Women are feeling less safe on our streets: what are we all going to do about that?

Three years ago, I asked the people of the Buckingham: What Matters to You Facebook community how safe they felt to walk across town - the thread is linked below. Just recently, people started adding their answers again. Here are the results:

For the 120 women who have answered the Q in the last few days, the average is 3.30 (Where 1 is "Very Safe" and 6 is "Very Unsafe"). For the 32 men who have answered the average is 1.14

3 years ago - this was the result: there are 200 respondents - with an overall average of 1.76. Looking at women (114) and men (86) separately: male average = 1.30 while the female average = 2.33.

So things appear better for men (they feel safer) and significantly worse for women (they feel less safe than 3 years ago).

For me: 

• I am going to campaign for more street lighting 
• promise I will not walk on by if I see a man or group of men seeking to intimidate a woman 
• talk more to my women friends about this and try and understand more 
• challenge misogynistic or or sexist comments 
• consider what can be done when planning new developments to make those streets feel safer 
• talk to the police to see if there are any hotspots for where matters appear worse 
• ditto - listen to women on the same question 
• be more aware of my how my presence on a street at night might impact on women nearby 
• continue to think and write about all this stuff...

What about you: what can you do? 

(PS: My letter on this subject was published in the Advertiser today (19/3/21) - you can read it at the bottom of the blog post below)