Personal Safety: Girls Should Not Walk Home Alone at Night | CULTURE

‘Girls should not walk home alone at night’ is a dictum that is repeatedly turned on the tongues of generations. It’s like the chant ‘amo amas amat’, that friends of your grandmother will dutifully recite when you tell them your degree is Classics. In this case (due to the unfamiliar antiquated dialect), the words are drummed into the consciousness but their meaning is not comprehended: it becomes just a string of sounds. The former incantation would be more like the Latin ‘amate’ (‘love!’); a command, an imperative. Imperatives blossom into rules, and rules blossom into behaviour. And so because we have been taught this aphorism about walking home alone at night, many girls avoid and fear it. And we rarely question this habit. The saying itself does not need to stipulate the reason that young women shouldn’t commute unaccompanied because the proverb becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. You see the words ‘girl’ ‘alone’ ‘night’ and your mind instantly conjures ‘danger’, ‘attack’, ‘rape’. If we unravel the argument, its logic appears to dangle on the threads of twee adages:

Why alone? ‘Safety in numbers?’

Why girls? Because girls are more vulnerable, more physically inferior?

Why night? Because the witching hour is a cloak that shields the slimy emergence of villainous figures?

Yet even after all this conscious scrutiny, I still can’t refrain from seeing the decree as an ultimatum that ‘just is’: and one that would be thoroughly insensible to disobey.

Maybe this is because the precept is so ubiquitous in culture. The 2014 film ‘A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night’ actually subverts the aphorism - it is a caped woman who is the menacing predator in the dark. But this irony would not work if the name did not refer to the well-established cinematic trope of a vulnerable solitary woman. Moreover, the title stirs images of shadows, footsteps and darting glances over the shoulder that prepares us for a neo-noir vampire romance. Newspapers moralisingly instil fear in readers using similar loaded language in their headlines:

‘Man hunted after attack on girl’

‘Teenage girl raped after night out’

‘Wellingborough sex attacks: Women urged not to walk alone’

These accounts affirm indisputably that the cliché also exists in the realm of reality. The message is repeated to us by our peers, murmurs of unsettling tales overheard in lectures: “My friend thought she was being followed home from Opal. She was so scared she walked the long way round Princes Street. It took her 40 minutes to get home”. I have always remembered a remark my dad made during a holiday in Paris. It was at a time of day that’s uniquely European: an artificial twilight where the sky is black but still-humming cafes splash yellow light onto the streets. He said, “It’s amazing to see so many women walking around by themselves”. I was unsure of what to make of this. It could have equally been an expression of astonishment at the sight of an unchaperoned woman, an ugly antique from a previous era, or a comment on female bravery in a modern world that is still unsafe for girls.

Perhaps it is due to such concerned parental instruction that I have fulfilled the maxim quoted in the title more faithfully than most. Walking home alone in the dark is something I have never really done.

Am I being feeble? I know there are girls who do it: my fearless friend talks of doggedly trudging through the meadows at 1AM multiple times. Furthermore, am I limiting myself by not engaging in this particular activity because I’m a woman? Am I thereby sustaining a sexist culture which debilitates females? It’s like telling women they shouldn’t dress provocatively should they encounter a rapist: you shouldn’t walk home alone if you don’t wish to face an undefined sinister situation. Nevertheless, after contemplation, my thinking is black-and-white. The bottom-line is: I want my personal safety!

However, last week an unprecedented flourish of confidence compelled me to decline the bus money my flatmate had cautiously pressed into my hand (surely the conclusive mark of a good female friend). I braved the walk, albeit short, safe and not-too-late. On one hand, my journey was encapsulated by the rasping groan that trailed me (it turned out it was my bag). The moon-stroked castle that looms from the cliff face, watching over everything with cold impartiality like a negligent mother. Electric currents of primal fear intermittently fixing my chest. On the other hand, it was an exhilarating sense of independence and self-determination. The beauty of Edinburgh at night – the sandy Georgian architecture illuminated with purple, orange, blue - that one can only truly appreciate in contemplative solitude.

I concluded with brazen certainty that I had previously been over-cautious: until the Sunday evening (a mere two days later) when I got the bus home from the train station. I was greeted by the murmur of the distinctive inebriated-baritone in which drinking songs are always delivered. Fine, my newly enlightened self said. A performer sat next to me. Still not directly harmful. “I’m a finnanchhsshial annalyssst, I makealottamoney”, curled out in rum breath. Then: “She’s young enough to be your daughter. You could get arrested, mate”. I now felt justified in my fear. His friend had articulated the omnipresent, underlying threat of domination and rape. Furthermore, interestingly, as I was in the middle of writing this, my lovely friend messaged us: ‘Can someone meet me, not a fan of walking alone in the dark’. This confirmed that my personal safety concerns are universal. Shared experiences diminish claims of irrationality.

This leaves me with no idea what think. Nothing has ever happened to me when walking home alone at night. But this means I’m lucky. The night is a dangerous place, particularly for women. That makes it a scary place for us. It’s not our fault that things are this way and it’s a perfectly natural reaction that we should be scared. Perhaps, I begrudgingly conclude that the old adage is one of steel, crude and ancient in form but enduring? Undeniably, if you want to eliminate the threat of danger, don’t take a risk. And for whatever reasons walking home alone will always be a risk. However, sometimes calculated risks need to be taken if you don’t want to have a dull and limited existence. So the vague conclusion I offer is adapting the simplistic imperative of ‘Girls should not walk home on their own at night’ into ‘Girls: exercise your own sound judgement to live your life to the fullest while preserving your safety’.

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