Police advising women not to walk alone at night

[Bubbinsmakesthree]

I’ve seen a lot of friends outraged at the Met police locally advising women not to walk alone at night in the days following the disappearance of Sarah Everard. I’ve seen a posts along the lines of ‘how about telling men not to attack women instead?’

I absolutely agree with the wider point that we should be asking the question “how do we make it safe for women?” not “how do women stay out of danger?”

But in this case, was the police’s advice not just the equivalent of advising people to stay out of the water following a shark attack?

I’m so upset and angry about Sarah Everard but I cannot get incensed about the police advising women to take precautions when an unknown attacker may have still been in the area.

The police have said they're investigating the possibility that the suspect used covid law to detain Sarah.

Now this is scary.

@LemonadeBudget

As for "tell men not to attack women" that is right up there with "tell drug addicts not to break into cars" or "tell people with money problems not to embezzle" as ways to bring down crime. There is little one can say to anyone who thinks this is a reasonable suggestion.

I get your point re saying it now.

For me though, the point is that we need start saying this to the little boys of today. We think were doing that, but we aren't.

Society still teaches children that boys are able, girls are not.

Girls need to be worthy- pretty, kind, amenable. Girls are wallpaper, they are there to cheer up the view.
What girls choose to wear makes a statement; what they choose to wear can have an impact on what happens to them. The choices they make, will impact on what they might be subjected to.

The problem is, when we give little girls those^^ messages, we give it to little boys too.

I think there are some ways where our society does not give out good messages with regards to sex.

But overall we do give out some pretty significant messages about sexual assault being bad, and particularly the kind of sexual assault where a stranger attacks you in the street - there is not much ambiguity about that, it would be difficult for anyone to tell themselves that our society is ok with that. If they do it anyway they don't care, perhaps they are psychopaths which seems to be a fixed proportion of the population no matter what we do - or they don't self-regulate, which is a complicated problem on a society wide level. But it's not that they think society is ok with it which is why they don't do it in the middle of a crowded street.

I have wondered more than once what people think the "natural" level of this sort of crime, or sexual crime more generally, would be in a society that really didn't care about it. I think it would be a lot higher and more blatant that what we see. I think our social norms already make a significant difference to the amount of this kind of crime that happens.

I think there are some things that might lower it. There are some crime prevention things that might be the most direct approach, especially for stranger assaults - things like stopping crimes like this before they escalate, which means tracking incidents and so on.

Socially I think the things that might make a difference are not so much about teaching people "ideas" like respect which we already do. (Though arguably we live in a society that values people as commodities generally so of course that will spill into how people value sex. But that isn't a small problem to tackle.) But things that are not what we teach - do we think sex (the activity) is a big deal, or something pretty unimportant that is a nice casual recreation? If we think it's the latter, will that affect how people think about unwanted sexual contact? Probably, because these ideas are connected. But then, do we want people to see recreational sex as questionable?

Similarly, many behavioural changes could bring down sexual assault. The curfew one above, maybe, but actually the biggest, involved in a huge number of assaults including ones where the perpetrator is known to the victim, and domestic violence as well, includes alcohol. There is a huge weight of evidence that a less accepting attitude to over-drinking would result is a real lessening of many types of crime. It would be very good for women in that respect.

On the other hand, do we really want to tell people, or have less social acceptance, of drinking/partying? Some people think the freedom to do those things was what feminism was about, or partly about.

My point being here - there is no point where it is likely we will eradicate sexual crime, any more than the other basic crimes. Certain social conditions can make a difference, but many people consider them restrictive. Discussions about how to do it tend to be very speculative - things like tell men not to assault - and not really very willing to dig into concrete possibilities, which is kind of useless.

How amazing would a curfew be. Just imagine being able to walk down the street and not look over your shoulder at all. Unfortunately it would have the opposite effect as most crimes are commit at home so those poor women stuck with the guys home on curfew would suffer. But I think not sharing your home with a man in the first place is a good place to start.

Women who feel unsafe walking alone are in most cases overthinking the risk. They are hundreds of times more likely to get run over by a car driver mounting the pavement than get murdered by a stranger. But somehow that thought isn't nearly as scary!

But do you not think, this isn't just about murder? Women who feel unsafe walking alone are probably more worried about unwarranted cat calling, sexual harassment or rape.

I haven't read all the responses

I go out alone at night. Sometimes I have to return home late at night after work.

Many years ago I was hit over the head and mugged in the street. I was on my phone. I was aware of someone walking close behind me but not passing. I ignored my instincts, and in a split second I was attacked

In a perfect world we should all be able to walk freely at any time, anywhere. We don't live in a perfect world, and we never will.

I still walk freely. I don't wear earphones if walking in the dark. I don't talk on my phone. I trust my instincts. If someone gets too close I cross the road. I live in London. Not far from Clapham Common.

