Sexism claims boring you? Then stop being sexist

Men are twice as likely as women to be attacked by strangers, so why do women have to stay in?

"Two winters have passed during which women were meant to stay in during the hours of darkness" (Corbis)

One of the most controversial pieces I have written for The Independent on Sunday was published in December 2014, with the headline “The police may mean well, but they’re wrong”. A number of sexual assaults had happened near to where I live – one at 8.15pm, the others between 2am and 5am – and the police had advised women to “try to avoid walking alone at night” and “keep to well-lit main roads”. At the same time, a series of burglaries happened in my street, on weekdays between 9am and 5pm. I waited for the police to advise householders to “try to avoid leaving the house unattended during the working day” or “only live in well-lit main roads”, but of course it didn’t happen. Householders cannot be expected to put their lives on hold while police try to catch a villain; only women who go out can.

The reaction to that article upset me, because it proved that I was right to worry about the police’s statement. “If you ignore official advice,” some people told me, “then you deserve to be raped.” The well-meaning but clumsy police attitude told women who work late, or work shifts, or go out with friends, or live in badly lit cul-de-sacs, or walk alone at night because we’re grown-ups and pay our taxes and mind our own bloody business, that we are asking for it. We must give up our freedom, or end up being victims and being blamed for it, too.

Now, two winters have passed during which women were meant to stay in during the hours of darkness. I carry an attack alarm, know some self-defence techniques, and look over my shoulder everywhere I go, but am I actually allowed out yet? “Unfortunately nobody was ever charged in relation to the offences,” a police spokeswoman confirmed last week. So, women, keep on not going out.

But wait: we know that men are about twice as likely as women to be attacked by strangers, with young men most at risk (based on crime surveys in England, Scotland and Wales); and in violent crimes, men are about five times more likely to be the offender. So why is it women who are told to stay in and keep out of trouble? Still?

Women first staged Take Back the Night marches in the 1970s, before I was born, to protest against just this kind of injustice. Likewise, the Equal Pay Act 1970 preceded my existence, and it is still being continually updated because it has not yet stopped employers paying women less than men for doing the same work.

Some readers, I know, are sick of hearing about this. Trust me, not as sick as women are of living it. So if we’re boring you by forever mentioning that this s*** happens, then hurry up and end sexism so we can all talk about something more interesting instead. I’ll stop banging on about this when it stops happening. Until then, I’m not staying in, I’m not shutting up and I’m not sorry.

Twitter.com/@katyguest36912