Aah this has really resonated with me. The way my own experiences are also layered with the experiences and trauma of other women, both women I know and women I have only read about in the paper, or seen on the news.
I have a daughter who recently started at university, and the daily choices I make (don’t walk down that dark road, or on that isolated path) now extend to a little knot of worry about how vulnerable she is. She is a rural girl, she isn’t “streetwise” , but then how does that help, really ? She is a tall slightly built seven and a half stone, she looks delicate, that in itself worries me. A male friend of hers suggested a day trip to London, but he would have stayed over at his parents, while she needed to get the train back to college. She was too worried to be on a train alone at night and then do the dark walk from the station. She said no. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would be scared to do either of those things, because he does them without worrying.
So powerful, and so close to so many experiences. Brought me close to tears in the way only real truth can - I could not have verbalised those feelings, so thank you so much for doing it.
Ps While everyone else was raving about it I couldn’t watch Happy Valley - I tried, but I couldn’t enjoy yet another tv drama that embraced the evergreen trope of women existing primarily as victims of male violence. I find it deeply perplexing that it was written by a woman; it felt as though she, Sally Wainwright, was exploiting & feeding off the very hatred she portrayed.
Aah this has really resonated with me. The way my own experiences are also layered with the experiences and trauma of other women, both women I know and women I have only read about in the paper, or seen on the news.
I have a daughter who recently started at university, and the daily choices I make (don’t walk down that dark road, or on that isolated path) now extend to a little knot of worry about how vulnerable she is. She is a rural girl, she isn’t “streetwise” , but then how does that help, really ? She is a tall slightly built seven and a half stone, she looks delicate, that in itself worries me. A male friend of hers suggested a day trip to London, but he would have stayed over at his parents, while she needed to get the train back to college. She was too worried to be on a train alone at night and then do the dark walk from the station. She said no. It hadn’t occurred to him that she would be scared to do either of those things, because he does them without worrying.
Thank you for writing this. Powerful stuff. If only they had any idea?
Well done Caroline.
So powerful, and so close to so many experiences. Brought me close to tears in the way only real truth can - I could not have verbalised those feelings, so thank you so much for doing it.
So much resonance. Thank you for writing this. X
Ps While everyone else was raving about it I couldn’t watch Happy Valley - I tried, but I couldn’t enjoy yet another tv drama that embraced the evergreen trope of women existing primarily as victims of male violence. I find it deeply perplexing that it was written by a woman; it felt as though she, Sally Wainwright, was exploiting & feeding off the very hatred she portrayed.