While we teach women to adapt their lives to keep safe, there is little work being done to educate men against chauvinistic attitudes or aggressions that make so many environments hostile for women, writes Emma Burke
The outpouring on social media about the appalling case of Sarah Everard, from women across the country, reflects that in each of our minds this violence could have happened to our sister, our daughter, our colleague or our friend (‘Always with keys out’: hundreds of women tell of fear of walking alone, 11 March).
We have spent years being taught what we, as women, should do to keep ourselves safe. As 12-year-olds at an all-girls’ secondary school, we were given a specific lesson in how to avoid attack. We were taught to carry a key poking out of our fists as we walk, to sit near the bus driver, to choose brightly lit streets. We were each given a rape alarm. My brothers attended the equivalent boys’ school. There was no equivalent lesson.
