Street crime

[mcjulie]

When I was eighteen and a college freshman away from home for the first time, I learned that I was supposed to be afraid to walk alone in urban areas after dark. I learned this on the phone with my mother. I was telling her about my experiences settling into college life, and we had an exchange that went something like this:

Mom: You walked across

Comments

[trepkos]

Good for you! I walk alone at night too. Occasionally I get hassled by idiots, but a bunch of keys is actually a great weapon (I accidentally hit myself in the face with mine once!) and a fairly logical thing to be holding in your hand. I don't leave gay male friends to walk home alone, as I do feel they're less likely to get harassed if there's a woman with them - so maybe I'm a bit like your mom!

[mcjulie]

a bunch of keys is actually a great weapon

We covered that in the class! I guess you can also have them sticking up through your fingers as a kind of makeshift brass knuckles.

[mcjulie]

I was following advice from a self-defense class

Oh no! The irony...

[criada]

Downtown Bellingham is the best at night--that's when everyone is gone! I too have walked alone around many cities at night, and have never had even the appearance of a problem. I try not to take things for granted though, and always keep alert.

I do try to avoid the Broadway area at night. For one thing, I'm constantly getting emailed notices from the Safety Office about the various muggings and attacks around the school. The key seems to be avoid being out around 1-4am. I haven't gotten any lately, though. I guess muggers aren't fond of 20 degree weather.
I'm also always wary of Westlake and the 3rd and Pine area. I'm not so worried there about getting mugged as getting caught in some crossfire or fight of a drug deal gone bad or something.

[mcjulie]

I try not to take things for granted though, and always keep alert.

My main concession to the possibility of danger is to keep my ipod volume low so that I can hear what's going on around me -- this is probably in deference to Mia Zapata. (And Home Alive has always impressed me both for being sex-neutral in their messaging, and for addressing the other side -- having workshops on anger management and such.)

Paul and I actually have a very similar set of behaviors that we use to avoid things that seem like they could turn into confrontations or muggings or whatever, and those avoidance behaviors happen at a level I'm comfortable with -- sex-neutral, for one thing, and I also think that "try to avoid letting strange groups of guys corner you in an awkward dark alley" is worlds away from "never leave the house alone after dark ever."

[kate_schaefer]

This is a terrific essay. I've been going back to it all afternoon, trying to think of a good comment to add, but really, I think you've covered a lot of the important bases here.

I believe you could kill someone who attacked you; you have a berserker mode in you. I don't think I have one, myself, but I'd just as soon none of us ever have to find out. I do have the trait that makes me have to do something about everything, so it's possible I have a berserker mode. I've certainly confronted people -- men -- who could easily have hurt me a lot more than I was likely to be able to hurt them, though in general, when I've done that, I've taken a moment's precaution to make sure I had a witness and that the man I was confronting could see the witness.

[skellington1]

I think not finding your berserker mode is probably always best. Mine seems to happen when I'm desperately trying to get sleep and someone's keeping me up; in that condition I chased four drunk guys out of my dorm, when I couldn't see (glasses) and wasn't fully clothed.

In the morning I realized that was totally idiotic. I'm still shocked it actually worked. The thing about berserker is that it rather turns your brain off...

[mcjulie]

The thing about berserker is that it rather turns your brain off...

That is rather a problem.

[mcjulie]

you have a berserker mode in you

I do. Containing it was my issue -- I've always been much more afraid of my capacity to hurt others than of their capacity to hurt me. My stress response is extreme and tilted heavily toward fight. It always felt like a superpower -- this thing that was there if I needed it.

I know not everyone is like that. But the thing is -- I've never needed it when alone, at night.

[skellington1]

I discovered that I was supposed to be afraid at the same age as you, but not from my mother; it was my room-mate who freaked out when I walked home to the dorm late at night.

I suspect I did not reassure her when I flippantly said that it was 3 am and all the rapists were in bed. Oops. 18.

But, really -- in four years of late nights at the art building that had me walking home at all hours over all parts of campus, I never had a problem. I also walked down to Boundary Bay every Sunday night for music, and back home around 9 or 10, and never had a problem. Granted, I avoided Indian Ave, where that half-way house was, but the only time I felt really uncomfortable at night were when two guys near my dorm asked me if I was afraid to be out at night. I've walked through Seattle, Vancouver, London, Paris... all after dark. Like you, I've not had a problem being a woman walking alone at night. I HAVE had issues waiting for the bus, and on the bus, and stopped at stoplights while on my bike, all in broad daylight. Anywhere you're stuck --

[skellington1]

Eek. That got rather long. You hit a sore spot. When I'm feeling generous I tend to say this kind of paranoia (and avoidance of the real problems) is just that -- a paranoid cycle, reinforced socially and by the media, based on stuff that 'everyone knows.' When I'm feeling more cynical, it really DOES feel like a concerted attempt to remove autonomy.

[mcjulie]

In fact, the only time at Western I saw someone startled by a strange dark figure emerging from the bushes, the strange dark figure was ME

Hee.

there's a whole group of people who loudly complain about how dangerous it is, and how they'd NEVER go downtown

Yeah, that attitude seems really common. At my hotel in New York, I encountered a couple from Virginia who were so freaked out by their first night in Manhattan that the next night, they didn't go into town -- they went to the multiplex across the street from the hotel and saw a comedy starring Reese Witherspoon.

This was the same night I got to see the New York Philharmonic, in Central Park, for free.