What ideas would help improve women and girls’ safety day to day?

[girlfriend44]

Ladies and girls safety ideas/ Chat.

Just a brainstorming chat.

What would ladies like to see set up or like to see that helps women and their safety.

The ladies taxi service is a good one. I don't see any lady taxi drivers though. I'm.not sure they want to do it in a big way?
Would any of you want to do it?
Think there are already female only gyms not sure? We've got ask Angela in some venues for help.

How about a messaging app where you can message or text another lady on your journey home to say your safe and your home, your in the taxi etc, just a reassuring thing.

I guess people can already do that and text friends and family. Would there be any need for a separate service?
Do all ladies tell all friends and family what they are doing all the time?

What would you like to see out there?
What do you think ladies would use?

I love to try and think stuff up or see what people would use.

There is so much around ladies and girls safety today?

Love the idea but again - i looked through the data and I can’t find a single example of a women being assaulted in their home by a male tradesperson.

It would definitely be good to have more women in trades but I say this purely on principle as a feminist i don’t think any job should be closed to women. And these are good jobs you can earn good money and work flexibly so would be so great for many women!

But given the thread is about how to make women safe, you’re barking up the wrong tree here.

Build more prisons. Even if the police catch and prosecute criminals they are let out within a few years. Criminals especially those with multiple convictions should have longer sentences.

The issue with anything women-only, whether it’s housing, trades or whatever, is whether it means actual women or includes blokes who identify as women. There are ads on social for organisations of women-only tradespeople but the last time I looked at the small print it said they were mixed sex.

The Supreme Court ruling should have stopped that but I don’t believe it has yet.

Hold back on pedestrianising places. The plan to pedestrianise Oxford Street is ludicrous - clearly thought up by men and ones with no eyes at that. It will be a homeless zone and a no-go area within months.

I would rather walk two miles farther down a main road than walk through a precinct or anywhere else with no passers by.

Single sex spaces
Proper ones
Stop gaslighting young women that it’s ok to let men into them

Rather than asking what we (women) can do to keep women (us) safe, men should leave us alone. Thats it. We’d be entirely safe then.
However, as always, the onus must be on women to supply the solution.

The onus must be on society. But as long as we have partners, fathers, sons and brothers they are sadly the ones we are most at risk of. So just cutting them out isn’t really an option

Just thinking. Men aren't totally safe either are they.
Perhaps Keeling safe is for everyone

True. Though the nature of the violence is different. Men are far more likely to be harmed by a stranger. So a lot of these suggestions (public lighting, easier walkways etc) would likely keep young men safer.

Which is fine by me as the mother of sons.

But this post was about keeping women safe. Which needs to start from recognition of who we are in danger from. And it’s (mostly) not strangers in alleys. It’s sadly our partners, brothers, fathers, friends.

Pedestrianisation can work in some places but agree it isn't always appropriate. For me its not so much about "pedestrianisation" but designing spaces with pedestrians in mind. There is a difference between a wide pavement with planters besides a single lane road. Than narrow barren pavement without space to push a buggy along. Especially accompanied by those super wide multi-lane roads without any easy way to cross. When it's just cars whizzing past there its far easier for someone wanting to attack, rob or hurt you than when other people are around.

I don't think the policy should be to get rid of all roads. But to plan for pedestrians first and cars for around that - so a short road tunnel for cars with the pedestrian way on top rather than the cars getting the top and pedestrians walking through the underpass.

I see your point about not encouraging homeless people. But conversely some of the measures to deter homeless people (removing benches etc) can end up making it harder for older people or mums with small children to navigate an area which in the long run leads to it feeling "abandoned" and empty and therefore less safe if you do walk through it as a line woman.

I do agree with a lot of your points here. Could pedestrianisation also have some limits? Limit a woman's ability to be picked up in a car (by persons known) in a safe place, for example? I walk home at night alone often (but I have a huge furry bodyguard!) and I feel a lot safer if i take a busier road where cars are going past. I am not a murderer but I imagine if I was one I'd be more inclined to do it in somewhere where there weren't potential witnesses?

