Following the disappearance of 33-year-old Sarah Everard at the start of March 2021, a discussion on what should be done to make women feel safer and reduce their anxiety while walking alone swept through the internet. But there were also those suggesting that women should not be walking alone. As a single independent woman in London, I don’t always have a person to accompany me everywhere I go, it’s simply not practical or even possible. Saying that, I always make sure I let someone know where I am when going out in the evening or on a date; That’s just a common sense. However, have I been in Sarah’s shoes, and told someone that I will be leaving a friend’s house and coming home at 9pm, no one would have called the police until the next morning anyway and there would have been nothing to make that journey any safer or less distressing.
An incident that happened today made me rethink that tragedy but also the storng movement it triggered. I have walked to the grocery store in Wandsworth, London. It was just after half five in the afternoon, the sun was shining and I was only a few minutes away from my flat when I heard an angry male voice shouting “you fucking white bitch”. No one was around but me and the owner of that voice, large and angry looking man, opening a white can of Stella Artois. If I am honest, I don’t know if he was talking to me or swearing at the can, but it doesn’t matter, not really. What mattered was that he made me feel threatened and scared, while walking on a common street, on a broad daylight, just few meters away from the place I call home…
