She was just walking home

On Sunday, I hopped on my spin bike for a ‘Mother’s Day’ class and within minutes I found myself struggling to breathe, overcome with emotion for a girl I never knew and a family I’ve never seen.

Mother’s Day is a challenging day for so many but this year, the thought of one mother, whose daughter has been cruelly taken from her in the most abhorrent of circumstances, consumed me.

There are so many aspects of the crime against Sarah Everard which, as a nation, has fuelled our anger and shock. The fact that Sarah Everard was ‘just walking home’. That the man charged with her murder is a man sworn to protect us. And that a young life could be ripped away so forcefully and senselessly.

Over the past week, there have been countless articles and blogs written about the appalling state of British society. The fact that women do not feel safe on our streets. That so many of us walk with a key between our fingers and pepper spray in our bags ‘just in case’. But this is a reality which has been afflicting women since time immemorial. This isn’t something which we can hold recent governments accountable for. Over the last week, I’ve heard so many calls for the authorities to make our streets safer for women. But what exactly is the solution?

As a copywriter, I use the power of words every day to encourage, influence and persuade. I recognise the need to use them responsibly. And the inflammatory language I’ve seen across both traditional and digital media in recent days has really disturbed me. It’s not looking for a solution, it’s igniting the flames of gender division even further.

Let’s be clear. ‘Men’ are NOT the problem. This is about ‘male violence’. Over countless discussions with friends and family this week, it’s become obvious that in our own experiences, it’s men who have been the victims of street attacks far more than women and this is overwhelmingly supported by the statistics - 1.2% of men have experienced ‘stranger violence’ compared to 0.4% of women. For those I’ve known, this violence has predominantly taken the form of muggings, and whilst the physical effects may have disappeared relatively quickly, the psychological effects have remained for years.

And to further quash the principle of there being a ‘male problem’, I have no qualms in saying that if something sinister did occur whilst walking down a quiet street, I know in my heart that I would be hoping another man would appear to protect/rescue me. So, to turn a biblical saying on its head, ‘with one hand we taketh and with the other we giveth away’.

So, let’s stop using our words to make all men accountable for the situation we find ourselves in. We all need to take responsibility for making women feel safer on our streets and for that, there is no easy solution. Certainly not Baroness Jenny Jones’s proposal of a 6pm curfew for men.

As much as words have been used over the last week to whip people into a frenzy, they’ve also been used to stimulate a much needed conversation. We’ve seen thousands of men across social media asking what they can do to make women feel safer and we’ve seen women responding in equal measure. Food critic Jay Rayner tweeted that if he finds himself walking behind a single woman on a quiet street, he’ll cross the road and accelerate away to assuage any discomfort she may feel. Others have said they’ll remove their face masks and give as much distance as possible when overtaking. These are conversations that every man need heed.

Whilst crimes like Sarah Everard’s are extremely rare, it has understandably caused heightened anxiety for women who already felt intimidated walking the streets alone. But it’s the conversations that have begun this week which will act as a much needed stepping-stone to change.