Guys and girls alike have at one point had to walk somewhere on their own. We do it all the time so we don’t think much of it. But with recent news coverage of sexual assaults on college campuses all over the country in mind, the unfortunate inclination of unease just while walking home is now expected. The reports of sexual assault in media are as prevalent as they are for a reason — each academic year about 20 to 25 percent of college women are victims of attempted or completed rape, according to statistics from the National Sexual Violence Resource Center. Of these individuals, around 66 percent are attacked off-campus. So it’s only natural when we all grasp our keys in between our knuckles for self-defense, right?
As it turns out, this mindset is not universally shared. In reality, not everyone has to think of defense tactics on their walk home at night. This in itself is a good thing when you consider the fact that fewer people than you thought fear for their safety in such a simple task as trying to get home. What is unfortunate is how women seem to be the only people who are prey to this very real and incessant fear.
I was not shocked in my Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies class when every young woman in the room said they had at some point walked home alone with keys between their knuckles in anticipation of being attacked. Unfortunately, I would have been surprised if there were a girl who said she hadn’t done it at least once. What I found so unnerving was how not only had none of the men in the class ever used keys to brace themselves for a potential attacker, they had never even heard of girls resorting to this level of self-defense out of fear.
After demonstrating what it was we were talking about, I realized then that men don’t know of this maneuver girls learn to protect themselves simply because most of them have never once feared for their safety in this way. I was immediately compelled with a sense of envy as I thought of what it must be like to feel completely secure and untroubled while walking home alone at night. Most of the men in the class went so far as to admit they had never doubted their well-being for fear of an attacker or second-guessed a decision to walk home alone. For those men, it is frankly a thought they have never had.
Young women are not afforded this same peace of mind. From a young age we are taught to be alert at all times and fully aware of our surroundings. There is an inevitable feeling of distrust when we are approached by a man, an instinctual questioning or surveying of his character. Being taught as young girls of our susceptibility to be taken advantage of, we must always question the motives of a man who approaches us or look over our shoulder when walking home alone.
This ever-constant anxiety pervades into our everyday we take the bus home late at night — instead of walking, we have nightmares of being attacked, we lock our doors during the day for fear of an intruder or we pretend to be on the phone when we feel threatened. Most men cannot say the same.
Though most men and women have thankfully never been attacked they nevertheless face a reason to be afraid of walking home alone. Women, however, are the only ones with keys between their knuckles in preparation. It is this fear — foreign to most men — that persists in young women as an essential component of their protection. You must be on edge in order to be alert. As nice as it would be to not worry while alone at night, we are left without a choice when a lack of apprehension would make us all the more vulnerable.
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