She Was Just Walking Home

This is not a women's problem to fix.

Sarah Everard went missing on the 3rd March in South London, walking from a friend’s house in Clapham to her home in Brixton. She was kidnapped, and murdered, and her body was found this week.

Later on, #notallmen was then trending higher than #SarahEverard

Yes, you read that correctly. A woman was murdered by a male police officer whilst walking home and men decided to make it about themselves and decided to say 'well actually, not all of us are bad. He was just one of the bad ones. It happens'.

Sarah Everard was doing all the 'right' things. She wore bright clothing, checked in with her partner, and walked through brightly lit streets. The truth is, any one of us women could have been Sarah.

This is not a women's problem to fix.

Men have sexually harassed 97 % of women in the UK . Yes, I changed the wording of the title of that article because I'm tired of women being portrayed as the victim in the media, whilst men's behaviour is implied as passive and uncontrollable.

I am sad and shaken that a woman had to die for this to unfold in such a wave, but this is nothing new. The first Reclaim the Night took place in Leeds in 1977 as part of the Women's Liberation movement. This was in response to the "Yorkshire Ripper" murders where the police responded by asking women to stay out of public spaces rather than placing a curfew on men, who perpetuated the problem.

This is not a women's problem to fix.

Women are doing everything they can to not get raped. We:

• Don't get too drunk
• Change our walking/jogging/cycling routes
• Keep our keys between our fingers
• Wear flats so we can run away
• Carry pepper spray or a rape alarm
• Take our headphones out/play on low volume to hear if someone comes behind us
• Tell our friends "Text me what you get home"
• Tuck our pony-tails in so they can't be grabbed
• Do anything we need to outdoors before it gets dark.
• Re-think our dress because it may be seen as 'slutty' or 'asking for it'
• Spend more money on taxis because we can't walk our own streets safely

and many, many other exhausting other things that men take for granted. Do we want to do any of this? Hell no. Do we have to? Unfortunately, yes.

This is not a women's problem to fix.

On social media in the past week, I have only seen about 2-3 men I follow share anything about the current events of women's rights and safety. On International Men's Day, all my female friends, including myself always share posts about the importance of men's mental health and bring awareness to problems that affect men more. Why is this not reciprocated? Why does advocating for equality make you a man-hater? You're bloody lucky women want equality and not revenge.

We still have this notion that gender equality is a 'women's issue', but it is the men that have treated women has less-than since the dawn of time that has made it an issue in the first place. Why are we cleaning up your mess?

Women are not the one's on the group chat with the men saying misogynistic things. It's not about having a hero complex of 'I'll beat up a rapist'. No. We don't want that. The damage is done and your efforts will be futile. We need both men and women to fight against any sort of sexual assault, however feeble, taking place well before it even happens. This starts with both men and women calling out sexist remarks or behaviour. Those sexist remarks may not seem harmful at first, but amplify this to becoming 'the norm' means that women are raped and do not even feel it's worth reporting.

This is not a woman's problem to fix.

What can you do as a man to help with women's rights? If you claim you are "one of the good guys" then nice try, but you're not getting a medal for doing the bare minimum. Call out your male friends if they treat women like shit. Think about the types of 'jokes' you are making. If you need to be sexist to be funny, then you're really just not funny.

Keeping your distance or crossing the road when you find yourself behind a woman when walking in the dark can make her feel much safer as you are often seen as threatening even if you don't mean to. If you see a woman harassed or about to be, pretend to be her friend and help out. Don't just be a passer-by and say 'this stuff happens' because it bloody well shouldn't.

Are you listening, I mean really listening to the women in your life. When a woman tells you about an experience with sexual harassment, don't belittle her experience with 'some men are like that' or 'why were you with him?'. It is ingrained in us to victim blame but we need to hold the perpetrator accountable at all times.

This is not a women's problem to fix.

You may say it's not all men. We know it's not all men. We never meant it's all men. But all women feel unsafe.

The sad truth is, when I'm walking alone in the dark, it is all men. If you were in a pit of hundreds of snakes, but only 1 snake was venomous, are you really telling me you'll still feel safe? Since it's 'not all' snakes?

I'm tired of forking out more rent than I need to live close to a main road so I can get home quicker in the dark. I'm tired of looking behind me to see if anyone is following. I'm tired of spending money on taxis for short trips. I'm tired of being concerned about the safety of my female friends. I'm tired of asking friends to walk home with me when I'm too scared. I'm tired of the fact that jogging is not a choice for me with my work hours, because it'll always be dark in the evenings.

I'm tired of women suffering, just because they're women.

This is not a women's problem to fix. We need men to fix this too.