A Walking Nightmare

The terror of walking alone as a woman

By Jemma Keleher

You’re walking alone. The sky is pitch black, and the city has gone to sleep hours ago. You check over your shoulder what seems like five times every minute, suspicious of anyone and everyone near you. As someone draws closer, your heart pounds against your chest. Your muscles tense, and your footsteps hasten at the sight of the possible threat. Suddenly, every piece of advice that’s ever reached your ears comes rushing into your mind: have your finger ready on your pepper spray, put your keys between your knuckles, and if someone grabs you, scream. Loudly. 

For most women, the terror of walking alone isn’t a foreign one. From the time we’re young, methods of self defense are drilled into our heads: walk in well-lit parts of the street, don’t wear your hair in a style that’s easy to grab, and do not, under any circumstances, put headphones in your ears. Make sure he picks the other girl. As well intended and helpful as this advice may be, it’s not women we should be educating about this issue—it’s men.

While women fear for their lives constantly in the streets, men have nothing to worry about. Unlike women, they don’t have to think about where to walk in order to remain safe, or what to do if someone attacks them. Rather than teaching women to fear for their lives when doing something as mundane as walking alone in the dark, we should focus on teaching men to refrain from harassing women in the street. By teaching girls that they are responsible for whether or not they are assaulted, we perpetuate a victim-blaming culture that benefits nobody but the attacker. Instead of teaching women to defend themselves, we should address the root of the problem and teach men to stop attacking women.