Yes, all women (70/365)
Mar. 11th, 2021 07:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
white_hartThe news at the moment is very much dominated by yet another case of a woman being abducted and murdered while going about her perfectly normal business*, and Twitter is full of women recounting their stories of being harassed or assaulted and sharing the things they do to try to minimise risk and support other women.
And it reminded me of a time, more than twenty years ago now, when I was walking to the pub, through a studenty but generally fairly "safe" area of Coventry (though the bit nearest the pub always felt a bit less safe) when a man asked me whether there was a pub nearby. I gave him directions, but instead of thanking me and carrying on his way, he kept trying to engage me in conversation. I probably wasn't as worried by this as I should have been - I was about 22, young enough to still think I was invincible and really, really bad at reading people; I was in a place I knew well and thought of as home; it was only about 7pm even though it was January or February and dark already - though I didn't particularly want to stop and have a conversation with him. Fortunately for me, two young women on the other side of the road clearly picked up on my awkwardness and spontaneously came running up to me, acting as though I was their friend who they hadn't seen in a while, insisted that I must come in to their house for a cup of tea, and then got one of their male housemates to walk me the rest of the way to the pub.
Maybe it would all have been fine anyway. But maybe it wouldn't, and thanks to those two women, I never had to find out one way or the other. It was a minor incident, a footnote to my life, but it still happened. And I suspect that most - maybe all - of you who are women, or who have at some point been perceived as women, have a similar story.
And it reminded me of a time, more than twenty years ago now, when I was walking to the pub, through a studenty but generally fairly "safe" area of Coventry (though the bit nearest the pub always felt a bit less safe) when a man asked me whether there was a pub nearby. I gave him directions, but instead of thanking me and carrying on his way, he kept trying to engage me in conversation. I probably wasn't as worried by this as I should have been - I was about 22, young enough to still think I was invincible and really, really bad at reading people; I was in a place I knew well and thought of as home; it was only about 7pm even though it was January or February and dark already - though I didn't particularly want to stop and have a conversation with him. Fortunately for me, two young women on the other side of the road clearly picked up on my awkwardness and spontaneously came running up to me, acting as though I was their friend who they hadn't seen in a while, insisted that I must come in to their house for a cup of tea, and then got one of their male housemates to walk me the rest of the way to the pub.
Maybe it would all have been fine anyway. But maybe it wouldn't, and thanks to those two women, I never had to find out one way or the other. It was a minor incident, a footnote to my life, but it still happened. And I suspect that most - maybe all - of you who are women, or who have at some point been perceived as women, have a similar story.
