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Kai Wright: Hi, everyone, I'm Kai right in for Tanzina Vega, and you're listening to The Takeaway. Violence in our culture and society is all too common. Just yesterday in Atlanta, at least eight people were shot and killed, the majority of them Asian women. This identity based violence seems to be constant, and violence against women in particular comes with its own burden. Most women are brought up to take precautions to avoid violence when walking alone, especially at night. Taking a well-light road, wearing clothes you can run in and checking in with someone to share your whereabouts. 33-year-old Sarah Everard did all these things when she disappeared on March 3rd while walking home in London. A week later she was found dead.

After her killing, police went door-to-door in her neighborhood, telling women to stay inside for their own safety. That resulted in outrage and frustration from many women demanding that police create safer streets rather than telling women to stay home. That feeling of wanting men to take more responsibility for creating safe spaces has resonated internationally, We reached out to our female listeners to hear about some of the things you've had to do to protect your own safety. A warning to our listeners, some of these calls contain testimony about sexual violence.

Speaker 1: Yes, I've definitely felt unsafe in public spaces as a woman. Basically since I hit puberty, all my life. I've been groped on the city bus, I've been trailed by two men in a cargo van telling me to get in and come with them. I've been told to avoid certain public places if I'm alone. I've been told to dress conservatively so as not to attract the wrong kind of attention. I've been told to walk with my keys in my hand just in case I need to get away quickly, or with them poking between my fingers in case I need to defend myself. I've been told to aim for the nose and the groin since I'm small and won't be able to fight a man off. I've been told not to fight, just to stay alive.

What I want to know is why is the onus on me to avoid being a victim and not on society to raise men who don't attack, or better yet men who are respectful and can express their emotions and needs in healthy ways without resorting to violence?

Julie: This is Julie, from Raleigh, North Carolina. I was raped by my boyfriend when I was a teenager, and so ever since then I have really been aware of being safe. At night, I definitely check under my car in a parking lot, especially if I'm working late, or it's the only car in that area. I'll look under the car from 20 feet away just to make sure that it's just pavement.

Alicia Preeto: Hi, my name is Alicia Preeto, and I am calling from Ohio. Because of what I do for a living, I go into rooms with only men all the time,. You have that feeling of just not being safe. However, it's really nothing compared to growing up in Mexico and how unsafe I felt there and how a couple of times I had to jump out of moving vehicle. I was chasing in the streets by men. That does not mean that it's okay. I think it would be great if this was never an issue that we would have to talk about.

Injuria Thomas: My name is Injuria Thomas and I'm calling from Lancaster, Texas. I have felt unsafe in spaces as a woman, and what I have started doing is carrying a loaded .380 for my protection.

Beth: Hi, this is Beth from Worcester, Massachusetts. Everything I learned about dealing with men in a public space, or at least a lot of it, I learned in girl scouts. My girl scout leader was a huge proponent of making sure that our late middle school, high school age troop was aware of how to deal with themselves, deal with self defense, deal with date rape drugs, don't leave your drink alone. How to tell, maybe you're drinking a little bit fizzy, if you left alone. They also did self defense workshops and she would always talk to us, "If you're walking away from somewhere, you're in a public place but you're alone and you're in heels, take the heels off, walk barefoot."

"Always scan for the exits, always know how to leave a room. Make yourself as unattractive to that human as possible so they don't take you." That's really screwed up, that we would have to know that as a high school aged kid, or a college age women or any woman.

Kai: We also reached out to our male listeners and asked if you've thought about what you can do to help women feel safer in public spaces.

John: My name is John. I'm from Dallas. I am six foot seven, and pushing 300 pounds. I'm a big guy. If I see single individuals that try to cross to the other side of the road, don't know what it's like to be afraid. I don't want anyone else to be afraid because of my size.

Speaker 2: Hi there. If I'm walking down the sidewalk, I will move to one side. I think it's important to understand the experiences that everyone shares, that are universal, about feeling unsafe in the presence of men.

Speaker 3: In order to make women feel safe, we should teach our children to be better people.

Tom: Hi, this is Tom from Brooklyn. In terms of helping women feel safer in public spaces, I walk my dog twice a day, if not more, every single day. I try and be as cognizant as possible of people who are in front of me, specifically women, and ensuring that I make everyone around me feel as comfortable as I can. That means not walking too closely to them and crossing the street whenever it feels like a person may be feeling uncomfortable with the people behind them.

