I mean the honest reaction is if someone wants to stay home to not get murdered. Fine, I couldn't care less and it's stupid for me to have an opinion on that, you live your life.

But it's a sort of catch 22 that you'll only go outside if you can be sure the figures won't change significantly and the only way to see if the figures change is to try going outside.

Hard to say. I see women out walking alone at night all the time in my city, at least a handful just past my house every evening. (It's a university town.) I passed one woman happily chatting on her phone, and oblivious to the world, while riding home tonight after dark. The last time anyone was attacked by a stranger was, I dunno? It definitely happens, but it's years between instances. They'd probably be safer in the late night hours, with hardly any car traffic. A lot more people get killed by cars.

Well general body shape and height are pretty easy tells.

It is not an "excuse." If I'm attacked by a man at night, I will have a more difficult time protecting myself than if a man was attacked at night, on average. Not to mention that you have to ask yourself, what is the attacker after? Because being sexually assaulted or raped is so personal and awful that it's natural to have a higher amount of fear of that outcome.

Like how if you were equally likely of being jumped at night by a stranger as you were of being abducted and having spiky metal spears shoved in your urethra... you might recognize that's it's not super likely you'll get jumped, but you would be way less likely to risk it since the fact that sounding is just too awful to chance (for the vast majority of the population).

Also... my sample size is too small to be statistically relevant, but 100% of the men I know are sure they could "take" a random female attacker.

Unrelated; asking that question was difficult but not for the reason I expected. It was like a game! "Do I have super powers in this scenario?" "Is she armed? Am I armed?" "How much time do I have to prepare?" And my personal favorite, from a particularly well-traveled friend- "Is she like a random person, or one of my exes?"

Edit: The last guy has crunched the numbers and decided he could take all of his exes, unless they team up, which he thinks is unlikely, so I'm continuing to count that toward the 100%.

I can easily see if it's a women or a man just based on how they move from a distance.

I guess it depends on how dark it is. If it's pitch black, nobody can see, but usually you have some shape you can see.