"Normal" advice to not walk around at night in Bristol.

[Motherfunster]

As a Bristolan woman I was a bit put out by the police advice that there was no specif threat to women but to take the "normal" precautions of not walking around after dark on your own.I was taken aback at this as theirs nothing bloody normal about it.

I tried contacting the local reclaim the night people but to no avail.The local students need to be advised and the bloody clicky feminist of Bristol need to understand that this is issue that need to be addressed.

I cant do anything about it do to certain circumstances.A word in there shell fellow Feminist MNers please if posable.

If there was a reclaim the night march now, a lot of us would go on it.

It's not special advice because there's a murderer on the lose though - it's "normal" advice that women shouldn't be out on their own after dark!

Isn't the advice counter-productive even by that reasoning? There will be some people, men and women, who can't avoid being out for many reasons. Might it not be better to encourage people to be out and about but keeping an eye on the people around them than to encourage everyone with the privilege of not needing to go out to avoid it and make it more risky for those who have no alternatives?

I don't think it's very helpful to advise women not to go out alone (whether or not a murder has taken place). The reason for this is because the fewer women do go out, the less safe it becomes, as areas will become more and more deserted. For many women there is a choice, but also for many there isn't. For example, I don't drive, and I used to do a job which required me to work shifts. I would quite often finish at 9 in the evening, when at most times in the year it would be dark. I would have to walk home (about 20 mins walk) as there was no other way of getting there. What are women supposed to do in that sort of situation? It's very naive to assume that all women can drive to their destination or can find other people to accompany them.

But if someone did go outside and was attacked by that tiger, you can bet there would be many people saying 'they should have stayed indoors'

but a tiger is different it isn't going to look for an opportunity to attack without being observed is it? It's just going to leap out at someone regardless of audience?

Whereas by advising everyone to stay in you create nice empty streets for human predators who don't want to be seen getting up to no good?

Assuming he is still in Clifton of course.

Well it's fine if you have that choice, Riven. But for many women there is no choice, because they have to go out after dark to get to or from their places of work.

It's not ideal at all. Of course everyone should be free to go about their business whenever they want, it's just that i think safety outweighs everything else and if curtailing your lifestyle somewhat reduces the risk, then i'd do it like a shot.

Curtailing your lifestyle - it's not just about getting a taxi home from a night out drinking - it's about all the women who work shifts. Public transport in Bristol is notoriously rubbish and car parking is a nightmare, so those options are out for many women.

Obviously your primary responsibility is to yourself and your family. But I think it's terribly sad if this advice puts people without that choice at greater risk, not just from the murderer but from other people who might take advantage of deserted streets to get up to no good.

I'm sure there must be better ways of handling it (collectively not you as individuals)

Bristol feminists have fought this and won. BUT I have no issue with police warning.

If black men were being assaulted in Ashtongate I would expect the police to warn them specifically.

It is not putting blame on women, it is asking people that fit the profile of the victim to be more careful.

Noone knows that the murderer is a man.

But in the instance that this isn't going to change overnight and someone has killed a young woman in Clifton, possibly from her own home, the advice is sound. I tell my child to be careful online, not because it'#s his fault if he's groomed but he's more likely to be a victim than me.

It's likely that it's a man, but it could have been a couple of men, a man and a woman, a woman, two women or one man......noone knows.

When the police know more about the perp then they tell people to be wary of say A white man in a black BMW.

If this was a string of murders and we knew it was a man then I would expect a curfew to be introduced for men.

The upset at the original advice is that it said that women should not normally be out by themselves after dark, whether there's a murderer about or not: From the OP "police advice that there was no specif threat to women but to take the "normal" precautions of not walking around after dark on your own".

Like many other women, I walk around after dark by myself all the time. Not least when I come home from work at 6.30. Clearly I am not acting in an insanely negligent way by doing this, but that police statement said that I was.

That is obviously not right.

The revised advice is much better.

Perhaps I'm not the best one to talk, I come from a small town and have never walked alone on the dark.