Praying mantis.

This guy was on our wall a few days ago. It was a 10-12 cm long insect and was enjoying the autumn sun. I took some pictures (in this one it is staring at me) but he hung around for a while and terrorized my wife when she came home. She called me from her car so that I could chase it away... Why are people, usually women, scared of insects? I will never understand.