Walking alone.

To walk in isolated places whether in town or country is unsafe for anyone, not just women.

Having said that I think the danger is much less in the country where the myriad of footpaths that crisscross the countryside are only known to local people and in some places impassable.

I walk all the footpaths in my village alone and without a dog and never feel unsafe. All sorts of horrible things can happen to anybody anywhere, but in most cases exceptionally rarely, which is why such cases hit the headlines. If you are terrified of going anywhere that might be dangerous, then you would spend your life in bed, and who can say you are safe there? before dying of a coronary embolism caused by lack of exercise and movement.

Everyone needs to learn how to assess risk and make rational decisions based on the real statistical risk and not just based on stories that it could be damgerous if you walked somewhere at midnight on the night of the full moon when the zombies and ghouls are out at play.

Bluebird

Victim blaming only perpetuates the "boys will be boys" mentality.

To walk in isolated places whether in town or country can be naïve for a female on her own. I avoid it for various reasons as I know only too well what can happen, what does happen, what a single man or group of men are capable of and have seen/experienced/heard too much in life to do it. Long story...and a family member in the police force with a wealth of service and knowledge behind them.

A dog is not always a deterrent to a vicious and determined attacker either. They can be kicked aside, hurled away, badly hurt and not every dog is ferocious and brave. A lady in my area was murdered when walking her dog in local woods. No one was ever found or charged.

The world is unfair that's for sure.

Londongranny
?

Hithere
True, but they're safer. I know young men are more at risk from injury in fights etc. Also a poster earlier said there's a rise in sexual attacks on young men but I suspect it's because they are now more likely to report it than they once were. One thing that's really made things worse are the massive cuts in Police budgets. Now reported crimes (of any kind) are far less likely to even be investigated.

I have just been for a long walk alone. We have fields at the end of our road and I feel perfectly safe.

Londongranny

Not even a man is safe

I walk alone. Day or night. Woods or town. Not so much town these days. Maybe I've just been lucky.

Is a woman truly safe walking alone anywhere?

You have to remember the fear about the Yorkshire Ripper at the time.I used to visit my mother ( who lived barely a mile from his house, as it transpired!) and take the dog out for a walk for her as she was ill.She always said take the dog out and be back by 7.30, and that was around local streets.
No woman of any age is safe walking alone in the countryside.

I did look for a link about abductors claiming their victim was girlfriend or wife but depressingly it was page after page of court depositions involving pimps in the USA beating up sex-workers and telling the police "She's my girlfriend" and the police going away again

There is a difference between 'expected' and compliance. I seem to remember at the time of the Yorkshire Ripper there was an immediate protest by many women to the policeman's advice and the policeman involved had to retract his advice.

I seem to remember he advised women not to go out at night without a male escort, positively Saudi Arabian!!

What a behind! Polite version of what I really wanted to say.

What did your bf say?

Also, sad to say, if a man tries to haul a random woman off the street and the woman screams and shouts for help, the perpetrator is likely to say "It's my wife, don't interfere" and a lot of other men will just accept that.
I shall try my hardest to find a link for that because I clearly remember such a case. It might be pre-newspapers on the internet though but I don't think that's an isolated case.

Same as sleazy men not being sleazy if a woman is with a man because she's that man's property in their eyes. In the past I've had to try and repel an extremely sleazy man in a pub who tried to put his arm around me and not until my then boyfriend emerged from the loo did he desist and then, to add insult to injury HE APOLOGISED TO MY BOYFRIEND!

The problem is not that a very small portion of men rape people.

The issue is that it is a very socially accepted crime.

If men see a woman bring harassed, they usually do not intervene, joining the male privilege club and becoming accomplices to this plague

We need men to shame sexual predators and stop accepting them in their circles.

Londongranny
Thanks for the link! We certainly do not learn from our sad past.

Oh look, a handy link that mentions curfews.
www.theguardian.com/uk/2006/dec/13/suffolkmurders.gender

Actually, not just if you're assaulted when young, if you're sexually assaulted when older you become hyper-vigilant too, I'm sure.

Women were expected to obey a curfew when the Yorkshire Ripper was about. Not much was said when it was believed just sex-workers were being murdered but when a schoolgirl was killed (a so-called 'innocent victim') women were indeed expected to stay indoors or be with a male relative, husband or boyfriend if they ventured out. I didn't live near Leeds but I remember it very well. Also if you've been sexually assaulted when young, you become hyper-vigilant.

Some people think I'm blessed with an excellent memory. My husband reckons it's as much of a curse and he's right.

Hithere

I had to type that several times to tone it down and remove very sweary bits.
I also know most men wouldn't behave like that but perhaps if they stepped up and challenged men who do behave sleazily in public places rather than ignore it, it would be a start.

Spoiler alert.
This sort of welcome intervention has so far never happened when I've been subjected to unwelcome attention in a public place. Not once.

Women have been advised to observe a curfew. But I have never known a time when women were expected to obey a curfew. I have never felt that, and I am not aware of knowing any woman who did.

I am not sure whether it is because I am unobservant, but I was once kerb crawled, but I can recall very few other times when I have been groped, cat called, or in any other way subject to sexual harrasment. I have not led a sheltered life. I lived in London for 7 years after I graduated and walked wherever I liked at night without problem. including the time I lived in the Edgware Road, near a red light district and on the edge of Camden. I worked in London even longer and I spent most of my working life in a predominantly male engineering environment where I was the only woman not a clerical worker or secretary. Perhaps I frightened them.

Londongranny

Amen!

...but women ARE expected to obey a curfew. If I had a quid for every senior (male) policeman who advises women not to go out after dark I'd be living in a tax haven.
We have been expected to curb our behaviour for centuries. It's always us who 'are in the wrong place at the wrong time' No. We have as much right to travel freely as men but men regard public spaces as their spaces.
It's not just rape, it's getting groped on buses, cat-called, kerb-crawled by men in cars (most women I know have been subjected to that since early adolescence) and I for one am sodding well furious about it.

I don't think it's a sign of the times actually. I think it has always been like this. Women, unfortunately, have to be careful when walking alone. Sadly this is now applying to young men too in many cases. So many dreadful people around and often difficult to tell who they are. And the internet feeds sick minds.

Well, I do feel unsafe in the country because I think some nasty man might get me. Why they would want to, I haven't a clue. Or why a nasty man would want to roam about in the countryside.

Never have felt safe in the country on my own.