Sugar and spice and all things nice. That’s what little girls are made of.
And little girls need to watch their backs when they go out because those pesky boys, made of snails and puppy dog tails, are out to get us.
Don’t wear anything too provocative, don’t go down that dark alley, watch which man you speak to.
Oh and while you’re speaking to that man, try running through the millions of outcomes at that conversation.
Will he try it on? What if I’m giving the wrong impression? How do I say no?
The fall out from the news that Wayne Couzens was given a whole-life sentence for the abduction, rape and murder of Sarah Everard has opened the can of worms we were all desperately trying to leave at the back of the fridge.
Police say if I was approached by a man brandishing a warrant card, I need to ask probing questions.
I need to ask to speak to the control room. And if I’m still not satisfied, the advice is – bluntly – run away.
In my role, I’m used to being straightforward when I have to ask those tricky questions. As a law-abiding citizen, confronted by a police officer threatening to arrest me? I’m going to follow the rules.
If you strip everything away from the advice, it comes down to ‘it’s your responsibility’.
Nope. Doesn’t work for me, I’m afraid.
However rare that man is in the police force, however ‘unlucky’ Sarah Everard was (choose your words at will), once again, we as women have to make the ‘right choice’.
We have been taught to do this all our lives.
Men might think it’s fine to wolf whistle, make a comment (‘come on love, it’s just banter’) or make their idea of a ‘witty’ comment on Facebook but EVERY TIME it sparks a portion of a woman’s brain to tick through all the options and work out an escape strategy.
Let’s stop victim blaming.
We are lucky in Cumbria. I feel no real fear walking down the street no matter what time of day or night. I don’t blame the police force and I don’t want to fear police officers.
But now is the time to take a good long hard look at ourselves as a society. Now is the time to take the collective rage (and fear) and turn it into something that means we call out those who stalk us on the edges of our communities instead of giving them dodgy nicknames and letting it roll off our backs.
