Studies Show That Predators Target Women Based on One Thing

Attackers all chose similar victims — and it wasn’t what they were wearing.

Photo by macniak on Envato (paid editorial use)

In 2025, federal attorney Adeline Dimond published a Medium article called, “Should You Out-Crazy Men?”

When Dimond was out walking her dog, two men catcalled her. Their comments were sinister and guttural. Instead of ignoring it like she had so many times before, this time, she felt rage.

Rage that she couldn’t simply enjoy her walk through the park.

Rage that she was 54 years old and still dealing with this crap.

Rage that we teach girls to carry their keys between their fingers, instead of teaching boys to control themselves. Dimond wrote:

“I remembered the protocol: ignore, walk faster, wrap hands around house keys in case I had to gouge someone’s eyes out. The house-keys-eye-gouging-trick is something that I, like most women I know, learned when they were sixteen. And this fact enraged me too — that I actually know that keys are good for gouging someone’s eyes out, and I have known this for 38 years.”

But Dimond did not put her head down and walk faster. Instead, she snapped.

She walked straight towards the men, screaming profanities and threatening to have her dog (Fish, a pit bull-Rottweiler mix) rip their throats out.

It seemed to work. The men were stunned. Scared, even. Still, Dimond wondered if — while definitely satisfying — her show of female rage was “really stupid.”

The answer, according to scientific research, is a resounding no. In fact, out-crazying a dangerous man could save your life one day.

A study reveals how predators choose their victims

About 10 years ago, the Journal of Interpersonal Violence published a study called “Psychopathy and Victim Selection.”

Researchers interviewed 47 inmates who were incarcerated for violent crimes against women, including assault, kidnapping, murder, and rape. The researchers showed the inmates short videos of women and asked, “Which woman would you choose as your target?”

All of the inmates chose the same few women over and over again — and it had nothing to do with their size, hair color, beauty, or what they were wearing.

They chose their victims based on the way these women walked.

According to the inmates, the women who walked as though they were anxious and insecure (shorter gaits, heads down, arms wrapped around themselves or swinging awkwardly) made the best victims. The women who walked confidently and with purpose did not make good victims.

Why? Because the former seemed physically and emotionally vulnerable, while the latter seemed like they’d put up a good fight.

One tactic works even better than confidence

Guess what it is? Yep. Rage.

Another study in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence found that women who hadn’t taken any self-defense courses felt scared when they were attacked, which made them weaker, more vulnerable, and more susceptible to trauma. Women who were trained in self-defense, however, didn’t feel scared.

They felt anger, and this anger gave them the upper hand.

Female rage is an extremely effective survival strategy because it doesn’t seek to overpower men’s bodies. Rather, it short-circuits their brains.

Evolutionarily, we’re conditioned to fear erratic behavior, which signals danger: A leopard’s sudden lunge. The hiss of a rattlesnake’s tail. A tarantula’s frenzied scurry. These cues shock our brains into panic mode, so when a woman goes feral on a man, he suddenly feels like the victim.

The human equivalent of these animalistic warnings: yelling, cursing, lunging, flailing your arms, making sudden noises, acting generally unhinged…

And the real secret weapon: your eyes

Humans are the only primates with visible sclerae — the white part of the eyes — and they’re a huge factor in emotional regulation.

Scientists found that starting as young as seven months old, babies reacted to the whites of their caretakers’ eyes. If they were thin and curved, like when smiling, the babies relaxed. If they were wide and crazed, the babies panicked.

Adults also react to the size of the sclerae, often subconsciously.

In other words, “crazy eyes” is a real thing (though not in the way men typically use the phrase to shame women), and it’s time we used it to our advantage.

By making your eyes as wide and intense as possible, you could force your attacker’s brain to register you as the threat.

Last but definitely not least, our brains are conditioned to fear unpredictability. And to a man raised in a patriarchal culture where women are supposed to be fragile and polite, nothing is as unpredictable as a wild, enraged woman.

The power of women’s anger

In her TED Talk “The Power of Women’s Anger,” writer and activist Soraya Chemaly talks about how anger is considered a gendered emotion. Culturally, men are allowed to feel it, and women are not:

“No matter how justified my anger has been throughout my life, I’ve always been led to understand that my anger is an exaggeration, a misrepresentation, that it will make me rude and unlikable. […] I learned as a girl that anger is an emotion better left entirely unvoiced. […] Anger is reserved as the moral property of boys and men.”

In actuality, anger doesn’t belong to one gender. It’s a human emotion that signals injustice. It tells us our boundaries have been violated. It “warns us of indignity, threat, insult, and harm,” Chemaly explains.

In my opinion, being unable to walk through a park in broad daylight without fear of getting attacked is a massive fucking indignity. Yet according to Chemaly, while women’s brains are screaming, “Are you kidding me?” our mouths often say, “I’m sorry, what?”

Why do we do that?

Research shows that when women stifle their anger, it’s not because they’re afraid of violence. It’s because they’re afraid of judgment.

Because women are shamed for our rage — because we’re called hysterical lunatics, crazy bitches, angry Black women, psycho Karens, and man-hating feminists — most of us never act on it. Instead, we fold into ourselves. Hang our heads. Keep walking.

Put our keys between our fingers, just in case we absolutely have to save ourselves. Choose defense, not offense.

But when women suppress their rage, abusers benefit

They keep catcalling. Keep making sexist jokes at the office. Keep grabbing without consent. Continue to hold the highest office in the United States government despite 28 sexual assaults (that we know of). Remain immune to accountability and free to abuse more women.

Please don’t misunderstand me: I am not blaming the victim here.

In a fair world, women would never have to consider their body language before they walked through a park. We wouldn’t have to clutch our keys like weapons, and we wouldn’t have to teach grown men what’s acceptable behavior, and what’s not.

But the suppression of our rage is hurting us, one way or another.

It’s teaching men that their predatory behaviors are okay (or, at the very least, free from consequences), and it’s poisoning us from the inside out with “women’s illnesses” like autoimmune disorders, anxiety, and chronic pain.

What if we stopped keeping the peace?

What if we quit apologizing for basic human emotions?

What if we started honoring the rage inside of us and using it as a compass that told us when someone’s actions were unacceptable?

What if we met harassment with shrill voices and wild eyes?

This culture has conditioned us to be soft, sweet, and small, and it’s turned us into prey. Maybe it’s time we held a mirror up to our predators.

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