Maybe women should be wearing meta glasses to protect against rape, violence and sexual assault - oh no, they are designed for men so any woman would look like a bad Austin Powers impersonator and stick out like a sore thumb.

No way. Couldn't be without the lovely Clive Myrie 😀

I have no interest in texting a strange woman. Why would I?

I'd like better street lights and mirrors in tunnels/underpasses.

A crackdown on men who intimidate and sexually harass women in the street.

Agree! It's sort of an odd paradox since if I'm worried about my safety I'm more likely to want to drive everywhere/be given lifts. But, apart from severely limiting women's freedom, if everyone is driving everywhere then it becomes less safe to walk because you are completely isolated (and as happened to a friend in America people assume you are a prostitute apparently). That's why IMO there still needs to be access for cars where it's useful or spaces to pick up but the focus should be on pedestrians with cars as the second priority.

For picking up, I would rather wait for someone on say a busy parking space outside the station or shops etc, or on the side of a road where there are also people walking etc. Than on tjw side of a highway where noone else is walking and I look really isolated or alone. I guess actually in that cars herding all the cars looking to collect people to one pick up point is safer even if it feels less convenient
Or- where cars are the focus like car parks and multi-storeys having adequate lighting and clear sightlines so I don't have to worry about being mugged going to the car. There's loads of work that's gone into urban architecture for this sort of thing but it's not always paid attention to when stuff actually gets built

Oh, to add I completely agree with busy roads feeling safer than quieter roads! But even there I think there are some roads that feel safer than others and I think it's due to how "usable" the pavement area is. Like even if it's not the time of day when other people are around some places fewl like you are meant to be there as a pedestrian and some don't IYSWIM. And when it's multiple lanes of traffic I wonder what someone going past could even do if they saw something bad happening that wouldn't cause a multi- car pile up or be too late. Like, there's something already isolating about cars and more so the faster they are going and the further away (multiple lanes).

"if everyone is driving everywhere then it becomes less safe to walk because you are completely isolated (and as happened to a friend in America people assume you are a prostitute apparently)."

Oh no. I've heard so many things about Americans' attitude to walking, but this one takes the biscuit!

Los Angeles. She wasn't even dressed provocatively. TBF nothing major happened but so so weird (and awkward).

Yes, but they don't walk...

This keeps being raised for a road near me, through a park. It's a main route for traffic, and it's the direct route into town for me. Some local groups (Green party probably) seem to think it will be safer and nicer with no cars. But the cars just stay on the 20mph road, so they are hardly a danger.

However, after dark the route can be pitch black and is not always busy with pedestrians. I feel fine walking through there on a dark evening with cars passing by (they also provide some light), but without the cars? No thanks. They don't seem to have considered this at all, they probably live elsewhere and just come to the park with their dogs on a nice sunny afternoon.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5570668-aibu-to-be-excessively-worried-about-dds-safety-as-she-leaves-for-university?page=4&reply=154358137

Manning our borders.

I think we should have a loophole in the law where women get to deliver justice to male perpetrators of VAWG.
Like a “make my day law” in America where they can get away with using lethal force against home invaders. Women should get to use that force against perpetrators. I’m sick of seeing male violence against women and girls and the current system is not up to protecting us. Fuck ‘em.

I’m sick of seeing male violence against women and girls and the current system is not up to protecting us. Fuck ‘em.

This article about France is pretty shocking. "Héloïse has had to invest in CCTV on the farmhouse after it was ransacked by migrants just weeks ago and “trashed” with disgusting used condoms left strewn on the floor.
On chilling footage caught by her cameras, hordes of migrants wearing life jackets can be seen streaming past her property to the beach just 500 yards away. But French police have told her unless they catch migrants in her property, or if they are aggressive or attack her, there is nothing they can do."

Basically they won't do anything unless/until she or her daughters are attacked. Not that I am in favour of lethal force for home invaders, but the police are not interested.

So you go out with friends and you don't all message each other to say you got home safe??