WARNING: This article contains details that some may find disturbing.
On the night of March 3, Sarah Everard, 33, of south London disappeared while heading home from a friend’s house, as the BBC reported. Last seen in doorbell video footage around 9:30 pm that night, Everard’s case sparked an intense search and a plea to the public to come forward with any information.
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While the public did indeed come forward with info, sadly, everyone’s worst fears were confirmed when Everard’s remains were recovered on March 10. Worse still, the lone suspect in the case, who has been taken into custody, is a London Metropolitan Police officer.
Everard’s case struck a chord with women around the globe because, as so many have pointed out, *every* woman can relate.
And they’ve been pouring out their anger and sharing the fears that her case confirmed online. All women have similar stories, not necessarily of disappearing themselves, but of being harassed, intimidated, and attacked in public spaces while they just try to go about their lives.
The sheer number of stories is heartbreaking, as are the stories themselves.
While for many men it’s jarring to hear, for women, as one person pointed out on Twitter, it’s all too commonplace.
“This week is so unrelentingly bleak,” @laurapaddison wrote. “I can’t stop thinking about Sarah Everard & all the women who are sharing their stories of harassment, assault and violence. We ALL have these stories and it’s so horribly normalised.”
It’s not just about the confirmation of fears, however.
It’s also a matter of Everard having done so many of the “right” things for her own safety and still being attacked.
“This Sarah Everard situation is really scaring me, because she literally spoke to her bf on the phone, wore really bright clothing, walked on a main road, was outside before 12am, and she still got killed?” wrote one person. “Do you know how scary as a woman it is to know that?”
Many also shared what they do to feel more safe when they go out in public.
And it’s not just a list of improvised (and very much not improvised) weapons — although there were a lot of those, from tasers to spray deodorizer to keys to spray paint to guns .
There were also plenty of protocols and habits.
“Do men realise women share their addresses – or the addresses of bars/parks/date locations – with each other on WhatsApp, to keep themselves safe?” wrote one person. “We set up calls with our friends, too. ‘If you haven’t heard from me by 11pm, call me. If I don’t answer, call the police.'”
The arrest of a police officer in the case also set many on edge.
After all, they’re the ones we’re supposed to be able to trust. But, even when they’re not perpetrators, police often come up short in their investigations, as many, many women shared.
“I was walking home one night in Brixton, not far from where Sarah was taken (panicky, looking behind me, as we always are) when three men circled round me, one of them groped me, and they tried to pull me into a car. A passer by came along thank god. The police did nothing,” one person wrote .
Naturally, discussion in this vein brought out the “not all men” crowd.
To which many pointed out that, sure, not all men will attack or harass women — but how do you tell them apart? The suspect in the Sarah Everard case is a police officer!
“Of course #NotAllMen,” wrote one person. “But how are we supposed to know which ones? There’s a reason every single woman I know is currently tweeting about #SarahEverard – it’s our worst nightmare come true.”
Even if it’s not all men, it’s still far too many.
In the wake of the Everard case, U.K. Member of Parliament Jess Phillips read out the names of every woman killed in the nation in the previous year in which a man was convicted or charged as the primary suspect.
It took her four minutes to do.
And it’s all just things that women shouldn’t have to deal with.
The lessons on what are the “right things” to do to feel safe, the protocols with friends, the looking behind yourself when walking at night — or not going out after dark at all — the harassment, the violence, it’s all wrong, all of it. Women shouldn’t need to take such precautions just to exist. And we shouldn’t need another victim to bring all that to the fore.
