day 17
I didn’t feel like being funny today. The conversation dominating Twitter and Instagram, all of the news about Sarah Everard’s murder makes it hard not to think of anything else. It has sent shock waves through all the women I know. Shock in that kind of awful way, a resigned shock, like you saw it coming. Things you were told to do by your mother when she packed you off and sent you to uni, or dropped you at your first house party. You share your location, hold your keys in your hand and walk swiftly and with purpose thinking it will somehow help. The strange thing is you do all of these arbitrary things in the hope that it will save you or protect you somehow. But the really scary thing, and what Sarah’s horrific murder has shown, is that it doesn’t. Because she did all the things you’re supposed to. It’s a painful reminder that living in a woman’s body carries with it a heavy realisation, that that in itself is a dangerous and potentially deadly fact.
In the same way when you were a little kid and slightly superstitious, you’d perform a series of rituals to “protect” your parents when they were going out for the night, and the babysitter was on duty. You wanted to make doubly sure that they got home safely. So, you would brush your teeth really well, switch your light on and off 10 times, get into bed rollover and then that would somehow be enough to ensure their safe passage. But doing these things, even if it is sharing your location or phoning a friend, virtually amounts to superstition and actually bears no relation on whether or not you can keep someone else or yourself safe. Because it’s not your behaviour that needs changing. This shifts the responsibility away from men and male behaviour. These little adjustments that women make daily: choosing a different route home, smiling at a drunk man on the tube instead of telling him to f*** off when he makes inappropriate comments, crossing the road, never having a first date at someone’s house, not playing music through your headphones – they give us the illusion of safety, of reassurance. We constantly restrict our freedoms to protect our safety. But when it comes down to it… if someone intends to do you harm, they will. And phoning a friend on your walk home, won’t necessarily change that….
The fear is passed down, from woman to woman, mother to daughter, friend to friend, we warn each other, share stories with each other that make us cry, or we repurpose them into alternative versions that make us laugh. A tight ten to button up the pain and the fear we feel. We become masters of the narrative in this new version, because in the moment itself at the bus stop, walking home, in the office kitchen, we felt so powerless. But you really have to wonder, is the conversation about protecting women, respecting women passed down from father to son? Brother to brother? Friend to friend? Is it true that every sexist remark made in the office, locker room or on the group chat, is being called out? Or would that be too serious, to piss off the boys, learn how to take a joke! I was only kidding…. These little things build to the big “scary” things. And no, it may not be all men but it’s got to be some of them.
Fear is a heady emotion, I wonder what it would take for sons to be spoken to with the same fervour that women are at the age of 12 or younger, which make us aware of our vulnerability, our potential to be a victim of violence just by walking out the door. I wonder how long it will be when mothers will no longer need to have this conversation with their daughters. How long will it take for these daily, hourly, exhausting adjustments to stop and for the other half of the equation to take up the mantle. I’m sad and I’m so sorry for Sarah and that’s all I can really say.