the flip side
Not everyone is in love with the city late at night, like me.
The other day at work, one of the girls asked the manager if she could leave early so she could catch the last tube. She was (understandably) uncomfortable taking the night bus because the last time she worked late, a group of men had followed her on her way home. This led to a conversation among some of us girls about what we do to feel safer when we're alone at night. We pretend to talk on the phone, we carry travel-sized aerosol deodorants to spray at people's eyes, we carry our keys in our fists. And this is routine for us. We don't even think about it, we just do it. A few of us, myself included, have been living here long enough to have become comfortable in the city at night and no longer do these things, but we don't all live in particularly nice areas. When I first came here and was living in southeast London, one of my housemates would meet me at the station if I caught the last train (around midnight) so I wouldn't have to walk the ten minutes home in the dark alone. Yesterday I finished work at two am and walked home for an hour, not bothered at all.
I'm lucky. For the most part, night buses don't bother me at all, but nobody gets through consistent late shifts without having a few scary incidents. I've had my share of being afraid. It's become so normal for us, as women, to constantly be prepared to defend ourselves. We discussed our personal safety as if we were sharing beauty tips. It's absurd the way this has become such a natural part of life for women as a whole. We're on the alert so constantly we don't even notice that we do it anymore.
Things happen. The man sitting next to you on the bus at one thirty in the morning gets in a shouting match with someone else, threatens to kill him. You're at the back of the bus and he has the aisle seat, so you stare straight ahead and hope nothing happens. You walk past a bus stop at four am and see a car stopped and men hanging out the windows angrily yelling predatory things at a girl waiting for her bus. There is no one else at the bus stop and she is almost in tears, on the phone asking someone to come get her.
These things rattle you, but you've got a night shift the next day and every day for the rest of the month, so you shake it off and keep taking the bus, because it's the only way to get home at night and it's better than walking for two hours. Most of the time things like that don't happen and it's perfectly safe. Most of the time the worst that happens is somebody drunk throwing up on the lower deck. Most of the time everyone just wants to get home and nobody bothers anyone else. You just keep living your life, trying not to fall asleep and miss your stop after an 18 hour work day, and don't think about the times when it wasn't so tranquil.
If we let fear get to us we'd never leave our houses. Resilience is a necessary quality in any woman.
Most of the time, I am not afraid. And when I am, it doesn't last very long. You acknowledge it, and you move on. And try not to be angry about the fact that it's normal for us to carry our keys in our fists like daggers.
The other day at work, one of the girls asked the manager if she could leave early so she could catch the last tube. She was (understandably) uncomfortable taking the night bus because the last time she worked late, a group of men had followed her on her way home. This led to a conversation among some of us girls about what we do to feel safer when we're alone at night. We pretend to talk on the phone, we carry travel-sized aerosol deodorants to spray at people's eyes, we carry our keys in our fists. And this is routine for us. We don't even think about it, we just do it. A few of us, myself included, have been living here long enough to have become comfortable in the city at night and no longer do these things, but we don't all live in particularly nice areas. When I first came here and was living in southeast London, one of my housemates would meet me at the station if I caught the last train (around midnight) so I wouldn't have to walk the ten minutes home in the dark alone. Yesterday I finished work at two am and walked home for an hour, not bothered at all.
I'm lucky. For the most part, night buses don't bother me at all, but nobody gets through consistent late shifts without having a few scary incidents. I've had my share of being afraid. It's become so normal for us, as women, to constantly be prepared to defend ourselves. We discussed our personal safety as if we were sharing beauty tips. It's absurd the way this has become such a natural part of life for women as a whole. We're on the alert so constantly we don't even notice that we do it anymore.
Things happen. The man sitting next to you on the bus at one thirty in the morning gets in a shouting match with someone else, threatens to kill him. You're at the back of the bus and he has the aisle seat, so you stare straight ahead and hope nothing happens. You walk past a bus stop at four am and see a car stopped and men hanging out the windows angrily yelling predatory things at a girl waiting for her bus. There is no one else at the bus stop and she is almost in tears, on the phone asking someone to come get her.
These things rattle you, but you've got a night shift the next day and every day for the rest of the month, so you shake it off and keep taking the bus, because it's the only way to get home at night and it's better than walking for two hours. Most of the time things like that don't happen and it's perfectly safe. Most of the time the worst that happens is somebody drunk throwing up on the lower deck. Most of the time everyone just wants to get home and nobody bothers anyone else. You just keep living your life, trying not to fall asleep and miss your stop after an 18 hour work day, and don't think about the times when it wasn't so tranquil.
If we let fear get to us we'd never leave our houses. Resilience is a necessary quality in any woman.
Most of the time, I am not afraid. And when I am, it doesn't last very long. You acknowledge it, and you move on. And try not to be angry about the fact that it's normal for us to carry our keys in our fists like daggers.
Comments
Post a Comment