Female safety should be a given, not a privilege.

 Last night I couldn't drift off to sleep. I found myself unable to settle after the horrific news that a missing woman, Sarah Everard, may have been found dead in woodland miles from where she was last spotted, innocently walking home in London. I spent the evening on social media whereby outrage was slowly bubbling and thousands of tweets were being furiously typed out and shared in reaction to the unfolding events. 

When I was younger and at University I remember being told in no uncertain terms that it was not safe for me to walk alone through the local parks at night. We were frightened into submission by lurid stories of women walking alone who had been harassed or dragged into the bushes and attacked. At the time, I resented what I viewed as the policing of my behaviour. Surely the problem wasn't me walking through a park at night, it was the individuals who lurked in the shadows, those predators we were warned about that needed to change their behaviour?  

In the naivety of my youth I didn't take it seriously and walked through those parks anyway. I spent late nights in the library working on essays and worked at a local shopping centre. In the winter, when I finished work at 7pm, it was pitch black. It would take me an extra 15mins to walk around the park but after a long day on my feet at work, most evenings I put my head down and walked through it to get home quicker. During these walks my senses would be alert to the smallest of sounds and on more than one occasion I changed my route or experienced a sense of panic as someone overtook or approached me. Would I have been blamed if something had happened to me? Looking back now I berate myself for making such a silly decision for the sake of fifteen minutes but then I realise how stupid that sounds. Why shouldn't I be able to walk through a park at 7pm in winter and feel safe? 

I am aware that being attacked and killed by a stranger is rare. I work in the criminal justice field and know its far more likely to be hurt by someone you know but,  even if it happens once, that's too many times. What isn't rare are the experiences which go unchallenged and normalise problematic behaviour towards women on a daily basis. It's from these incidents, bigger occurrences of violence can breed. 

I survived those late night scurries through the parks but there have been so many occasions whereby I've felt anxious, uneasy and intimidated as a woman out on her own. The sad thing is that it's not something I have just experienced at night either. I've been harassed and 'touched-up' on public transport and in bars. I have had drunken men on trains yell at me or sit next to me whilst every other seat remains empty. I've had strange men sit next to me in parks and start asking personal questions such as if I have a boyfriend. I've had men yell out car windows as I've walked past. The tragic thing is that every woman has her own similar set of anecdotes. One of the fundamental problems is that men don't realise how intimidating their behaviour can be. They may have completely innocent intentions and not even think about how they are sitting or walking so closely to you it makes the hair on the back of your neck stand up. 

I think most women have an innate fear of being attacked, how can we not when most days we are confronted with endless stories of violence perpetrated against women? From a young age we are told to modify our behaviour, the way we dress and the routes we take home. We are not told these things for no reason. Sadly, in extreme cases such as that of Sarah Everard, women lose their lives simply attempting to go about their daily business. 

The odds are stacked against us to begin with. Despite some exceptions, women are physically smaller and can be easily overpowered. Not only that, we've been conditioned to 'not make a fuss' or 'not make a scene' or else we brush it off as 'men being men' or 'just one of those things'. As a result, often these incidents remain unchallenged. How do you behave when a man starts to make you feel uncomfortable? It's another minefield. If I ask him to leave me alone, how will he react? Will he say sorry and leave or will he be 'offended' and the situation becomes worse? 

In work a few weeks ago we were chatting about the Netflix documentary 'The Night Stalker' about the case of Richard  Ramirez who terrorised Los Angeles in the 1980's. The women in my office made 'jokes' about how they couldn't watch it alone through fear that someone would break into their home at night. I told my colleagues that after watching it I decided to go for a run in the morning instead of going in the dark that night. Although I told myself it was highly unlikely anything would happen, the documentary had unsettled me. It had tapped into deeply engrained fears - ones that had been planted in childhood and remain today.

Interestingly the men in my office didn't have the same thoughts. One even asked me why I didn't just go out for my run as normal. It completely floored me to realise that men don't have the same thought processes and fears as women do. He revealed that he had never not gone on an evening run through fear of being alone in the dark and vulnerable to attack. Perhaps instead of protecting women we need to educate men. 

I unfortunately don't have the answers and I feel sick that its likely going to take many more women being hurt and intimidated before anything changes. Today I am going to spend the day reflecting on those that have been affected by violence against women. Those whose lives were cut short for no other reason than by the belief some men exercise - that their own gratification is more important than the lives of women and their loved ones. That women can be used and discarded. That women do not deserve the same level of respect. It pains me to be writing this in 2021. Something has to change.