Personally Alarming

The issue of rape alarms, pepper spray, and generally arming yourself as a woman against attack troubles me.

I have, buried in my cupboard, a personal alarm and a packet of anti-spiking drink protectors. These latter are stuck in the neck of bottles, and a straw goes through the small hole, in order to prevent someone slipping something into your drink. 

My mother bought my these, and I have no doubt that she had good intentions. She was not saying that I'm an irresponsible person who needed extra help. 
She wanted, and still wants, me to remain safe. 

But I'm not going to use them. Nor do I carry the alarm. And the reason for that is if I get attacked, just because I wasn't carrying these does not make it my fault. 

These anti-spiking devices and personal alarms can be hailed as a way to prevent assaults and rapes. 
But the only true way to prevent these things is to educate people against them. 

Surely instead of advocating arming ourselves and making sure we are protecting ourselves, we should spend more on educating people to respect one another and understand that assaulting someone, or raping someone, is not acceptable. 

But advocating women arming themselves with all manner of devices or tactics (Don't walk alone down dark alleys) we are saying that we accept these violent crimes. We become complacent about them, we think "well there's nothing we can do to stop the person doing it, so we should stop people getting into situations that could potentially leave them open to attack."

What craziness is this?! Everybody, men AND women should be able to walk down any manner of path or street, at ANY time of day, and -in case you weren't sure- wearing what they like. 

Telling women (because it is predominantly said to women) to "be careful" allows a culture of blame if that woman does not obey. 
And this blame culture does not belong. This rape culture does not belong. It has to end. 

And the end starts with you. 
If you hear someone make a rape joke, call them out. It's not funny.
If you hear someone use victim-blaming language, call them out. No one EVER deserves it or had it coming to them. 

And, hardest of all, challenge your own thinking. I've kept that alarm and those anti-spike things because I know they came from good intentions. But today I'm throwing them away.
Because even if I walk home drunk, late at night, in a skirt and high heels, the only thing I will be responsible for is trying to walk in a straight line and 
get my key in the door. And the hangover the next day.