What's Happening to the world? (Women's Safety)

18.3.2021

Women’s safety has completely blown up since the disappearance of Sarah Everard. She took all precautions women are taught to do such as walk in well-lit areas, be on the phone to someone, dress brightly... etc. She went missing at 9:30pm which isn’t even that late at night.

A middle-aged male MET police officer has been arrested.

This has caused complete up raw which it rightly should. But why her?

People go missing or have shit happen to them every day. Why has this case blown up?

Some say, perhaps because she was a middle class, white, blonde woman which meant she had more privilege and the same response wouldn’t of happened if it were a black female.

Either way, truly awful!

In effect this has created awareness of women’s safety, prompting many social media posts listed with safety measure’s women are taught to follow and challenging this as to why men aren’t taught not to attack women. Every woman knows how it feels to walk alone and the rapid beating of their heart suddenly stop once walked through the door with it locked behind them. Why is this the case? During the search of Sarah Everard, women in the area were told not to leave their homes alone. This caused further confusion as to why women are being told to carry on taking the precautions that are drilled into us instead of men being told to stop, and for men to be educated.

This led to more circulation on social media of statistic’s being shared about women’s sexual harassment. 97% of women are sexually harassed. This is a shocking amount but only shocking to see that It is true. We all know this shit has been happening for a long time now and seems to be getting worse. But is it? Or are people more aware of things these days and women now are feeling free to talk about their experience’s.

Do people realise harassment is different to assault? If these topics aren’t discussed how are we expecting people to understand. After having a conversation with my partner, it became evident that he too didn’t know the difference, out of no fault of his own, it’s just not a conversation that often occurs. Which is why it is important to talk about these things with the people around you. I explained that assault is physical, and harassment is also verbal. Such as cat calling or shouting out a car window at a woman. We continued to discuss the topic leading on to a list of sexual harassment that I have recently experienced that may be easily unrecognised.

Sat in my car outside a shop, 2 men walked past me, peered into to my window and verbalised “cooorr, I would” as they walked off. Luckily I had the safety of my car to reduce my vulnerability but this is a minor example of what women experience.

It felt so good to be having this conversation and to pass on a very small amount of education about such an important topic. We further discussed the statistics of sexual harassment to which I said I wasn’t surprised were so high as many men probably don’t even realise what they are doing is classed as harassment.

Flipping the conversation, we spoke about male sexual harassment and safety. I asked my partner “do you ever feel scared walking alone in the dark” to which he answered with “yes sometimes” we then spoke about how the fear isn’t sexually related and is just general safety.

It's important to talk to the people around you about these types of topics to educate one another and also see the perspective from someone you love and care about. Women will always have a fear walking alone as opposed to “sometimes”. Women will fear for their general safety as well as being sexually harassed or assaulted.

Yes this means we are more vulnerable.

But what we need to questions is does this mean we are vulnerable to all men?

Think of the men in your life.

Would you feel happy for them to be put into a monstrous category because of their sex?

I know I wouldn’t. I have some amazing, caring and loving men in my life.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t had my encounter of the opposite.

Are we trying to marginalise men or are we trying to focus on safety?

Don’t get me wrong I know that women still very much have a disadvantage and men very much still run the world, but we are working to that ayyy!!

My question is, yes, I know that the numbers show that women are definitely more vulnerable and a big part of that is due to men, but are we really going to hate all men because of that? Or should we be having these conversations, letting the men in your life that care about you know how you feel and educate them. Therefore, they may have the same conversations with the males they know and continue to educate and address them if the wrong behaviour is being shown?

Women will continue to fight for their place in this world and for EQUALITY because that’s what we should be fighting for. The safety of everyone. Being female seems to a big reason to be discriminated but it’s not the only reason. Intersectionality is discriminated no matter what gender. We should be fighting for safety no matter what race, gender or sexuality and these elements should NOT make an individual more susceptible to violence and abuse but sadly we still seem to live in a world where it does. Equal safety is what I want to fight for!

K.L

P.S here are some sketches i created in response.