Who's getting nervous about brown people at train stations? This whole observation seems pretty weird.
A foreigner from a different continent finds it hard to talk to most Europeans (because they are all a singular block) about feminism? Don't be ridiculous. They likely just didn't want to talk to you about it, and it sounds as if you laboured on such points a few times.
And, depending on how well you knew the people you where talking to, they likely mistook your accent for American (I'm English and this happens even to me), which would certainly affect how people see your views on such topics and would impact their willingness to talk to you about it.
All in all, not many people want to talk to American sounding people they might not know very well about issues like their views on feminism or racial discrimination. I see this more as a "you" thing than a "Europe" thing.
When you have intelligent coworkers that say things like "Most black people in town are drug dealers, so if I see a black person I'm going to assume they're a drug dealer", or "Sexism wasn't a problem in Europe until North America invented it as an issue", and the other Europeans agree and the other North Americans don't, and when this type of thing happens over and over in many circumstances, I come to the conclusion that it's not me.
Before you wonder if it's just my coworkers and company.
* Person I'm buying a car from 2 hours from my city telling me "It's a good thing you're buying a car from me and not one of them black boys, they rip you off"
* Landlord I'm viewing an apartment for saying "I would prefer to rent to a white renter. We have a lot of indians that try to rent and they smell"
These kinds of things happened way more in 4 years in Europe than in 20 years in Canada.
A foreigner from a different continent finds it hard to talk to most Europeans (because they are all a singular block) about feminism? Don't be ridiculous. They likely just didn't want to talk to you about it, and it sounds as if you laboured on such points a few times.
And, depending on how well you knew the people you where talking to, they likely mistook your accent for American (I'm English and this happens even to me), which would certainly affect how people see your views on such topics and would impact their willingness to talk to you about it.
All in all, not many people want to talk to American sounding people they might not know very well about issues like their views on feminism or racial discrimination. I see this more as a "you" thing than a "Europe" thing.