Have you ever thought about violence against women? And no, I don’t just mean domestic violence—abusive significant others. I mean the subtle ways in which women experience violence in our society, ways so imperceptible that most men don’t understand and won’t readily acknowledge them.

I’ve been thinking about it recently. You see, I’m seriously considering living alone next year here in Louisville. Most of my friends who have lived alone in the past highly recommend it, and I’m just ready for the autonomy that comes with control over your own space—a Virginia Woolf-style “room of one’s own,” if you will. Yes, I am nervous that my extroverted self won’t be able to bear the weight of a quiet apartment every night. But I’m to the stage in my life where I’m willing to try it.

Here’s a true confession, though—I’m afraid of the boogeyman. I’m terrified that someone might jump out of the bushes as I’m walking from my apartment to the car and drag me off, or break in through my bedroom window and rape me. I’m the type of woman who, when approached by a man at the apartment complex car wash the other day, held the hose at the ready to squirt him and run if he attacked. Noises in my apartment freak me out. I walk to my car from work with my keys in my fist, to claw the stranger lurking in the shadows. I’m scared to live alone.

I know what you’re thinking. “This is the girl who goes all over the country, by herself, to talk about NNPCW?” Yes, one and the same.

So why am I like this, besides perhaps a mother who e-mails me a lot of forwards? I didn’t think too much about it until I went to NNPCW alumna Annie Dieckman’s Violence Against Women workshop at the 2003 Leadership Event. There she talked about the ways in which violent acts are expressions of power and control by the perpetrator. The threat of rape—and a society that turns around and asks you what you did to cause it—robs women of autonomy and control over their own lives. We’re afraid to walk across campus, go jogging in the park, live alone, or do many of the activities our male peers think nothing of, because of constant threats to our safety. It inhibits our freedom in a way that most men never even consider. In fact, more men commit violent acts in lesser forms of catcalling as a woman walks down the street, “accidentally” grabbing her in the supermarket, or perpetrating other violations of a woman’s space.

Worse, our media sensationalizes violence against women. David and I had a discussion about my fears the other day, and he said that men were probably victims of similar violence more than I thought. My reply? Maybe so, but you never see a report of a disappeared 23-year-old, able-bodied male like you on the national news. I see women just like me every day, their faces plastered on the TV screen (think Chandra Levy a few years back), their bodies eventually found dead in a ditch somewhere after unspeakable things had been done to them. The implicit message is to watch out, or it could be you next. After years of this frenzied flood, can you blame me (or every parent in the country) for being scared?

So what should we do? Carry a keychain can of Mace around? Interesting question, especially if you tend toward a biblical model of non-violence. Maybe we women should be fighting for tougher penalties against those who commit rape and other crimes of violence against women. We should insist that our society explicitly condemn acts that terrorize our own lives, in all their forms. We should talk to our fathers, brothers, male significant others, and all those men who don’t realize how pervasive the problem is, and ask them to change their own attitudes toward women.

And we should remember that Jesus calls us not to live in fear, but in love. Because we serve a God that will overcome violence and create all things new.

“So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.” --Matthew 10:31

Kelsey