We were only four or five blocks from Menaka's house in Chennai, India, but she was visibly nervous at the prospect of walking the short distance home. The three of us'three women'set out anyway, knowing Menaka's parents knew where we were and were probably waiting. We hurried along, crossing the street once at Menaka's instruction, presumably in reaction to a group of young men eyeing us. We barely spoke.
We made it home safely in very little time. No one threatened or robbed or followed us. But we breathed a collective sigh of relief when we stepped through her gate. And I was reminded, rudely, of home.
Walking home that night was the first time since I left the United States that I felt really self-conscious of my status as a woman'the first time since August that I felt potentially threatened or targeted because of it.
It struck me suddenly as strange, unnatural, to be worrying the way I was over that walk back to Menaka's house, the way I would surely be forced to worry in any city the size of Chennai in the United States.
I have traveled through seven countries since August, and in all but one I felt safer walking at night than I do at home. In Japan, my female friends and I wandered aimlessly down strange streets at night without tensing every time we saw a man. The feeling of relative safety was repeated in Singapore, and even in Hong Kong and Vietnam.
Most of my male friends don't share my newfound sense of security. We have traveled to cities like Saigon, where street crime is rampant and we were warned to always be on our guard. A few of my friends were robbed, sometimes in dramatic ways. One person had his digital camera stolen by two men on motorbikes who knocked him over and slashed the camera strap. To many of the guys, not used to being a target, many of the countries we have visited seem far less safe than the United States. Real violent crime in most of the places we've been, though, is blessedly low compared to the reality U.S. women face.
As one girl put it, \I'm glad if all they take is my purse."" For women, the stakes are often a little higher.
There are certain things a lot of college women begin to do so much that it begins to feel natural. Walking home at night with a key stuck reassuringly through your fingers, keeping your cell phone ready. Glancing behind you occasionally as you walk empty streets at night'or even checking obsessively, depending on the street. Keeping to groups, or getting walked home. Crossing the street when you see a strange man. We're not going to all this trouble to look out for our property, we're looking out for our very selves.
And it's no wonder. According to one FBI report, one in four U.S. women will be the victim of sexual assault or attempted sexual assault in her lifetime. For college women, the chances of it happening while they are still in school is one in eight by the most optimistic projections. Rape was spotlighted as the fastest growing violent crime in the United States by the Center for Disease Control, and is also the most underreported. And according to a 1993 study, the rape rate in the United States is higher than any other industrialized nation by far'20 times higher than Japan and 13 times higher than England.
But the scariest numbers come later, after the act of violence. According to a National Victim Center report, only 16 percent of rapes are ever reported. Of those that did not make a report, ""43 percent thought nothing could be done, 27 percent felt it was a private matter, 12 percent were afraid of police response and 12 percent felt it was not important enough.""
Reporting a rape is a terrifying prospect. There is fear of reprisal, since most women know their attackers. There is also social stigma, a sense of hopelessness, and the very real fear that they will not be believed. But until rapes begin to be reported and addressed in significant percentage there is no reason to believe that they will stop, or even that the rate will stop growing.
It's imperative to be honest with ourselves about any social ill that no one, least of all its victims, feels comfortable talking about. Left in the dark, it only festers and grows. Left unreported, we teach others and ourselves a dangerous lesson'that sexual violence against women is ultimately acceptable, if distasteful.
It's a lot to ask, I know. But be brave twofold: Make a report, and have hope that it means someone else won't have to. Hold someone's hand in the hope that someone else down the line won't need their hand held.
And here's to hoping that, one of these days, I'll feel as safe in my own country as I do halfway across the world.
