The date is Saturday March 8, 2025, International Womens’ Day.
A day about celebrating achievement, accessibility, and action. A day about unity, regardless of sex.
But not for me.
At 3am, I was paralysed with fear; an irrational impairment I cannot understand.
I was not attacked. Nor was I nearly attacked.
But in the dead of night, when silence can be thunderous, it was the glare of a stranger, peering at me through my garage gate, that continues to have me rattled six months on.
As the sun sets, my local Sydney streets just don’t feel as safe…
I’d just finished a shift as a junior radio producer, driving the few kilometres to the home I share with friends. I looked both ways, before alighting from my car and unlocking the gate.
That’s when I first saw him. Walking slowly towards me, but at a distance. I sped through the gates, and then just waited, my heart pounding, wondering whether I had imagined the figure, or which direction he had ventured off in. My eyes stayed trained on the see-through iron gate that had allowed me sanctuary.
But the moment the car lock clicked, he appeared at the gate. I walked faster, knowing I had to travel past him, to get to the door.
It looked like he was taking photos of me. For some irrational reason, I hid my face! I didn’t yell, or tell him to go, in language I reserve for special occasions.
With my heart pounding, I stumbled with the front door, slammed it behind me, and then looked out the window. He was still there.
Perhaps he is ill. Or was high. Maybe he was lost.
But why am I now making excuses for his behaviour? And why was I gripped by such an irrational fear?
That’s normal, according to my female friends.
That’s why we walk the long way, not through the park, after a late bus home. It’s why we rarely go jogging until the sun well and truly peeps over the horizon. And that’s why there is a chorus of ‘Home Safe!’ messages after any gathering of my girlfriends.
A 2022 study by the NSW Government found that 30% of women felt unsafe in Sydney during the day. It increased to 90% after dark!
Street harassment is a subtle form of sexism defined as unwelcome and non-consensual, verbal or non-verbal attention in a public area. It includes swearing, catcalling, leering, staring, following, videoing, and invading personal space.
While street harrassment is considered to be inherently sexual, it can be anything from lewd comments to unwelcome stares.
Until the 8th of March 2025, I had never heard the term ‘street harassment’. But every woman I know has felt it.
Because even if it hasn’t happened to you, the possibility is omnipotent.
Even in fear, there is an indescribable unity in the female experience. There is a safety net of friends and mums and aunties and mentors waiting to catch you, because we all know the feeling of chilling fear too well.
I experienced that unity: from a girlfriend staying with me the next night, to my boss offering to call the police on my behalf.
As lucky as I am to have that network, it’s not the kind of unity that we talk about on International Women’s Day. It’s not as sexy as the ‘girlboss-CEO-slay-breakingtheglassceiling’ sentiment that the media gobbles up in its performative penchant for feminist rhetoric.
My dad is 60, six foot something, and routinely goes walking at 4am in a local park. Most of my male friends will walk 5 km home after a house party – depending on their inebriation – to save money on an uber. And no man I know would fear driving into their home car park late at night.
About 30,000 respondents to a Mission Australia Youth Survey showed how fearful women are of walking after dark; 46.6 percent compared to 18.1 percent of their male peers.
Twice the proportion of young females nominated safety as a potential barrier to moving out of home compared to young males too (28.3 percent compared with 14.2 percent). These young women were aged 15 to 19.
IWD should be about celebrating the strong women in out lives – like my mum and big sister!
We can talk all we like about equality in the boardroom, and glass ceilings that need to shatter. But how are we meant to ‘break through’ if we’re afraid of the commute home?
My peers see International Women’s Day as a celebration of ‘girl bosses’ – an opportunity to highlight the myriad of milestones measured by seats in parliament, CEO offices and boardrooms.
But can we really gloat loudly about the victories won by feminism, when so many women, of all ages, face fear in simple acts of life, like walking home at night? When there is still a need for the silent unity of strong women rattled by the monsters in the shadows?
So, let’s unite by celebrating the boardroom badasses and the seats in Parliament in the headlines, but we shouldn’t forget the small print – like how we get home after dark.
This piece was originally published in the University of Sydney’s Intramural Journal
