EARLIER this week police released CCTV footage of two thugs who attacked a man at a tram stop in Melbourne.

The two men had been watching the victim from a car, then they chased him into a shop, knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the head.

It’s a terrible crime, we can only hope the poor young man will be OK, and that he be given all the help he needs to recover, emotionally as well as physically, from such a traumatic experience.

It’s interesting though, that police issued no warnings to other young men about taking care on the streets while these two thugs remain at large. And there was no public debate about what the victim was doing out at night by himself, whether he had been drinking, or what he was wearing when he was attacked.

No one suggested that anything he did could have contributed to the attack against him. Had the victim of this attack been a woman however, the response would have been very different.

Which is odd; stranger danger is far more of a risk for men than it is for women.

Men are more likely to be the victim of assault than women, and far more likely to be assaulted by someone they don’t know.

I have written before that the Personal Safety Survey needs to be better understood as an indication of violence rather than a set of facts, but where it shows a huge difference between how men and women experience violence (92% of assaults against men, but only 39% of assaults against women, occurred outside their home) it’s worth taking seriously.

When that data is backed up by other studies (80% of assault victims in entertainment venues are men), and police crime data (70% of assaults against men and 42% against women occurred outside the home, 81% of women knew the offender, only 49% of men did) we can be pretty sure the information is reasonably accurate.

So, given than the risk to men out in public is so much higher than it is for women, where are all the warnings for men to take more care on the streets?

Who is telling them to be aware of their surroundings and not go out alone? Where is all the debate on social media and talkback radio about men putting themselves at risk by drinking too much in public or being out night by themselves? What about some strong public discussion about what male victims were wearing when they are assaulted?

Should they be more careful, carry their keys in their hands, text their friends when they get home, ask their wives and girlfriends to pick them up, or have someone walk them home?

Despite the fact that men are in more danger on our streets than women, I have never seen any discussions like this. And I’ve looked for them.

Such warnings are however, very common for women.

“This is a timely reminder for women to exercise a little bit of caution when they are out and about and be familiar with their surroundings,” Detective Senior Constable Jason Shey said, after a woman was sexually assaulted when she was lying on a blanket in a park reading a book.

“I suggest to people, particularly females, they shouldn’t be alone in parks. I’m sorry to say that is the case. We just need to be a little bit more careful, a little bit more security conscious,” said Detective-Inspector Mick Hughes, after Masa Vukotic was murdered in Melbourne.

Police are on the frontline of violence, they are usually the first ones on a scene and have to deal with the horrors of finding dead bodies and traumatised victims. It must be devastating, and it is entirely understandable that they would want to do anything in their power to reduce the number of violent crimes they have to deal with.

But why is it only female victims who provoke warnings like these? And why is it, when women push back on such warnings, that public debate centres on whether women should face the realities of violence and take care to avoid it, but no one ever talks about men in these terms?

The inescapable conclusion is that we do not think men can be in any way responsible for the violence enacted against them. We don’t need to have a discussion about victim blaming for men, because male victims are never blamed.

If men, who are at more risk than women, are still held blameless for violence done to them by strangers, then this should be equally true of women. But it isn’t, and the only reason is that we think women are always in some way to blame for the violence they experience at the hands of men.

Women have a responsibility to protect themselves from violence, so if they are victims, they have failed in this responsibility and therefore have to wear some of the blame. This perception never extends to men.

While we are still having a discussion about gendered violence, we need to talk about gendered expectations of victims.

No one, male or female, should ever be blamed for the violence done to them. No one can be responsible for the acts someone else commits, and the only cause of violence is the perpetrator’s choice to be violent.

Both men and women are entitled to that assumption, it’s a shame that still isn’t the case.

Jane Gilmore is a freelance writer from Melbourne. Follow her on Twitter @JaneTribune