I once read a newspaper interview about violence against women in Canada.
The woman being interviewed was talking about December 6th, the national day of remembrance and action on violence against women, and she sited the statistics on women and violence
then she said this:

“If avian flu killed that many people, there wouldn’t be a bird left in the sky.”

There wouldn’t be a bird left in the sky.

And yet there’s this:

Eighteen women this year were murdered by their husbands. Just their husbands. Not the ones who were killed by their boyfriends. Not the ones who were killed by their clients. Not the ones who were killed by their common-law partners. Not the ones who were killed by their stalkers. Not the ones who were killed by their friends-of-friends who wouldn’t leave them alone. Not the ones who were killed by their exes. Not the ones who were killed by their dates because they were trans or because they kept saying No or both.
Just their husbands.
In Canada alone, one of us, every three weeks, is murdered by the man she married.

How fucking twisted is that?

Women’s shelters run low on funding, face closure, and even get set on fire. Women go missing all the time, and the cases go cold from neglect. Domestic abuse – particularly same-sex intimate partner abuse – is still something that We Don’t Talk About. Predators are given tacit cultural approval and so know they can get away with preying on us. Rape Jokes exist at all.

I remember, years ago, around about the point I started to realize that, on some level, I couldn’t really trust my (now-ex) husband, and thinking “there is nowhere in this gods-forsaken, women-hating world that is safe”.

I wasn’t even safe *at home* because I was “sleeping with the enemy”. Or, more to the point, I was getting sexually assaulted frequently by the man who alleged that he loved me and who I wanted, very badly, to be able to trust.

And since that time, since the divorce, more accurately, I’ve been asking myself “What do I need to do to keep myself safe?”

And this, inside my head, gets met with a slew of opposition.

Partly because it’s not my responsibility to Not Attack *Me*, and rather more-so because a lot of “rape prevention suggestions”, for example, tend to focus on telling women to maintain the status quo – don’t go out at night, don’t go out alone, don’t wear well-fitted clothing, don’t make eye-contact, etc. etc. etc. – all of-which adds up to a big ol’ slut-shaming, fear-mongering, victim-blaming festival of “Women’s Place is In the Home” and completely fails to acknowledge that rape – real, actual, non-sub-genred[1] rape – is done by people who know you well enough to be trusted (at least a little bit) by you.

Partly also, however, because I’ve spent an awful lot of years (holler if you’re in the same boat) ignoring my own instincts and telling myself to be polite, to give people the benefit of the doubt, to act like it doesn’t matter when my boundaries are crossed, etc. etc.

So it’s still a work in progress, this thing where I take my Creepy Vibes seriously.

But it is progressing.

So now I listen to my intuition. I still feel bad about it, sometimes. But I listen.

I take my fears seriously.

I take my safety seriously.

And that’s where this all has to start. At an individual level, each person who cares, each person who wants equality, who wants us, as women, to no-longer walk our own streets and enter our own homes in fear, needs to listen to us and take our fears and our concerns for our own safety seriously.
Seriously enough to act.
Seriously enough to believe us when we say “This person who is your friend is also my rapist” and the cut that person out of our lives, too. Seriously enough to ask “What do you need?” instead of “Why are you still there?” Seriously enough to watch the kind of words we use, and how we phrase things, when we talk about women, when we talk about sex, when we talk about violence. Seriously enough to call our friends on it when they make rape jokes or use the word “tranny” or ask “Why doesn’t she just leave?” or otherwise contribute to the culture that says that some women “deserve it” and, as such, sometimes “it” is okay.

It’s not okay.
It’s never okay.
End of story.

Buttons Won't Solve This. Actions Will.

[1] “date rape” or “acquaintance rape” or “spousal rape”? Those are what Real Rape looks like. “Stranger rape” – the trope we have about how real rape is done by a stranger who jumps out of the bushes at you? ALSO Real Rape. But it happens far less often because the rapists know what kinds of Real Rape our society doesn’t believe are real.