Womanhood and injustices against women

[Mismatched Pegs]

It grinds my gears how bad the street lighting is round my way. Think they've made a change for sustainability reasons, but the lighting now doesn't do its actual job of making it so you can see the path! Surely people not feeling like they're gonna get attacked and people being able to not trip over must trump eco policies!

Same round here. I think they're LED (?) lights so they light directly below but the light doesn't spread so between street lights there are pools of darkness.
Research has shown that for towns and cities to work, women need to be involved at the planning stages - whether that's for safety reasons or for things like working out where childcare should be situated or amenities - like bus stops - near schools.
In a similar vein there was/is a great project that looks at getting girls involved in the design of parks and public spaces as they tend to become over run by teenage boys and girls can feel intimidated/are less likely to hang out.

 

[klarakluckbag]

Woman makes a post with a valid concern about not wanting to walk alone in the dark in a health club. Guess what gender the unhelpful comments are from…
Trouble is it’s mainly men making leadership decisions about lighting etc I imagine

Oh god, people are such knobs. She clearly means "lone woman", not "single", as in not in a relationship.
Twats

 

[soph30]

Oh god, people are such knobs. She clearly means "lone woman", not "single", as in not in a relationship.
Twats

It just shows the inequality when posts like this are made and how women aren't taken seriously. I made a post in a community group as the library loos were closed, leaving no public loos in the town, and saying it was unacceptable. 90% of the replies were from men, making jokes about toilets or saying 'Bog off' or posting links to bladder control websites etc. Women need toilets more than men for at least five or six obvious reasons. It's not like we'd ever be anything but sympathetic if a man posted a link about men's mental health or prostrate pain or something, why do it to us?

 

[Blueblue123]

Woman makes a post with a valid concern about not wanting to walk alone in the dark in a health club. Guess what gender the unhelpful comments are from…
Trouble is it’s mainly men making leadership decisions about lighting etc I imagine

They'd probably be the first to bleat on about being "protectors" of women too.

 

[klarakluckbag]

It just shows the inequality when posts like this are made and how women aren't taken seriously. I made a post in a community group as the library loos were closed, leaving no public loos in the town, and saying it was unacceptable. 90% of the replies were from men, making jokes about toilets or saying 'Bog off' or posting links to bladder control websites etc. Women need toilets more than men for at least five or six obvious reasons. It's not like we'd ever be anything but sympathetic if a man posted a link about men's mental health or prostrate pain or something, why do it to us?

Yes, and if they saw a woman urinating in public, they'd be whining about how women have no shame, and should be more ladylike etc. Yet men just pee where they like, no matter who sees them. They can manage perfectly well without public toilets, the whole world is a toilet for them

 

[Hollaaa]

There are researchers in Andalusia and Edinburgh working to implement this in local authority town planning in Spain and Scotland, hopefully to be copied elsewhere. It's a very slow process but it's definitely a consideration now, if not quite at the implementation/impact stage yet.

Bloody ridiculous that it's been so overlooked for so long, mind you.

 

[cowtastrophe]

It grinds my gears how bad the street lighting is round my way. Think they've made a change for sustainability reasons, but the lighting now doesn't do its actual job of making it so you can see the path! Surely people not feeling like they're gonna get attacked and people being able to not trip over must trump eco policies!

Our area went to part night lighting a few years ago and you’d honestly think Armageddon was nigh when they announced it based on local social media. I did some research based on the crime stats issued by the police and almost without exception, burglaries happened during the day when people were at work. Car crime was a fairly even split between day and night depending on location, street robbery was again solely in the late afternoon/early evening (before the street lights went off) and there were zero sexual assaults during the time the streetlights were off.

I‘m not saying streetlights are not a deterrent in some cases, but in my experience and research, their effect on crime is negligible. Forex, this year alone, car thieves have attempted to steal our car five times. Our security light was far brighter than streetlights and we have visible cameras, but this made no difference whatsoever.

In terms of being able to see where you’re going, if you’re driving you have headlights and if you’re walking, you take a torch. There are no street lights in quite a lot of the country and people in rural areas take torches if they’re walking at night.

I‘m not trying to belittle your concerns, I just wanted to try and mitigate some of the stuff people say about part night lighting and the effect on crime.

 

[bcfc999]

Our area went to part night lighting a few years ago and you’d honestly think Armageddon was nigh when they announced it based on local social media. I did some research based on the crime stats issued by the police and almost without exception, burglaries happened during the day when people were at work. Car crime was a fairly even split between day and night depending on location, street robbery was again solely in the late afternoon/early evening (before the street lights went off) and there were zero sexual assaults during the time the streetlights were off.

I‘m not saying streetlights are not a deterrent in some cases, but in my experience and research, their effect on crime is negligible. Forex, this year alone, car thieves have attempted to steal our car five times. Our security light was far brighter than streetlights and we have visible cameras, but this made no difference whatsoever.

In terms of being able to see where you’re going, if you’re driving you have headlights and if you’re walking, you take a torch. There are no street lights in quite a lot of the country and people in rural areas take torches if they’re walking at night.

I‘m not trying to belittle your concerns, I just wanted to try and mitigate some of the stuff people say about part night lighting and the effect on crime.

This is really interesting, thanks for sharing.

 

[Sideboard Bob]

I get it, I really do, but I think if you live in a city, you shouldn’t have to walk around with a torch. I feel safer with both my hands free.

