole thing with me as danger that he saved her from: he grabbed her hand, pulled her back a little, and in response to his motions she gasped and looked at me like I was a charging boar.

I said out loud “man I hate when dudes do that shit” and my passenger laughed and said “Gotta be that protector you know? Even if you gotta make it up”

In that situation it wasn’t really a cost to me because we were strangers passing in a city. But in a smaller more intimate community, I’d now be facing “dangerous guy” status, which is extremely hard to shake.