Kai: We got a few more responses from men on Twitter that we found interesting. Here, for instance, is Jamal Alexis Downer, who wrote, "I do think about it, but as a large black man who grew up in white spaces, I developed a habit of going out of my way to make people feel comfortable with my mere existence. These two considerations often come into conflict." Lots of stuff to think about, and thank you for your thoughts on this. Joining us today is Kate Manne, an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University, and the author of an article in The Atlantic called, What Sarah Everard’s Murder Illuminates—And Might Obscure. Kate, violence against women, unfortunately, and horrifically is commonplace. It happens all the time. What do you think about this case in particular resonated so much with people?

Kate Manne: Part of what's resonating is obviously that this is a terrible tragedy. We should all mourn Sarah Everard and protest the kind of violence which took her life from us so wrongly and prematurely. I do think there are probably other factors too, driving a reaction to the case. In part, I think there is a prevalent misconception that stranger abductions, rapes, murders are more common than is actually the case, in contrast to the much more common form of violence done by men known to their female victims.

Kai: More than 90% of female homicide victims know they're murderers. It's worth pointing out. Why is that, that we don't focus on that part of it often enough?

Kate: That's an excellent question. In addition to that statistic, half of female homicide victims are murdered by their former or intimate partners, which makes the most common case very unlike this stranger abduction and murder. We also know that about three-quarters of rapes are committed by men known to, again, a female victim. I think part of it is that we have trouble making sense, as the philosopher Audrey Yap has argued, of non-standard stories of sexual assault and homicide. We have a paradigm of this stranger, kidnapping, rape, murder in mind, and we find that easier to pass, and we're more reluctant to believe that violence can happen close to home with men that women trust, and who may be trusted members of our community.

It's of course vital to remember that in the Sarah Everard case as well, the man accused of her abduction and murder who will stand trial in October, he was a trusted member of his community. He was a police officer. He was a father of two, a husband and described as a nice bloke by his neighbor. It's important to recognize that, unfortunately, some of the men who do grave violence to women are very much amongst us, and are not some kind of "monster" who lurks in the bushes.

Kai: Where did this narrative come from, that women are responsible for creating their own safety?

Kate: I think it's part of a more general way in which we tend to expect women to be the ones to adapt to circumstances of injustice or inconvenience and take on certain burdens,, that generally we expect men will have their freedoms much less curtailed. We see this general pattern play out even in the pandemic, as we've all had to make massive adjustments to how we work and live and in the case of couples with children raised their and school our children. We've seen that in the case of heterosexual couples, women are the ones adapting. Women are the ones homeschooling in effect, and dropping out of the workplace, particularly for the most vulnerable women, namely, women of color.

Whereas men are often seen as entitled to maintain their basic lifestyles. I think that has broader repercussions when it comes to the fact that when we have these public discussions of safety, we expect women to be less free to move around in the world and to be prudent in ways that don't correspond to asking men to change their behaviors, including taking responsibility for not putting women in fear for their lives.

Kai: It's a chilling idea that, we go back now, what? 100 and some odd years on the idea that public space is not for women is what you're saying. I think it ultimately boils down to that.

Kate: The entitlement to take up space, it has subtle forms and it has more obvious and sweeping forms but it's instantiated in simple and somewhat, we refer tongue in cheek to things like manspreading. Again, you see instantiated in that the sense that men are entitled to take up space, particularly white men and men who are otherwise privileged with respect to being ccis and straight and non-disabled. We find that that men in those privileged demographics are seen as entitled to be and take up space, in public space.

Kai: Well, speaking of men, we asked our listeners to respond to this case, we got just a real outpouring. We did get one question on Twitter that I want to put to you. One listener asked, "If someone would tell me what to do, I'd be happy to help. What can men do?" How would you respond to that?

Kate: I think a really good start is not only by asking that question but by listening attentively to the outpouring of stories. Something we know is that around 97% of women, and I think this probably also applies to many non-binary people, are subject to street harassment. I think this is a similar moment to the one that we saw during the MeToo reckoning in late 2017 when Tarana Burke's movement that she'd led for over a decade was popularized. I think this is a chance to really listen to the stories of people who are the most vulnerable while out in public, which includes girls, women, and, as I mentioned, non-binary people.

To know that it might not be that you can do anything concrete, but having the knowledge in the back of your mind of what women and girls face is something that can make you much more sensitive on future occasions to ways in which you might be able to be a good ally or accomplice to vulnerable women and girls. Also, ways in which you might represent a threat, despite the fact that you have good intentions and would never do anything threatening. It's not always something that people can know so it might be appropriate to do things like cross the street rather than walk behind a woman at night. That's one example of behavior that men who are not on the defensive might welcome as one way to combat the justified fear that many women feel while out in public.

Kai: Kate Manne is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at Cornell University and author of an article in The Atlantic called What Sarah Everard’s Murder Illuminates—And Might Obscure. Kate, thanks for joining us.

Kate: Thanks for having me.

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