I think lately it's been carried too far and become an unhealthy level of fear. Caution and awareness of your surroundings are good, but if a woman has reached the point where she suspects everyone, all the time, it's gone from healthy caution to unhealthy paranoia, and I feel like paranoia is being pushed a lot more since the Watson story.
I remember growing up in the 70's, when "Stranger Danger!" was the New Big Thing. We were all carefully schooled by our parents to fear The Stranger who would Pull Us Into His Car, Take Us Away and do Bad Things. It's been debunked recently as not only unhelpful but harmful, since the majority of "danger" comes from people close to the child, and in teaching them never to talk to strangers (i.e. almost anyone) they cut the child off from potential sources of help. That's what this feels like to me- Stranger Danger redux. The greatest rape threat comes from people a woman knows and who has already earned her trust, yet we're once again being taught to fear the stranger on the street to the point of avoiding all contact. This doesn't seem healthy to me.
YMMV
= new reply since forum marked as read