Women’s Safety at Night

The adjustments that women must make daily to stay safe are exhausting. Staying with a group, walking the long way round simply because the roads are busier and well-lit, sharing live location with a friend and holding a key between their knuckles should the worst happen.

This happens every day, even at the height of summer. Women’s daily experiences breed this immense fear of being alone at night. But when the long days and lighter evenings recede, women find themselves with an ever-heightened anxiety about how safe they really are.

As autumn draws to a close and we head into winter, many women avoid being out and about in the evenings, especially on their own. It rips apart our life schedules and mean we must make plans while being mindful of this ominous threat to our safety. Having to gamble our lives just to do something as simple as walk home, is not acceptable.

The Facts

Research released by the Office for National statistics in August 2021 revealed that one in two women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a quiet street near to their home. In comparison, only one in seven men felt the same way. It also exposed that two out of three young women (16-34) experienced harassment in the past twelve months.

In the past 12 months we have seen the tragic murders of Sabina Nessa and Sarah Everard, which only heighten the fears held by women across the world. These cases have proved that women’s worries are justified; we aren’t safe on our streets. These cases are certainly not the first, and will unfortunately not be the last. The outrage at these tragic deaths heightened the momentum behind the narrative of women’s safety, and perhaps it shows signs that things are finally, slowly, changing for the better.

The UK government have recently announced £23.5 million to go towards making our streets safer, including safety for women. The extra bus and rail services that were removed during lockdown have slowly started to return up and down the country. But more could be done. These measures, while helpful, again put the onus on women to protect themselves. When will we be holding men accountable for their actions in making women feel unsafe?

Winter feels increasingly long, the nights increasingly short. Women, until we are protected, must look after one another. Raise your voice, speak out, get involved. The solution to keep women safe at night cannot simply be to stay inside until the sun eventually comes out.

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Featured image courtesy of Nenad Stojkovic via Flickr. Image license found here. No changes were made to the image.