As we mourn the death of Sarah Everard, all women are recounting their experience(s) of fear on finding themselves alone in the dark on a street being followed by a man. Inevitably, I found myself doing the same.
As it's the last day of Women's History Month, I'm sharing the following experience shared by all women and girls. It's an experience that spans centuries:
Here’s what happened to me on Wednesday, 20th January 2010 while a 1st year philosophy uni student, aged 23:
After my evening lectures at university (6pm-8pm), I leave the building with the male lecturer to discuss the issues I raised with a PhD student the previous day, in short: harassment and stalking (his word) problems I'm experiencing at uni; a fake profile on a p**n dating website in my name; a photographer randomly taking a photo of me while I'm having a substitute tutorial with my tutorial tutor/a PhD student in a cafe. After the lecture, he told me that the PhD student had told him about it and that we should discuss it further in the street. So, after he spoke to several students post lecture answering their questions, we left the room together and stood just outside the building where the lectures took place, slightly to the left of it as you exit, remaining in the same street the university building is in for the duration of the informal chat.
This street is a short road which forms one side of a square with a garden in the middle so across the road was only the railing around it, and parked cars. The garden/park is locked once dark. He started booming out that my problems were tantamount to bullying while my year group was walking past us. His indiscretion didn't impress me. He asked who my personal tutor was and when I replied he said, and I quote, "he is worse than useless". Eventually he looks up and down the street and when the street is completely empty, except for one man smoking right outside the university building, the lecturer says goodbye and starts to leave me but not before he checks which way I’m going. I'm not actually going anywhere because I'm meeting my mother in that street. So I arbitrarily chose to begin walking the opposite way to him as a way of ending the conversation and to avoid walking with him into different streets and away from where my mother was expecting to meet up with me.
However, my attempt at staying safely in the same street didn't work. In the dark, it wasn't easy for me to spot my mother immediately and I wouldn't want to stand around aimlessly near where the man was smoking so I started walking and trying to look purposeful. I walked past the man smoking and looked straight at him so I could assess his loitering and get a good visual picture of what he looked like.
Just as well, because I needed to give a description to help identify him later. My mother also saw him very well and both our descriptions of him concurred. It matched the way one of the supposed uni security men looked like that we'd seen in the building (including behind the desk looking at the CCTV monitors) I had just left. I say supposed because he didn't dress or come across in the same way as other security men.
I'd only just walked past him when he started to follow me down the street so I kept my head turned to the left so that I could see where he was with respect to me and how far behind me he was walking. As I neared the top of the road and realised that he was still following me and was practically stepping on my heels, I felt a huge rising panic whether I’d make it to a safe building in time. I hadn't intended to leave the street and had initially assumed I could simply go back on myself and walk back up the street if my mother wasn't at this end of the street. But by now he's right behind me so I had a serious dilemma - I didn't want to go into the other streets beyond the end of the road because I was unfamiliar with them and going back on myself was also potentially dangerous - he could grab me if I couldn't avoid him. And there was no point crossing the road because I'd end up in a smaller, darker space on that side, somewhat squeezed between only the garden railings and parked cars.
The uni building was meant to be a safe place kitted out with cctv so I should have been able to wait there but now suddenly it wasn't a safe default option because, as far as I was aware, he was the security at that building, knew the building even better than me, controlled the cctv for it and had just been there, smoking. I couldn't be sure what shift he was on by the time my conversation with the lecturer had finished in the street - what if he was supposed to still be on security duty meaning that there may not even be any other security people around in addition to him because it was always a one man job at the desk? I had only been attending this Uni for just over a term (as it was the first month of the spring term, first year) so I didn't quite have my bearings yet.
As I was seriously panicking about which way to run to get away from him, I heard someone - I looked around and saw it was my mother across the road, parallel to me. The moment I spotted her, she motioned that I should cross the road. As I began to cross the road, she noticed that the security man following me put his right hand to his head to try to obscure his face (too late, she had already seen him), tucked his chin in, swivelled to his left and walked away. My mother had concentrated very hard on the man because, one false move from him and she was ready to intervene directly.
It transpired that I had chosen the wrong end of the relatively short street. She had been at the other end of the street but luckily had witnessed the whole episode. She had seen the male lecturer talking to me in the street for ages, waving his hands about, punching the air with his fist and generally being rather excitable. She had noticed the man exit the Uni building, walk down the steps and start smoking, leaning against the pillar. Assuming him to be harmless, she waited patiently for the lecturer to finish his long conversation with me. Suddenly, she noticed I was walking away towards the Uni building, she glances back at the lecturer who was walking away slowly. My mother saw him turn around. She followed his gaze and that is when she saw the man following me. She swiftly ran along the garden side noiselessly (she wasn't wearing heels) while, at the same time keeping her eye on him. When she drew parallel she drew attention to herself and fortunately I noticed before deciding to run.
I did later tell several (male and female) members of the philosophy department what had happened including the lecturer I talked to on the street. He exacerbated the fear I'd experienced by saying to me I am having stalking problems and that I am likely to be raped so should "dress down" in an attempt to avoid male attention. Not only was that an unhelpful thing to say it was incredibly insensitive.
I wasn't wearing anything at all sexy or interesting so victim blaming women for how they dress is ludicrous. It was still cold weather so I was walking around in a long winter coat! Besides I always wore trousers (e.g. standard fit jeans) and comfortable, active shoes or trainers. I'd wear jumpers, jeans jackets etc with this. I couldn't be more covered up and neutral! Moreover, what they may not have fully realised yet at that time, was that I am a lesbian so I would hardly be behaving or dressing to attract male attention when I am not attracted to men and don't date them. Stick to certain streets they say. But, it's an unavoidable street because that's where you have to go to attend certain compulsory lectures. That road is also not especially out of the way, even though it's quiet, because it is in central London and off a main road.
I'd attended numerous daytime and evening classes as a teenager, one of which finished at 10pm, for many years prior to my degree there. Those were held at various different types of buildings, sometimes very large, deserted ones late at night, yet I had never had any problems and had always felt safe. This was also true later when I attended Latin degree module lectures late at night on a London uni campus, just the previous academic year. Attending lectures at this uni should not have been any different!!
This is the only time something like this has ever happened to me. No one has ever followed me that close or in such a threatening manner before or since.
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