Opinion – we need a fundamental culture shift for womxn’s safety

The welling anger and frustration voiced online this week – a reflection on the persistent harassment and assault of womxn – proves more needs to be done to protect womxn everywhere.

A week that began with the celebration of our resilient female population has ended on a sincerely heart-breaking note.

Rather than embracing the global recognition of our hard-earned social, economic, cultural, and political achievements as we rightly should, we have found ourselves in a moment of sheer grief, sparked by the disappearance of Sarah Everard, who vanished last Wednesday while walking home, her absence felt by us all.

Provoking a potent reaction, for many of us the case has tapped into far broader concerns regarding the abuse and violence we face on a daily basis.

The gravity of this apparent in a recent survey from UN Women UK which found that 97% of womxn in the country aged 18 to 24 have been sexually harassed and that most have little-to-no faith it’ll be dealt with by authorities if reported.

‘This is a human rights crisis,’ says Claire Barnett, executive director of the non-profit. ‘It’s just not enough to keep saying ‘this is too difficult a problem for us to solve’ – it needs addressing now.’

Another study, this time by WHO, uncovered that one in three womxn worldwide – that’s around 736 million of us – have been subjected to some kind of physical or sexual violence in their lifetimes.

More than 40 years since the first Reclaim the Night march, and nothing has changed – we are still part of a society where it’s normal for us to live in fear and we are exhausted.

https://twitter.com/sarahebroadfoot/status/1369970879707373570

During the last few days, the outpouring of anger, frustration, and empathy across social media has felt like another #MeToo.

Womxn have tweeted about feeling unsafe in public spaces, timelines have overflowed with painful recollections of threatening encounters, and, above all else, we have discussed the compromises and calculations – methods that are, unfortunately, of second nature to us – we are forced to take every single time we leave the house.

Keys clutched between fingers, roads crossed, locations shared, poorly lit streets avoided, fake phone calls made; the list goes on. We do these things not because it will stop something from happening, but because it will make an attack easier to pinpoint when it does.

‘We aren’t born doing this stuff,’ explains one of the thousands of now-viral tweets on the matter, ‘we learn over years of watching women’s trauma play out.’

The truth 💔#shewaswalkinghome #SarahEverard pic.twitter.com/4EKCKFlEss

— Diane Forsythe (@DianeForsytheNI) March 11, 2021

Perpetuated by the long-running culture of victim-blaming, the only way to change this narrative is for people to look inwardly at societal shifts because without safety, there can be no equality.

And, true, incidents like Sarah’s are ‘rare,’ but that’s not the point. It’s that this fear so deeply ingrained within us – regardless of whatever progress we’ve made – continues to persist when we deserve so much more. This is what underpins the current urge to testify, the compulsion to share.

The general consensus expressed by womxn everywhere right now is one of disappointment alongside a tenacious uncertain energy.

Why must we educate ourselves on how not to be a target? Why are we repeatedly told to be vigilant, reminded to modify our behaviour in order to circumvent worst-case scenarios? Why are we still expected to ignore this harsh reality in order to live normally?