I was listening to James O'Brien today. He said that the writer Caitlin Moran says that she's effectively under a curfew as it's too dangerous to go out as a woman after dark. I refuse to subscribe to this. There are many good men. I won't be frightened into staying at home, but I try to be as careful as possible.

My thoughts are with Sarah Everard's friends and family.

If nearly a third of women experience domestic violence then violent men are not a tiny minority.

We also know from previous abductions that such men usually have a history of violence against women, so the abductions were preventable had police treated earlier incidents seriously.

It's not just murder that makes us scared though, is it? I don't think I'll be murdered when I'm out alone. But I'm a lot more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted. I'm also more likely to be stared at or have things shouted at me than dh is. It's not murder, but it's another way of putting women in their place.

The murderer will still go out but he won’t be hidden among the other men. If all good men stay in then all men out and about are suspect and the police can deal with them. Women will be the majority out and about.

@Mmn654123 seriously? All men have to stay in every night for the rest of their lives so that any man out and about will be more obvious?

Apart from the fact that that is ridiculously unfair, more women will die because the vast majority of murders of women are by ther partners. And being cooped up every night with angry men will have obvious results.

Oh, and of course it will be more work for women, because if men can't go out, women will have to do every errand that needs doing after dark.

I was watching the crime channel recently. And I saw a case, that I’d almost forgotten about. Does anyone remember the railway attacks of women in the 80s? Two men attacked and killed three woman and assaulted many more. All around railway stations, around the Home Counties.
One of the victims worked for LWT at the time. A really chilling crime spree. Thankfully both men are in prison for life.

@SchadenfreudePersonified

You are taking me out of context, messiah, twisting my and cherryvalanc's words, and trying to throw a dead cat on the table, and you know it.

I'm not taking anything out of context, just replying to that specific post.

I have however gone back and read at least one of your posts and really?:

"Someone pointed out that men kill more other men than they kill women (as if that makes male violence alright)"

How can anyone read this and think that the other person is saying that male violence is 'alright'? .

@Advic3Pl3as3

There are very few psychopaths in the world. The vast majority of male murderers or abusers are not psychopaths.

Psychopaths seem to be about 1% of the population. So, not that common.

Stranger attacks also aren't all that common, however, and people who carry them out often do it more than once if they aren't caught. That doesn't mean it accounts for all such attacks but it may be more than you think.

Most sexual assaults and rapes happen in different kinds of settings, involving different problems, and different solutions.

I agree OP. I can't believe the people who seem to think that if men are told not to attack women then they will stop doing so!! Honestly, we all know men should not attack women and that women should not have to take steps to keep themselves safe - but anyone who believes that is ever going to change is living in cloud cuckoo land. Getting incensed about the police advice achieves absolutely nothing.

The overall tone I'm getting from this thread is well men are men, some are bad, what can you do?

(Plenty as evidenced by the varying stats around the world).

It's totally unfair that their lives should be restricted when there's a bad one in the area.

Women on the other hand should all take sensible precautions (which vary wildly depending on various factors) and in any case are so onerous that no one follows them all at once all the time so if something happens she will likely have done something 'wrong' and then everyone can say oh well then...

But on the other hand even though these messages come at us all the time it's an over reaction as bad things are rare so just live your life!

So. Women should take care but also not. Most men are fine so it's not fair to be wary but also men can be dangerous so watch your drink etc.

There's nothing anyone can do about male violence (except there is) so there's no point in even worrying about it or trying to do anything about it. Just ignore it. While also taking care. It's a fact of life.

@Closetbeanmuncher
It’s not toxic masculinity. It’s violence. And humans have been at it for 100,000s of years. Today the US spends $1 trillion dollars a year on its military. Few bat an eyelid. We are a violent species and everyone alive today almost certainly had hundreds of ancestors who could dish it out with the best of them. Our ancestors excelled at it and if we want our descendants to thrive way into the future at some point they’ll probably have to thrive at it too.

@SnackSizeRaisin
'women who feel unsafe walking home alone are in most cases overthinking the risk'
= perhaps because they have had experience of catcalls, whistles, gropes, sexual remarks, groping, assault in the past? Or have a Mother, Aunt, cousin, sister, daughter or friend who has? Or, if they don't have direct experience, they watch the news and see crimes against other women being reported. It is about being Aware of risk.

Re: 'Jack the Ripper' and the Yorkshire Rippers crimes - the death of a sex worker is as tragic as the death of a nun. But I remember the way the latters victims were 'divided' up and it was portrayed that some of the women's deaths were more 'worthy' than others. All part of women being judged as responsible for their abuse. What did she wear, how did she behave, was she 'asking for it'.
I spent some time in the late 1990's working with teenage survivors of abuse in Scotland. They usually regretted going to the law because of how they were treated and judged. I then spent some time working with an organisation who supported street sex workers in Edinburgh. by that time I was not remotely naive but the attitude of the Police to any violence they received, in any part of their lives, was eye opening.

A very sensible post @TonyGates

Most sex offenders escalate. They don't start with murder.

