Harassment in PHVs and public places: Why do some women fight back while others ‘play along’?
Recent incidents involving women confronting men who allegedly took photos of them, as well as female passengers alleging verbal harassment from private-hire drivers, have sparked a familiar question: Why didn’t they just confront the person immediately?
The answer, according to psychologists and women Stomp spoke to who have experienced such situations, is that people respond to threats in different ways, often subconsciously.
In psychology, these responses are known as: fight, flight, freeze and fawn.
Fight: confronting the perpetrator
Influencer Kasey Low confronted an elderly man after allegedly finding “three rows of zoomed-in photos” of her butt on his phone — taken while she was playing pickleball with her friends.
“Past me would not have posted this or just kept quiet, but I know there’ll be other girls who’ll be afraid or don’t want to cause trouble and just keep quiet and let it go because I used to be like that,” she said.
“Confronting is 100 times better than keeping quiet and letting them get away with it. If you’re scared, tell someone!”
In a video posted on July 23, TikTok user @jokaaqi also confronted a man near Haji Lane after alleging that he had been taking photos of women’s skirts.
She said she initially avoided eye contact when he allegedly began taking photos of her too, but confronted him after he continued pointing his camera at her.
Both women chose to confront the men, but this is not necessarily an option everyone would feel safe taking.
“A fight, such as a verbal confrontation, can escalate the danger. It could risk provoking anger, physical violence, or reckless driving from the person in control,” said advocacy organisation AWARE.
Fawning: why some people laugh or ‘play along’
Women like Sarah Lim and Instagram user @Huatyousay, who received inappropriate comments from their private-hire drivers and posted about their encounters, were accused by netizens for “playing along” and “leading” the drivers on by not putting a stop to their conversations.
Lim’s driver had commented on her looks and ethnicity, while Huatyousay’s driver had propositioned her and her partner for a threesome.
Both women continued talking to their private-hire drivers despite being visibly perturbed by their comments.
Dr Tsao I Ting, clinical director at Redwood Psychology, said this could be a fawn response — an appeasement strategy where someone tries to keep a threatening person calm by being agreeable or friendly.
“It’s especially common in situations with a power or control imbalance, like being a passenger with a driver,” she said.
The goal may be to keep the interaction predictable and non-confrontational until the person is safely out of the situation.
Jane, 27, who works in the media industry, said she once nervously laughed when a private-hire driver asked if she was single after complimenting her hair.
She was heading home from work at around 11pm and was only five minutes from her destination, so she pretended to call her father asking if he was done teaching karate instead.
Jane believes women should not be criticised for continuing to engage with a driver who makes them uncomfortable. “As women, we are naturally socialised to de-escalate situations because that’s usually the safest thing for us to do,” she said.
Flight: to escape, but it’s not always possible
Dr Tsao said a person’s response to an unsafe situation depends on both internal and external factors.
For someone in an enclosed space like a private-hire vehicle, the driver controls the car, route and when the doors open — making escape challenging. “Leaving the situation is not a viable option,” she said.
“Confronting the drivers might lead to unpredictable pushbacks from the drivers, endangering the women more.”
AWARE similarly noted that fighting or fleeing may not be safe in an enclosed situation such as a moving vehicle. For women in these situations, trying to flee could mean getting out of a moving car or being dropped off in an unfamiliar area, potentially at night.
31-year-old public servant Jen — who has received many questions from male drivers about where she lives and whether she is in a relationship — echoed this point.
“I can’t exactly open the door and throw myself out right?” she asked rhetorically.
‘The way someone reacts does not tell you how they felt’
While none of the aforementioned incidents involved freezing, Dr Tsao described it as “an involuntary state where the brain immobilises the body and mind under a threat that one is unable to escape”.
Simply put, people who freeze are unable to exert control over their body, because the nervous system has temporarily disabled that function.
No matter the reaction, Dr Tsao stressed that a person’s outward behaviour does not necessarily reflect their internal state.
“Staying calm, laughing, or continuing the conversation was a safety strategy, not a verdict on how okay the situation was,” she said, adding that victim-blaming tends to discourage victims away from reporting similar incidents and shifts attention away from the perpetrators.
“This is like in a case of school bullying, and the focus is on the victim for not protecting himself well enough, instead of focusing on the bully who started the aggression,” Dr Tsao explained.
AWARE said victim-blaming can cause survivors — who tend to be women — to question themselves and discourage others from coming forward.
“When the public interrogates a survivor’s actions instead of holding the perpetrator accountable, it sends a loud, chilling message to everyone else: if you speak up, it is you who will be put on trial, not your abuser,” it said.
‘Immediate survivor responses are not conscious choices’: AWARE
The organisation added that there is no single correct way to respond to harassment, noting that it may be unsafe to record the incident, confront the person or resist their comments.
“We have to remember that immediate survivor responses like fawning are not conscious choices. If a survivor responds in a certain way and sticks with it until the danger ends, that is okay,” AWARE said.
Importantly, there is also no single right way for victims to feel about harassment.
Dr Tsao added: “Feeling shaken, angry, numb, or oddly fine are all normal; there’s no ‘correct’ emotional response.”
“Give it time, and consider professional support if the unease lingers — a short, unsettling incident can still leave a real emotional residue, and that’s worth taking seriously rather than minimising.”
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