Mixed Feelings

An unresolved examination of women’s safety on campus.

By: Stella Mehlhoff

This week, I embarked on the creation of an article that tackled the University of Minnesota’s response to women’s safety on campus, focusing on Safe-U alerts. Even before these ideas were pitched for the magazine, they’d been sitting in my head, making ample room for themselves. As a freshman on campus, my safety has been heavy on my mind. But, despite my best efforts, I could not untangle my multi-layered feelings on the subject in order to create a statement that I could trust to be informed, clear, and correct. So I’m going to follow the questionable motto of Jack Kerouac and admit, “I have nothing to offer anybody but my own confusion.”

I’ll start with an anecdote that might be relatable: It was my second night at college when I got one of many Safe-U alerts. I’d just found a few people I liked, and we were walking back through campus after dark. The air was sticky and we were loud and obnoxious, yell-singing 2000s songs we knew most of the words to. When I looked down and saw a message about a carjacking within a mile, I felt a stone in my stomach. I was having so much fun, and I hated to contextualize my free-spirited youth against the backdrop of an environment that might be dangerous to me. So instead of taking it seriously, I ducked behind a bush for a moment, and we joked that I was the 5’4’’ suspect, screeching away behind the wheel of a white sedan, and that this was just proof I could teleport. 

If how quickly I tuned out the Safe-U alert is unnerving to you, know that it’s because I (and most non-male-presenting individuals) have had a lot of practice. It’s the same technique that I’ve been using all summer, when, after telling my relatives about my impending move to the Twin Cities, they’d spin cautionary tales and submerge me in their unsolicited advice: “Don’t put your hair up,” “bring pepper spray,” “cover your drinks at parties,” “FaceTime friends on the walk home,” and “never end up in the dark by yourself.” I understand that this type of conversation is well-intentioned, but with it lies an implication that doesn’t sit right with me: not only should I feel unsafe, but it is my duty to remain constantly vigilant.

And relatives aren’t the only places where young women receive these messages. They bombard us from all sides—when a friend’s safety alarm goes off by accident in class, when signs advertise self-defense lessons, and when Instagram posts contain lists of things attackers look for in a potential victim. So it wasn’t a surprise when I felt this from the University too. Even before my arrival on campus, I received weekly security updates and dozens of Safe-U alerts. Again, I’m aware that none of these precautions are motivated by malice; in fact, they certainly have my best interest in mind. But I can’t help but wonder, when a Safe-U alert informs me that I’m uncomfortably close to a crime, what can I do but laugh? Hide behind a dumpster if I’m in a half-mile radius? Run over foggy self-defense techniques in my head? What is accomplished, besides reminding me of my own helplessness? It’s hard not to see Safe-U alerts as a symptom of a larger trend: fear branded as control. To me, at least, these “protective measures” can feel more overwhelming, condescending, or subtly victim-blaming than helpful.

But maybe my antagonistic reaction to safety updates is a result of my own frustration with the system that creates gendered violence. Recently, after seeing a show in St. Paul, a friend and I took public transportation home together in the dark. While finding our way, we had a familiar discussion: Why was it up to us to take the burden of responsibility? If we felt afraid, were we giving in? What freedom were we sacrificing for our safety or for the illusion of it? But on my  walk to my dorm after dropping her off, I did feel uneasy. I FaceTimed my friend and curled my fingers around my pepper spray, eager to draw comfort from the limited mechanisms at my disposal. I was stubborn in my independence, but I also relied on the protocols that I find ideologically conflicting, and that dissonance doesn’t escape me. The feminist in me wants to explore the dark streets as rebellion, but the daughter in me wants a risk-free guarantee.

During the past year, safety has been on the forefront of our public consciousness. Whether it be physical, emotional, sexual, environmental, or COVID-19, we’ve discovered that risks are hard to calibrate, and solutions are clumsier than we might’ve hoped. So how do we move forward? How do we tackle the realizations that accompany our loss of innocence? The truth is, I don’t have the answers, but I think it starts with imagination. As with any progress, we need to be brave enough to question. So I hope my cluttered first steps can be part of a larger discussion. I hope that we can make places to process the conflicting obligations of safety and freedom and be more intentional about what we want protection to look like. Growing up in this mess, I can’t be the only one searching for a new set of standards—and if nothing else, let this be a validation: we have the right to be unsatisfied, even if we have not yet deciphered our solutions.