 

[Blueblue123]

Our area went to part night lighting a few years ago and you’d honestly think Armageddon was nigh when they announced it based on local social media. I did some research based on the crime stats issued by the police and almost without exception, burglaries happened during the day when people were at work. Car crime was a fairly even split between day and night depending on location, street robbery was again solely in the late afternoon/early evening (before the street lights went off) and there were zero sexual assaults during the time the streetlights were off.

I‘m not saying streetlights are not a deterrent in some cases, but in my experience and research, their effect on crime is negligible. Forex, this year alone, car thieves have attempted to steal our car five times. Our security light was far brighter than streetlights and we have visible cameras, but this made no difference whatsoever.

In terms of being able to see where you’re going, if you’re driving you have headlights and if you’re walking, you take a torch. There are no street lights in quite a lot of the country and people in rural areas take torches if they’re walking at night.

I‘m not trying to belittle your concerns, I just wanted to try and mitigate some of the stuff people say about part night lighting and the effect on crime.

I get your point but as someone who has been creepily approached by men at night, with streetlights, I can't imagine what would have happened or how scared I would have felt with either no light or only a torch... that actually draws attention to me.

One incident, a man crept up behind me with an object in his hand as if he was about to hit me but I ran off. Another, a man standing near a bush asked if I wanted to duck, again I ran off.

I'd fall under the "no crime" statistic but it was scary and luckily the streetlights meant during the first incident, I could actually see the man running toward me. He was creeping up so quietly I probably wouldn't have otherwise. In the second incident, I saw the man early enough not to walk right by him in the first place, because the fact he was standing near a bush raised my inner alarm.

 

[Popcornshovel]

I get it, I really do, but I think if you live in a city, you shouldn’t have to walk around with a torch. I feel safer with both my hands free.

Yeah and for me it's more about being able to see 30 metres ahead and whether there's a man who's spotted me walking alone at night and has concealed himself so he can jump out at me.

This happened to me, a man walking quite far ahead of me on the path kept looking back at me and then went between 2 vans parked along the road. I stopped where I was to see what he did (first thought was he was having a piss between the vans or something), but after a few mins I saw him peeking out, think he was looking for me and waiting for me to come by. I walked back the way I'd come so I wouldn't come into contact with him, and called the police.

In that scenario the street lighting was really useful!

 

[Blueblue123]

Yeah and for me it's more about being able to see 30 metres ahead and whether there's a man who's spotted me walking alone at night and has concealed himself so he can jump out at me.

This happened to me, a man walking quite far ahead of me on the path kept looking back at me and then went between 2 vans parked along the road. I stopped where I was to see what he did (first thought was he was having a piss between the vans or something), but after a few mins I saw him peeking out, think he was looking for me and waiting for me to come by. I walked back the way I'd come so I wouldn't come into contact with him, and called the police.

In that scenario the street lighting was really useful!

Right. A handheld torch only gives you so much visibility.

 

[petitspois]

Streetlights are important. They make the general population feel safer so more likely not to stay cooped up at home.

 

[Flowergirl14]

Just finished watching on C4 "Murdered : The Baby on the Beach". Horrific how the State treated women in Ireland back in the 1980s.

 

[Carefree]

Just finished watching on C4 "Murdered : The Baby on the Beach". Horrific how the State treated women in Ireland back in the 1980s.

There are so many strands of it too and they are still being unpicked, despite much objection. It's horrid how deep it is embedded.

 

[OatMatchaLatte]

It makes me sick when I see men peeing in public, it's absolutely revolting. The lack of toilets on long walks during lockdown was a problem, I'd be holding it in for hours, but at the same time turning a corner to see men shamelessly having a wee.

I also agree that street lighting makes me feel safer. There are a few roads near me that are less well lit and especially in the past few weeks since the trees have dropped their leaves and it's been dark earlier I've felt a bit iffy using them, both in terms of not being able to see who's around me and in case I slip/go into a pothole/walk into a curb around a tree.

And as for the single woman comment, eff off. They've no business commenting. If someone says they feel unsafe, then they feel unsafe, ok?

 

[Notworthy]

I get it, I really do, but I think if you live in a city, you shouldn’t have to walk around with a torch. I feel safer with both my hands free.

No disrespect but the torch would do more damage to someone than you could do with your bare hands.

 

[emerald]

What the duck is wrong with men. (Rhetorical)

Aberfan: Attempted murder arrest after pregnant woman stabbed

The village is in lockdown as police hunt a male suspect after the stabbing of a 29-year-old woman.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[cowtastrophe]

Streetlights are important. They make the general population feel safer so more likely not to stay cooped up at home.

Yes, I completely agree that they’re important for a variety of reasons and I’m sorry if my post sounded dismissive, it really wasn’t meant that way. I was just trying to point out that the assumption that crime, particularly sex crime, would increase if street lights were off between 1am and 5am, wasn’t necessarily correct based on crime data.

I’m possibly not going to phrase this quite how I think about it but I hate seeing women say they’re afraid to walk alone at night *just* because it’s dark, as though bad things only happen when it’s dark. When I was sexually assaulted by a stranger on a street, it was broad daylight. When I was raped, I was at home. When I was followed by a creep, it was in central London. I appreciate that my experiences are not necessarily representative of all women. It makes me sad that so many women limit their lives by being afraid of the dark.

Adjacent to this, my job often involves me being alone in a forest at night. I cannot count the number of women whose first question to me is ‘aren’t you scared that some psycho will get you’. The answer is no, it’s vanishingly rare for psychos to hang out in forests at night.

 

[Eureka]

I think women who are attacked when it's dark are often victim blamed in a way they aren't if it happens in daytime