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.

Surely men should be encouraged to stay at home during the evening rather than women. Safe streets!

We live near a Heath and the amount of women that walk their dogs alone .. and walk up a lane near us alone ... it makes me shudder ... I just can’t understand it ...

"So someone like me who lives alone and whose friends all live in different parts of the city must just stay home forever until I die - gee thanks - or do i hire a male companion every time I go out? Do you hear how offensive this is ????"
Im in the same situation.
Last time I went out with a male companion he threatened to rape me and said other disgusting things to me.
So that doesn't work either.
Maybe I'll have to wait until my son is man sized and he can chaperone me..

@twinkled Agreed!

The obvious answer is that ALL people should take steps to minimise risk to their personal safety while we as a society ALL TOGETHER decide how we can reduce/eliminate these risks in the first place and then do so.

some lady politician suggesting there should be a curfew on men not being out after six, whats all that about

@Twinkled

Surely men should be encouraged to stay at home during the evening rather than women. Safe streets!

But murderous people don't follow encouragement. They don't even follow law. Encouraging women to be more vigilant isn't meant to solve the root of the problem. It's firefighting. You can't say 'If someone says they're going to murder you, don't run away, because the right thing to do is for them to stop murdering people.'

It's not right that women have to be afraid in this way, but that's a societal message that needs dealing with in a long term way, and currently, women do have to be afraid in this way. There is potentially a person on the loose who kills, and who isn't going to listen to any message put out by the press and the politicians.

@earnshaw47

What pray tell is a "lady politician"? Is this like a "lady surgeon", "lady CEO" or some other female trying to do a "man's" job?

As for the "men's curfew", it's more of a counter argument/ thought experiment of, rather than women curtailing their behaviour, why not men simply change their behaviour instead?

I was a student in Leeds when the Ripper attacks were happening. All women had to change their behaviour, and at the time I thought that men should be made to stay in. Any man breaking curfew would have to be investigated. I've just said as much to my DP, and he was outraged, bless him.

Two women a week are killed by their partners in the UK. Should we stop living with men as well, to keep ourselves safe?

It's murderers who should be staying in at night. And every other hour out of 24, too.

@Doris86
"Curfew for men after 6pm? What a ridiculous suggestion. Impacting the civil liberties of the 99.999% of law abiding men. Meanwhile the 0.001% of men intent on attacking women wouldn’t let a curfew stop them."

Yet we're expected to do this.

Stay at home, don't go out alone is essentially a fear curfew on women. Turn it around to a male curfew " oh no, we couldn't possibly do that".

Hubby and I had a conversation about this last night he asked if I feel safe walking about..... I stated that if its night I will walk home alone but won't cut across a park and will stick to well lit areas. I live in a pretty safe small scottish town!
I did however grow up in London where my parents gave me a rape alarm when I was 12.
I have always been used to being aware of my surroundings at night if on my own its inbuilt nature. I think all the outrage in the world isn't going to stop attacks or women being aware of the environment they are walking in especially at night.

i said lady politician because i coudnt remember her name , is that ok ??????

I have to say I read about halfway down the thread and got bored of all of the ‘Tiny minority’ of men defenders.
It is predicted by Rapecrisis that 1 in 5 women in the U.K have been sexually assaulted, are you SERIOUSLY saying that the ‘tiny’ minority of men are going around raping 20% of women? What an absolute load of crap.
The percentage of men who attack, beat, coerce and sexually assault women is NOT tiny, not by a long shot, and it rules me up that people forget that and make excuses for them.
No, it’s not all men, but until it actually is a minuscule %, they’ll all be stuffed into the bracket of a threat to women in my eyes.

*Riles

Perhaps women should do a twisted version of work to rule and stay in to rule.
Like all the women who work in the NHS

All the women police officers
All the women who work in care homes. #nomorenightshifts.

@PinkPanther27

Stay at home, don't go out alone is essentially a fear curfew on women. Turn it around to a male curfew " oh no, we couldn't possibly do that".

Do you think that a man who intended to murder somebody would think twice because of a curfew? If so, could you explain why, because I can't understand why he'd follow that rule when he had the intention of breaking so many others.

And if not, what do you propose we do?

I grew up in a place where both men and women had to be careful about where we went after dark. Walking alone was a no-no and our parents never stopped at red lights if driving at night and the road was clear. In other words, our behaviour had to be altered in response to the circumstances we lived in. Did we complain that most of the crime was committed by men and that they should therefore be the ones to deal with it? Or that it was mostly committed by poor people and thus the poor people should be the ones to deal with it? No, because that wouldn't actually fix anything.

I get that people are frustrated and think "why should I have to live like this?" And I get that boys/men not speaking up about lower level sexism and sexist behaviour is a contributing factor, but it's just that. A CONTRIBUTING factor to an extremely complex problem that requires an enormous effort by EVERYONE to change. You can't fix social problems by dividing society. Feels like this is all a sad reflection of partisan politics and cultural tribalism in general tbh.

@SnackSizeRaisin

Place a curfew on men then. Job done.

That's disproportionate. You can't blame a whole group for the actions of one person. Most men do not murder strangers.

Plus it would probably have the reverse effect in that law abiding men would stay home, so there would be fewer people about generally to deter the small number of opportunist criminals.

This sort of crime is vanishingly rare and there's no need for anyone to change their behaviour, apart from in the immediate aftermath until they make sure they've got the person that did it. Which is exactly what they've advised

Totally agree!

@PowerslidePanda

The people who are getting het up about women being told what to do, etc... When you leave the house and there's nobody else home, do you lock your doors? Because by the same logic, you shouldn't even have to have a lock - why should you live in fear of being burgled, etc.

Advising people to minimise the risk to themselves is not the same as victim blaming.

This, exactly. It is common sense to minimise risk as much as possible.

@earnshaw47

I was surprised at your use of the term "lady politician". It sounds rather archaic (& sexist). And I was explaining the idea behind a "men's curfew". As others have done upthread

@Spidder

And it's not just at night though, is it? Dh will run in places I'm scared to go. Police still haven't caught the bloke who attacked a lone female runner back in the early autumn. She ran in the morning. On the main route. In twitchy every time I run there, but am comforted by the fact it's 30mph so I could run into the road and risk being clipped by a car if I needed to.

Dh has never had to think like this.

No, it's not just at night. My friend was grabbed at knifepoint at 7.00 pm on a summer evening, taken to her flat and raped repeatedly over the course of 7 hours. She was convinced her attacker was going to kill her, and only escaped because he fell asleep.

He had been acquitted on a charge of attempted rape just 7 weeks earlier. He got 7 years. She never recovered, became an alcoholic and died 10 years later.

I really can’t believe people are seriously suggesting a curfew for men!
An appalling, discriminatory idea. I despair of what our society is becoming with reactions like these.

@eckhart
No I don't but turning the focus onto men and talking about a curfew for men is already causing an outrage and having men protest about "it's my right to ....." .

So it's much more likely to make them realise that this is the shit we have to put up with. Once some of the men in power have been left to squirm for a few days about having a potential curfew put on them then they're more likely to realise that this is our reality and start to take VAWG more seriously. Only then will they be ready to have a grown up discussion about managing men's behaviour and their role in this.