It's took me a while to catch up with the thread,
It's not uncommon for a woman to feel fear walking in the dark alone. I wish I didn't, but I've had it for as long as I can remember. Even now, at 36 I try stay in the light, I have my keys positioned in my pocket to use as a weapon, I have my phone on silent in case I need to dial out and get help without an attacker hearing the beeps etc. I try to make sure I have flat shoes on in case I need to run. I've turned some nights out down, saying I'm busy, when the reality is I didn't want to walk home alone late at night after drinking. I sound pathetic I know, I wish I could be like my dh and just walk to the shop in the dark without feeling scared, but it's a difficult mindset for me to get out of, partly because it's ingrained in me, and partly because the message is still given out that dark alleys are unsafe for lone women, if something happens to woman walking down a dark path on her own, people will wonder why she walked down it.
Just recently a young woman was raped walking home from a night out near where I live, and while people sympathised with her, it was often followed "what was she thinking walking home alone?"
I've seen people say on here that telling women not drink too much, to not wear revealing clothes, to not walk down dark alleys alone, are steps that can make women safer and it's not a bad thing to want women to be safe, even though doing all those things makes no difference. If statistics show that women are harmed by men they know in their own homes, much much much more often than by strangers, wouldn't it make more sense to tell women they would be much safer if they didn't live with a man? I'm not saying that what I want to happen, I just wonder why the stranger in the bush is presented to us a bigger threat than the men we know, fathers, husbands, brothers, sons, male friends etc.
I've realised that for many women, here in the UK and around the world, that dark alley is a safer place than her own home. :(