Take Back The Night (this is MY night)

[fickle_goddess]

When I was younger, I used to be scared of the dark.

By younger, I don't mean five or six. I mean thirteen, fifteen -- that sort of younger. I used to be scared of the dark because I have an overactive imagination. What I can't see, I populate with horrors. Zombies, vampires, haunts and ghouls lurked in every corner, ready to snatch up me if I

Comments

[fickle_goddess]

I think it would be awesome if you could get a group of women together and do something like that! A key thing for me was how I felt while I was walking -- being a small South Asian female out on my own in the dark, I'd normally be terrified and jumping at every sound but this time, I had the music playing loudly and I felt joyful. In a group, I think it would be much easier to have that feeling of joy, to not worry about whether or not you belonged out there in the night, but rather, just relish the fact that you are out there and the streets are yours as much as they are anyone else's.

If you can do it, I say you should. ♥

In an ideal world, walking the streets alone at night wouldn't be an experience, but commonplace. And you wouldn't need to have to add that you're glad I'm safely home. XD But I'm glad for it too, and at least now I have an idea of what it would be like to live in a world where doing what I did tonight would be taken for granted.

[b_c_draygon]

All I can say is good for you. What you did took courage (a whole lot of courage) and I really admire you for that.

I, too, would never dream of encouraging people (men or women) to wander the streets alone at night; there are too many dangers and it does make you a target - but you're right. It is empowering to do so, especially if you're one of the people who isn't 'supposed' to walk alone at night.

I've freaked my female housemates out a few times by telling them that I walked back home alone at night. Admittedly, I was using well-lit, busy-with-cars/quiet-with-people roads that I felt fairly safe on, but I think I've had a taste of what you mean by doing that. I do it not because I'm too stingy to pay the bus fare (which I what I tell people when they ask "Why?!" in despairing and concerned voices), but because I want to feel unafraid. I don't want to have to pay the bus fare; I want to be able to walk home, by myself. Even if doing it does scare me, sometimes. Music helps; I really need to get 'Defying Gravity' on my MP3 player

[yukirien]

I used to do that in Paris all the time, and I still do that here now in Houston when I need to get somewhere and I have no car and public transport has shut down. I had a friend who gets very upset with his girlfriend who bikes to a kid's house and back around 10pm in the dark in the same area. He said she is selfish for worrying his mother and himself by engaging in such risky behavior. His alternative: don't tutor the kid or do anything else that would require her to be out alone at night. I almost want to make it a point to call him each time I walk back to my apartment along the dark, poorly lit sidewalks that are the only options in this pedestrian-unfriendly city, but I don't think it would do much to convince him otherwise.
Likewise, I will not tell you to continue doing what you are doing, but I commend you for not allowing societal fears to dictate your life.