How unsafe should you feel?
I recently moved to Melbourne from Sydney, a city where I knew a sum total of three people when I first arrived, two of whom promptly went overseas. As part of the whole rigmarole associated with starting somewhere new, I spent many a cold, wintry eve stumbling around the unfamiliar streets of Melbourne in the dark, straining to read house numbers from footpaths, while trying to keep an eye out for anything ‘suspicious’.
Naturally, I felt unsafe when I turned down poorly-lit streets, or more industrial looking areas, or had to walk through a park. I felt unsafe walking alone along the side of a busy road. Unsafe walking through the grounds of the University of Melbourne. Unsafe waiting alone at the tram stop with the pub on the corner.
I remember saying to myself, “If something happens to me, I’m stuffed. I have no one to call if something happens.” (That scary, scary ‘something’).
So it comes as no surprise to me that a new study reports that almost 50% of girls under 18 feel unsafe in UK cities. This is not just a UK thing, I’d wager. Cities are scary places for half the population, if you listen to what people say.
And it’s hard not to listen to your mother, father, brother, your friends, boyfriends, girlfriends, shopkeepers, media, and everyone else inbetween. At 29 years old, I’ve been told the world is a very scary place for me, and I need to be careful.
I need to be careful of ‘rough types’ getting off the train in Footscray (Melbourne) alone at night. Careful of the men spilling out from pubs as I walk home alone from the bus in suburban Seven Hills (Sydney). Careful of rickshaw wallahs walking to work in the early hours of the morning in Chittagong (Bangladesh). Careful of men on the metro in Barcelona. Careful of tradesmen while taking travel-snaps along the back streets of Cairo. Careful of the gypsy boys walking along Nevsky Prospect in St Petersburg. And not to be outdone, I need to be careful of my male friends in every city in the world once we’ve all started to loosen up a bit, have a drink, dance, because, ‘you know how men are’.
I have tried to recall when the world became one trap after another for me, but I can’t really find a time when the world was safe. From stranger danger and neighbourhood watch as a young school girl through to now, the unsafe narrative has always been there.
You know what? I’m sick of feeling unsafe. I’m absolutely sick of the common narrative around the world being that I need to be vigilant, to always be on the lookout, because violence against me, as a woman, is always lurking just around the corner.
What will it take, I wonder, to make the world safe for me?
(This could be a good place to start - Australian men, have you taken the oath?)
