It’s a fear that most women have felt before. Finishing an early evening walk before it gets too dark, and two burly men begin to walk faster behind you while swearing and engaging in aggressive conversation between themselves. You can’t help but feel paranoid that they are about to approach you or worse, and then later shudder that they now know where you live after racing inside the door. And this was just me strolling home on Monday night. The same day that silent protests had continued to erupt across to highlight the ongoing threat women face at the hands of violent acts towards them, and the constant fear they possess for a simple act such as a commute home from work.

Sarah Everard had done all the “right” things women are meant to do when walking home alone in the evening, which by societal standards can be seen as a “bold move”. On 3rd March at roughly 9.30pm, Sarah had ensured she made the commute home along a busy street, and the marketing executive had worn bright clothing despite it being a chilly London evening. Following growing concerns from her family and friends regarding her whereabouts, Sarah’s body was found in woodlands near Kent on 10th March, about 90km from where she was last sighted. In a strange twist, police officer Wayne Couzens has since been arrested and charged with her murder; a figure that is employed to protect. On Saturday evening during a public vigil for Sarah at Clapham Common in South London, relations with police were further tarnished as they arrested a number of women there seeking justice for Sarah. 

While the primary duty of Couzens was to patrol diplomatic premises which mainly included embassies, it has since come to light that he was reported for exposing himself at a fast-food restaurant three days prior to Everard’s disappearance. This has placed further heat on the investigation of the police department, following the incident at the vigil.

From considering taking up self-defence classes to assessing the best footwear for the evening in case they need to at some point run from a taxi, women all over the world have since shared their stories of how they best protect themselves from the underlying fears we have from stories like Sarah’s. The #textmewhenyougethome Instagram post by fitness influencer Lucy Mountain has almost broken the internet, and is a message almost every female is familiar with when heading home from an evening out. It has posed the comparison of just how many times a male has ever received this text message or how many times they’ve been taught how to approach women, while we are considering the most cost-effective defence class. 

Sadly, Sarah’s story is a harsh reminder that despite taking precautions such as walking along a busy road during the commute home, the safety measures we employ are not always going to provide us with the protection we intend it to. Upon reading the discussions submitted from readers on news outlets, it is alarming to read that one user has an app called ‘One Scream’ that alerts 3 of her contacts to her location when activated by her scream. Another has stopped wearing her hair long to prevent being grabbed, and another uses code words that vary in levels of safety updates to text her friends for when men are reading their phones. Most of these women have mentioned the need for greater education regarding consent and boundaries during schooling. 

In the pre-pandemic days of 2019, 46.6% of women reported feeling unsafe when walking home in Australia compared to just 18.1% of men. It is a harsh reminder that we still have a long way to go, with 30% of women also reporting that they would avoid public places in the evening due to safety fears. In Melbourne alone, we are all too familiar with the murders of Jill Meagher, Eurydice Dixon and Aiia Maasarwe which re-instilled the fears we face when considering the walk home, even just to save money. During the beginning of the pandemic, the ‘Signal for Help’ hand gesture was introduced to alert family or friends if you are at risk of domestic violence by the Women’s Funding Network. Similarly, hospitality venues introduced the ‘Ask for Angela’ initiative in 2016 where customers are able to “ask for Angela” to a member of staff that instructs the employees that they feel unsafe or are seeking help. 

Sadly, there are difficulties in shifting the mindset of an entire culture and we do need to continue to take care when travelling alone at night; it is not an issue that can be magically eradicated overnight. We will certainly continue to pause the music if we hear a strange noise, grip our keys tightly, pay for overpriced Ubers, sit in the back seat, endure a wave of anxiety as a group of males walks towards you, cross the road “just in case”, pretend we’re on the phone, walk confidently even though we’re fearful inside, hug our bags close to us, pull our skirt down another centimetre, and shudder if the taxi driver diverts away from the GPS map. Further to this, it has become a norm or unwritten rule that if your friend is going on a date, they’ll let you know the location or you are able to see where they are on “Find My Friends” or Snapchat. It’s just another safety precaution we have to take.

So from the simple post uploaded by an influencer, it has sparked a wave of responses from women and girls around the world that are all too familiar to receive that one text on their commute home. Lucy intended to amplify the safety precautions females take to protect those around them, after being horrified that such a crime was committed in her home town of London. She explained that “I’ve had conversations about how being hyper-conscious of our safety is just something we’ve done throughout our entire lives. The deep sense of connection is one of fear”. She further gave examples of the safety precautions taken when travelling home, from planning possible escape routes to sharing live locations with friends. Lucy went on to add, “what’s so insidious is that these things don’t even feel like ‘special safety tools’. They’re literally just engrained behaviours and actions we’ve had to pick up since we were little girls. Because ’that’s just the way it is’”. She basically said that it is just an auto-pilot procedure women carry out when the night ends, where women don’t blink twice when the text pops up on your iPhone screen.

So, where do we go from here? Undoubtedly Sarah’s death has sparked another global argument that women should  have the freedom to feel safe on the streets. Whilst it is easier said than done, the focus is certainly shifting towards greater education around consent and appropriateness.  For now, the conversations need to be had and we will continue to stick to our safety procedures.