Who is responsible for safety?

This made me stop and think for a moment.

About how society tries to keep women safe. I mentioned below that I did a thesis looking at animal welfare. The fact is, I ended up doing that one because I wasn't allowed to study for the thesis my lecturer wanted me to do. Because I was female.

I'd decided I wanted to study animal behaviour, and a lecturer I respected suggested observing bulling cows and analysing data. I was keen, and considering how the thesis would be put together when on about our second or third discussion he asked me where I lived and how I got to college.
I lived three miles away. And walked.
No can do. That was it, I was told to go and see another lecturer and see if he had a project for me. "You'd have to be at the cowshed at odd hours of the day," he explained. "Sometimes eleven at night, sometimes five in the morning. We can't arrange to have someone there with you all the time."
I didn't care. I told him I'd been walking through the same sort of isolated country, at all hours of the day and night, for years. I had no fear of being in a shed full of cows on my own.
"I'm not going to be responsible, and the college isn't going to be responsible if something went wrong."
He was right, of course. But it ran totally counter to the way I lived my life. It still irks me that I had to back down and do another thesis, because I was female, and therefore vulnerable to attack.

Of course I know all the things you're supposed to do to stay safe. But I'm not prepared to live with fear. Society tells me I should fear being alone. I don't. I still avoid being alone with any male that I distrust, in any social or chance setting (at work there's no choice and usually no danger - most guys can keep 'work' and 'harassing females' in seperate compartments). I'm aware - I just can't remember why or how - that one scare can throw all determination to hell and make you want to behave in a 'safe' manner.
But generally, I believe in bowing to my own comfort before acknowledging the 'taught' dangers or excessive responses to fear. In that I'm alone - very alone. And women who would never make their own decisions or walk without company tell me that I'm brave, and to be admired.

But in fact, a lot of people would say it's simply stupid. For me, I rather think I've weighed up the dangers and I would rather take the chances of walking alone at night than be house-bound by fear. I'd rather use common sense than stick to a rigid, and safe, regime.

And also, I believe women need to be given options both ways. If you're a college guy, then just because you've always walked into a girl's room and sat on her bed to have a conversation, doesn't mean it's okay. If she asks you to leave the door open, or have the conversation in a public place - that's her call, and you've no right to call her paranoid or accusative.
I worked on a farm once where I thought I heard a car come in at four in the morning. At four-forty-five I left my room and went down the farm to get the cows - and I had indeed heard a car. My assistant milker was a sixteen year old girl, and she'd been sitting on an upturned trough for those forty-five minutes, a little torch in her hand. She didn't know where the shed lights were; just left in the pitch black in the middle of nowhere unitl I deigned to get up.
I was even more annoyed because I'd been awake earlier, and if I'd known she was going to be dropped off at that hour, we could easily have started milking earlier. She claimed not to have been too concerned, and I wouldn't have been if I was in her situation - but in today's society, forcing a girl into a situation that we've all had pounded into our brains from birth is dangerous, because of those evil guys waiting just beyond the little circle of light that the torch throws; is just wrong.

Don't stop me from walking through town at 1 am - I've done it before, and I'll do it again and if there's evil guys out there, that's their responsibility, not mine. And don't humiliate a girl for staying home, because it's 1 am and she would have to walk through town. She has every right to protect herself as she's been taught - as much and more right as I have to live a normal, free life as if these evil idiots didn't exist.

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(Teh cat typed the above) She's sort of half-wild - that's what I tell people. But since I've got the computer on the floor while doing this project - why it's on the floor isn't a long story, but it's a stupid one - and she's been in a very, um, affectionate, mood lately, I have to pick her up rather more often than normal to discourage her from rolling on the keyboard in front of me. She *hates* being picked up.
Prr. Prr.
Er., she used to hate being picked up. *rubs displayed belly*
It's the greatest joke. "Don't talk to Farah," I tell visitors. "She's semi-feral." She really hates strangers trying to suck up to her. "Aww," they say when she bolts. "She's shy."
Shy? Farah? We talking about the same puss here?
But my sister's been around from time to time in the past year, and although she's only seen Farah a few times, she does realise that she exists and she's not wild. So one day Farah walked in not realising that K was in the room and flops down alongside my leg and rolls over purring, and I start telling K about this totally wild cat I've got that hates people and she's looking at Farah and going, "Yeah, right!"
But K has never talked to her or touched her.








*nudges Farah gently off the 'return' key*