A chart highlighting the starkly different ways men and women perceive their surroundings while walking home at night has gone viral on Threads, sparking debate about safety, awareness, and gendered experiences in public spaces.
The post, shared by Threads user @just_call_me_oche, has amassed 365,000 views since it was posted on February 22. It features what appears to be a screenshot of a post from X user @pelagiusreborn, who shared a university press release titled “Heat maps show men look straight ahead; women scan periphery,” alongside images of contrasting heat maps that visualize where participants’ attention was drawn. Text beneath the images reads: “An eye‑catching new BYU study shows just how different the experience of walking home at night is for women versus men.”
The caption of the post on X says: “Babe wake up a new women can’t drive chart just dropped.” The caption of the Threads post adds a similar tongue‑in‑cheek comment, saying: “Babe wake up a new men can’t read just dropped.”
The study referenced in the post was conducted by Brigham Young University and published back in 2024 in the journal Violence and Gender.
The viral chart comes amid broader concerns about safety after dark. A Gallup poll published in November 2023 found that 53 percent of women reported fearing walking alone at night, compared with 26 percent of men.
According to the BYU study, participants were shown 16 images taken from different university campuses and were asked to imagine themselves walking through each location at night. They were then instructed to click on areas of each image that caught their attention using a heat‑map tool.
“The resulting heat maps represent perhaps what people are thinking or feeling or doing as they are moving through these spaces,” Robbie Chane, the study’s lead author and a health professor at Brigham Young University, said in a statement at the time. “Before we started the study, we expected to see some differences, but we didn’t expect to see them so contrasting. It’s really visually striking.”
The results showed a clear pattern. Men tended to focus primarily on what was directly in front of them or on fixed objects, such as a path, a light, or a garbage can. By contrast, women concentrated far more on potential hazards in the periphery of the images, including bushes and darker areas off the main walkway.
‘Scanning for Potential Threats’
The post quickly prompted discussion among Threads users, many of whom said the findings reflected lived experience rather than surprise.
User @alexachipman wrote: “We are scanning for potential threats at night—men don’t need to do that usually.”
User @samanthamariedmd added: “It’s almost like women have been conditioned to constantly be aware of their surroundings everywhere they go…”
Others framed the findings in sharper terms. User @mira.kulkarni commented: “It’s almost like women HAVE to scan all their surroundings while walking ANYWHERE because of… you guessed it! MEN!”
User @theohendrieauthor questioned broader narratives around gender and vigilance, writing: “Where are all the men that claimed they were evolutionarily primed to be protectors, always scanning their environments and coming up with exit plans??”
Not all responses agreed with the framing. User @jayde_dragon09 pushed back, saying: “first of all—this is about walking—SECOND, isn’t this called spatial awareness??? it’s as if people don’t check their rearviews/mirrors before passing or merging… you’re supposed to be aware of everything around ya…”
Similarly, @jessrudder wrote: “I see it’s about walking. But, with driving, you’re also not supposed to have ‘tunnel vision.’ So even if this were about driving, it would be wrong.”
Newsweek has contacted the original poster for comment via Threads.
Do you have a similar story to share? Let us know via life@newsweek.com, and your story could be featured on Newsweek.
Read the full article here
