The Female Fear
Sunday, May 11, 2014
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Whether it was my recent feminist rants and tonight's discussion about misogyny or not, I was acutely aware on my walk back from the station of feeling like a potential victim purely by virtue of being female. I was acutely aware that the clacking of my heels were potentially an advertisement to a possible attacker.
I had a choice between phoning a taxi from the overcrowded last train home and advertising that I would be waiting at the station alone or walking. I chose to walk. Moving feels safer than standing still. I still didn't feel safe.
It's not the greatest walk home, it's about an hour, partly through industrial land and mostly through residential streets. It's not an area with high crime rates. It's not an area known for solicitation. It is the area where my best friend was raped twenty years ago.
Is it this fact, and this fact alone, that makes me on guard, that makes me listen for cars slowing, that makes me hear every squeak and scrape, or is it because as a female we are conditioned to be afraid? We are taught from the time we start venturing out alone to be afraid. We are taught that walking anywhere alone at night is a bad idea. We are taught that simply by trying to get home we are making ourselves a target for rapists, kidnappers and murderers.
I would consider myself a pretty strong woman, physically and mentally. I can do Thai kickboxing and I have mastered the "Say something at your f***ing peril, punk" look, but I still have that fear. When the car pulls up ahead of me or the group of young men approach from the opposite direction. That fear that something might happen and if it does it's probably my fault for not getting a cab.
I understand the need to teach our daughters to be wary, to be on guard, to look after themselves, but I don't have to like it. The ability to walk down the street unafraid should not be determined by gender.
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