It’s been a rollercoaster week for women.
From the highs of International Women’s Day to the death of Sarah Everard within a matter of days, we have been through all the emotions and now our hearts are properly broken.
My last post resonated with so many women. Women from their teens to their seventies engaged with it, shared it and told me, “this is so true”.
WOMEN FROM THEIR TEENS TO THEIR SEVENTIES.
That is three generations of women who have lived in fear and experienced abuse and have been hassled by men and been made to feel afraid on the streets. I should clarify, that’s three generations of women on social media. This behaviour has affected women since the beginning of time.
What happened to Sarah is shocking, but we are not shocked. We have been anticipating something like this all our lives. It happened to Sarah but it could have happened to any one of us, and in our minds - walking home on a Saturday night - it did.
There is so much solidarity in the sisterhood that it makes me want to cry. That it is a revelation to men in the last couple of days that women go to such lengths to protect themselves and protect one another is perhaps the most shocking thing I have learnt week. How did they not know? Our fathers, our brothers, our husbands, our friends? How did they not know how afraid we are - all the time - and that we fear even the good ones sometimes because we don’t know who the bad ones are?
There is so much work to be done, but my God, the work is not ours. We have endured enough and I’m not sure we can shoulder any more responsibility.
My heart goes out to Sarah’s family and friends tonight, and to the friends and family of all the “Sarahs” that have not been so widely reported.
Society failed them all, and we must now do better.