A Woman Alone At Night
It was around midnight on a cold fall night in New York. I was slightly drunk and I just left my friends apartment, unaccompanied. I began to make my journey to the subway, which was merely two blocks away. I was little disoriented but, I noticed a man staring at me and the truth is it was possibly harmless. Even though that may have been the case, that didn’t stop the fear from eating me alive. I frantically ran back into the lobby and ordered a Lyft to drive me downtown. I had nothing to protect myself with, no mace and no sharp objects and I felt entirely vulnerable.Women experience this type of fear all the time.
Luckily, I didn’t run into to someone aggressive, somebody that wouldn’t take no for an answer. But nonetheless I am angry. My blood boils because we as women can’t safely walk on a street at night without the fear of being harassed or worse, without having to constantly look behind your back to see if somebody is following you, and without checking to see if somebody is in the back of your car lurking in the darkness. We’re terrified because sex trafficking is happening right now and people are sharing their horrendous experiences. Some include spraying a perfume that sedates you which, gives sex traffickers a chance to kidnap you, injecting you in the leg with a drug while you’re in the stall of bathroom, and leaving a “marker’ on you car such as a piece of cardboard in order to follow you. If you think something suspicious is happening get out of there as fast as possible. I keep asking myself, will this happen to me? This could be our very fate.
In times like these we have to be aware of our surroundings and I suggest avoiding being alone at night. We must protect ourselves ladies because no one else is going to do it for us. I suggest you take that self-defense class, buy mace and carry it around with you, use Lyft because they give background checks for their drivers and please be aware what is happening around you. I can not bare to see another woman become a victim. We must fight back and give it everything we've got.