The disappearance of Sarah Everard has shaken women to the core, myself included.
At a time when we’re trying to get through a pandemic, keeping our distance from each other and hardly going anywhere, the fact that a woman can still disappear brings home the fact that safety is simply a state of mind.
With the shock and sadness has also come a fresh wave of fear and reminders from people that we need to ‘be careful’ and avoid ‘risky’ behaviour.
Women who live near the area where Sarah was last seen told reporters that police said they should be extra vigilant – as if we’re not already vigilant enough.
While Scotland Yard said no official advice was being given to locals, choosing instead to remind people of ‘normal personal safety advice’, others have still taken it upon themselves to remind women of the myriad of things we should do if we want to stay safe.
If something as simple as walking home at 9.30pm – when the last known recording of Sarah was taken – is to be considered unsafe, why bother leaving the house at all?
For as far back as anyone can remember, we’ve been told things like ‘cover up’, ‘don’t go out alone’, ‘don’t get too drunk’ and much, much more.
We’ve screenshotted prospective Tinder dates and sent their details to our friends. We’ve phoned our partners on our way home, kept to well-lit streets, been escorted home by men we thought we could trust, watched our drinks, taken cabs, worn our hair down instead of as a ponytail because that way it’s ‘less easy to grab’, held our keys in our fists in lieu of claws and worn trainers instead of heels in case we have to run.
And yet, somehow bad things keep happening to us.
Women are the ones who have been told time and time again to modify their behaviour to avoid being victimised, despite the fact that we are not the ones doing the victimising.
While I was over the moon when my boyfriend got me self-defence classes for Christmas – to be taken when the pandemic allows – there’s a subtle and cruel difference between wanting to be able to handle yourself and feeling like you should be able to, just in case.
I know warnings don’t come from a place of ill will and I understand the logic behind telling us to be careful – there are always going to be criminals out there that will hurt whoever they please, but that is not nor has it ever been our fault.
We are not responsible for the actions of those who would and have hurt us, and yet men are afforded far more blame-free civil liberties than we are.
Indeed, the things that are often painted as ‘risky’ for female presenting people to do are painfully innocuous.
Why should we fear and be blamed for walking home, or going to a club, or having a drink, or going on a date, or to a party, or for a run, or doing any of the perfectly normal things men can do without a second thought for their safety?
That injustice aside, to assume that simply not doing so-called ‘risky’ things will protect us isn’t just naive, it shifts the onus of blame to the victim.
It perpetuates the idea that, by simply moving through the world, we are putting ourselves in danger and that, at the end of the day, it’s solely our responsibility to ensure our own safety.
But since when has that ever worked? If avoiding kidnap, rape and/or murder was as easy as being ‘vigilant’ then the world would be a much happier place.
Why is it we who are told to modify our behaviour when we’ve done nothing to warrant any of the harm that’s been done to us?
When was the last time a man was told to avoid certain activities even though, statistically speaking, men are more likely to be both the perpetrators and (except for things like domestic violence and sex-based attacks) the victims of violent crime?
According to The Femicide Census, a woman is killed by a man every three days on average in the UK.
A 2019 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime revealed only were 81% of homicide victims male in 2017, but ‘in 74 countries with available data between 2010 and 2017, women made up just 6% of all people convicted of homicide.’
Surely, if a whole gender has to be told to amend their behaviour, should it not be men? At the very least, it could make it easier to spot a creep on the prowl.
So men, instead of warning the women in your life about the dangers of basic human existence, why not take a second to consider your behaviour and the behaviour of the men close to you?
Have they ever done anything that could be construed as creepy or wrong? Have you?
Instead of policing us, try policing each other.
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Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk
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source https://metro.co.uk/2021/03/11/its-not-on-women-to-avoid-crime-its-on-men-to-stop-hurting-us-14219639/
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