The escalation pathway is pretty well studied.

If the authorities took more interest in less serious sex offences, then some of these men would be off the streets before they got to the really serious stuff.

Cam77 are you really doing the 'it's not a man problem it's a people problem' in response to this woman's murder?

This thread is very strange.

"The police have said they're investigating the possibility that the suspect used covid law to detain Sarah"

There are a few of us who tried ^extremely" hard to tell certain posters on the Coronavirus board that these "laws" would be used to bully/and against women but it fell on deaf ears and they continued to clamour for more and more restrictions.

Hi @AnyFucker Its HD i NCed last autumn.

Sorry that should have been extremely

**But I think not sharing your home with a man in the first place is a good place to start.

Well what about the millions of women who are in happy relationships with men? Most men are not psychopaths or murderers. Seems a strange thing to say...

@covetingthepreciousthings

Women who feel unsafe walking alone are in most cases overthinking the risk. They are hundreds of times more likely to get run over by a car driver mounting the pavement than get murdered by a stranger. But somehow that thought isn't nearly as scary!

But do you not think, this isn't just about murder? Women who feel unsafe walking alone are probably more worried about unwarranted cat calling, sexual harassment or rape.

Rape or murder, I don't know if many people go so far to and avoid catcalls. But maybe they do.

But I think maybe the point was about how people evaluate risk more general. Studies on risk evaluation suggest people aren't very accurate about it in general, and will often avoid things that are quite low risk i they seem scary or are played up in the media.

@Firstbellini
If nearly a third of women experience domestic violence then violent men are not a tiny minority

The same could be said for violent women.

“Over the next few years a number of two-sex studies on domestic violence were carried out in Ireland. The most important of these was the Report of the National Study of Domestic Abuse of Women and Men in Ireland, carried out for the National Crime Council (NCC). This was the first ever large-scale study undertaken to give an overview of the nature, extent and impact of domestic abuse against women and men in intimate partner relationships in Ireland. The notable findings of that study as regards gender prevalence are: 29 per cent of women and 26 per cent of men suffer domestic abuse; 15 per cent of women and 6 per cent of men suffer severe domestic abuse; 13 per cent of women and 13 per cent of men suffer physical abuse; 29 per cent of women and only 5 per cent of men report to the Garda. The Government regards the NCC study as the definitive piece of research on domestic violence in this country.“

“An Accord survey of 1,500 clients found that women were perpetrators in 30 per cent of domestic violence cases, men were perpetrators in 23 per cent of cases and mutual violence accounted for 48 per cent.
A study of patients attending GPs, carried out by Trinity College Dublin (2006), found that 52 per cent of men and 43 per cent of women experienced domestic violence. The author of the study, Dr Susan Smith, said it was "inappropriate to continue to address this issue as solely a woman's problem".
Despite all the evidence, there are those who still deny the truth. They quote studies, mostly quite old, which, they claim, show that men are predominately the perpetrators of domestic violence. Those studies are not independent, neutral, balanced two-sex studies. They were predicated on the assumption that men are the aggressors and women the victims; were based on interviews with women only; did not make any attempt to establish the views or experiences of men, or were carried out by or for people or organisations with a feminist ethos, and a vested or ideological interest in promoting a distorted view of men as inherently violent and responsible for all domestic disharmony. Hardly surprising, therefore, that such studies wrongly portray men as the aggressors in the vast majority of cases”

“The most significant statistics from the NCC study is that one in three women report while only one in 20 men do so.”

www.irishtimes.com/opinion/are-men-victims-of-domestic-violence-to-the-same-extent-as-women-1.992351

Also see:
www.theguardian.com/society/2010/sep/05/men-victims-domestic-violence

@NiceGerbil

The overall tone I'm getting from this thread is well men are men, some are bad, what can you do?

(Plenty as evidenced by the varying stats around the world).

It's totally unfair that their lives should be restricted when there's a bad one in the area.

Women on the other hand should all take sensible precautions (which vary wildly depending on various factors) and in any case are so onerous that no one follows them all at once all the time so if something happens she will likely have done something 'wrong' and then everyone can say oh well then...

But on the other hand even though these messages come at us all the time it's an over reaction as bad things are rare so just live your life!

So. Women should take care but also not. Most men are fine so it's not fair to be wary but also men can be dangerous so watch your drink etc.

There's nothing anyone can do about male violence (except there is) so there's no point in even worrying about it or trying to do anything about it. Just ignore it. While also taking care. It's a fact of life.

Actually I think people are suggesting women can take precautions if they want, and many choose to, and would like information to help them do so effectively when it's available.

Some would argue that's a good idea, but I haven't seen anyone argue it should be a requirement.

The ones who do want to do that possibly resent being told they should not be given that information for someone elses ideological comfort.

I also don't think anyone believes there is nothing to be done, but that nothing will solve the problem, and that often the suggestions of those who don't know the difference are pretty useless.