A woman walks alone at night. The street is dark and isolated. At every step she takes, every shadows she sees, every sound she hears, her heart starts beating fast. She rushes to reach the door. She’s almost there. She opens the door, locks it and takes a deep breath – now she can start to forget the fear of the night.
This is how many women feel when they’re living on their own. Maybe because news about women being raped is now part of our daily life and this scares us. Or because sometimes women wearing a miniskirt and high heels are seen as asking to be touched, insulted, abused. Women have fought hard for the right to be treated equally with men but we’re still considered weak – dolls that can be used and then left behind on the cold ground.
As a woman living abroad since the age of 18, I can say that walking home at night is one of the things that scares me most. I was born and raised in Palermo, Sicily, which is considered a dangerous place because of earlier decades when the Mafia ruined many people’s lives. When I first moved to London I thought I would feel safer since there are CCTV cameras operating everywhere and, most of the time, people don’t really pay attention to you. But after a few days, I experienced something that made me change my mind.
I couldn’t go out in the evening because men kept stopping me, talking to me in a rude way. I couldn’t go to clubs with friends because men touched me all the time. I couldn’t wait for the bus or train because they had to flirt with me. I couldn’t wear a skirt and a red lipstick because they said I was too provocative. I couldn’t even go out with my boyfriend because men would wait for him to go to the toilet so they could approach me. I couldn’t walk home late because groups of men stopped me or, in extreme cases, they followed me.
I couldn’t and I can’t do some of the things that I always do in my hometown. In Palermo, I walk alone at night, I go clubbing with my girl friends and no one touches us or talks to us in a rude way. The fact that I’ve experienced the opposite in London, makes me feel weak because this is how the world goes. We do 100 steps forward and 200 backward.
As I write, people are celebrating Women’s International Day, sharing pictures, videos and quotes on social media to highlight the status of women. We all say women are special gifts sent from Heaven and men couldn’t live without them. But for the other 364 days of year, it seems like our status is still downgraded.
“Grand Canal Quay – Dublin, Ireland – Black and white street photography” by Giuseppe Milo (www.pixael.com) is licensed under CC BY
