So...
We had to stay home, not see anyone, nor friends nor family, not have or experience the usual pleasures of life. Many women had to suffer the burden of working from home, educating children from home, plus the entire mental, practical and emotional load of normal family life in the confinement claustrophobia of four walls, oftentimes with a husband or partner that was at worst abusive or absent and at best, did not do their fair share of anything. As a result many of us lost jobs, got set back in our careers, or in my case, politely dropped off important calls without reasons apart from a few mentions of “children noise in the background,” making things difficult, leaving me now playing catch up with less qualified male colleagues who used to be peers but have now had one year of career opportunity more than me because their wives were taking care of their children while they were on the phone and are now on track for promotion. Many of us were also taking care of / worried about parents and the vulnerable family members but unable to see them. But still carrying the mental and emotional load of that.
So.. that aside, the only thing I could do every day to stop thinking about this and shut my brain down briefly was leave my house to go for a walk while taking zoom/teams calls. I hadn’t exercised for years, single mum with abusive ex who doesn’t see kids - we had 3 DC in 3 years, all under 6, plus I’ve been working full time to pay the bills, so not much time for personal fitness unless lugging shopping bags from the bus stop or getting back pain from breast feeding or carrying kids around. Walk was an opportunity for health, and I did something I had never done before - I started to jog. Little bits of walking, little bits of jogging, pushing the baby along in the buggy sometimes. And I thought to myself - even if I feel like I am fighting every day to pay the bills, survive, utter loneliness right now, at least I can walk / jog / run in the increasing spring sunshine as a habit and I can start thinking about my own health and maybe, just maybe, I will feel good about myself, to meet someone else in the future who can be a partner, even though I felt lockdown has aged me by 20 years when I look at my face in the mirror, and all the men my age are dating twenty year olds or are porn addicts with erectile dysfunction, maybe I can meet someone new and open myself up. And what’s more I will be fit from all this walking/jogging i am doing.
Then a woman, so similar to you or me, making decisions like you and me, walking home, gets abducted and murdered and suddenly I don’t want to go outside anymore. I was inside because I had to be. And then I discovered outside but I am afraid of outside, now. In fact I am afraid of every corner of my house, every window where a stranger might come in. I am remembering the past when I got stalked and wondering if that person might actually come back and murder me. And if not him, maybe just a complete stranger. I am worried about my parents with their failing health and vulnerability to attack and thinking and realising that actually there are some serious fucking monsters out there.
I don’t know how I managed to be in such denial or how I let myself believe it, but I think I have only just woken up to the fact that every time a man murders a woman it is sexually motivated. How have I not let myself believe that before? I always thought murder was murder, killing for the sake of killing. But just with time to stew and think I have realised how naive I have been.
AIBU to think women are in prison right now?