There is language that has been troubling my soul. As a Womanist historian, I know that misinformation is not just an error; it is a weapon use
There is language that has been troubling my soul.
As a Womanist historian, I know that misinformation is not just an error; it is a weapon used to disarm the vulnerable. To survive, we must be able to read the full map, not just the sanitized version handed to us by those who wish to maintain a comfortable “picture” of the world.
If you look up “femicide” your search may have you believing that the main danger to women, is in her home. And unfortunately, that is not true. By that logic, I ought to be able to just hang out and do my thing at night like I used to.
Go to the bookstore and take my time flipping through magazines at the cafe alone. Go to the department store alone. You all are not there and that is exactly why I like it. It’s all for me. Even then I parked the car close to the building under the giant light.
Get some night air alone. I used to roller skate as a little girl at night. They had to yell at me a couple of times to come in the house. I would love to get back on that. Old school Walkman in my ears and evening air. It was great.
The Truth
Sometimes we are only given pieces of the truth by organizations. Just false information about safety acts as a mental sedative. It tells women and children that their pattern recognition is “broken” or “biased,” forcing them to lower their guard. Just make it all look and sound much prettier and more peaceful than it actually is.
In a world where femicide is rising, telling a woman to ignore her instincts is effectively telling her to ignore her primary survival mechanism.
We must deal with the truth: A predator does not require your permission or your “bad vibe” to be a threat. Telling women and children that they need only be cautious about violence and abuse in the home is not the full and complete picture.
Here is the reality of the landscape we are navigating in 2026:
The Global Crisis: According to the latest UN Women and UNODC Global Estimates, thousands of women and girls are killed every year because of their gender. While the majority are killed by intimate partners, the rates of non-intimate femicide (strangers and acquaintances) are being tracked with terrifying accuracy by grassroots networks where official data fails.
The Myth of the “Home-Only” Threat: While the home is a high-risk area, the Femicide Census and organizations like Center for Women’s Justice highlight that violence in public spaces—often preceded by “minor” harassment or stalking—is a persistent and lethal reality.
The Disparity of Disbelief: Data from the World Bank’s Gender Data Portal shows that women in marginalized groups face higher rates of violence and lower rates of institutional belief (there’s your high rates of Black femicide). This “double erasure” is fueled by the very language that tells these women they are “exaggerating” or being “unkind.”
- So the danger is what we said it is: male violence against women and children in general. Father, friend, familiar, or foe. That’s not being mean. You can’t fix what you refuse to name. A home repair specialist-plumber, electrician, HVAC- will charge you a fee just to come to your home, diagnose your issue, and name your problem. That’s before they fix it. When it comes to property, we value naming the problem but not when it comes to safety and well being of women and children. Not so much.
Meanwhile women do not feel safe going out alone at night. New data shows extent to which women feel unsafe at night | End Violence Against Women
Women report fear of physical and sexual assault at significantly higher rates than men.
- The data, released (24th August 2021), reveals that during the period 2nd – 27th June 2021:
- One in two women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a quiet street near their home, compared to one in seven men.
- One in two women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a busy public place, compared to one in five men.
- Four out of five women felt unsafe walking alone after dark in a park or other open space, compared to two out of five men.
- Two out of three women aged 16 to 34 years experienced one form of harassment in the previous 12 months; with 44% of women aged 16 to 34 years having experienced catcalls, whistles, unwanted sexual comments or jokes, and 29% having felt like they were being followed.
- Disabled people felt less safe walking alone in all settings than non-disabled people.
About 70% of women text or call someone to share their whereabouts for safety.
- Women actively restrict their movement because of safety concerns.
- Studies show women visually scan for threats far more than men when walking.
Women focus on dark areas, hiding spots, and movement—not just their path.
- Women feel safer in well-lit, active environments. Fear increases in isolated or poorly lit spaces.
- Nearly half of women use location-sharing or safety devices.
Women’s safety behaviors are not random habits. They are adaptive responses to repeated patterns of harm that have not been addressed with honesty and courage. Public-space precautions remain in place because harassment is common, risk is unpredictable and escalation can happen quickly.
Women are responding to real, documented risks that everyone knows about but no one wants to fix. So, women are also carrying the burden of managing these risks alone. Manage women’s response to the danger but do nothing about the danger.
Kindness is not a reliable shield or a strategy. If it were, the thousands of women and children we lose every year—many of whom were “nice” until their last breath—would still be standing here.
When we are given “half-truths” or directed toward a “nice image,” we are being groomed to accept a society that dismisses harm. And keeps dismissing it.
We deal with the truth by acknowledging that accurate pattern recognition is the highest form of self-love.
We stop apologizing for our fences. We listen.
We listen to:
- women with disabilities,
- women of various races, ethnicities, and backgrounds
- women who we leave unhoused and unprotected in other ways
- women who don’t speak the same language as we do (including women told that they do not “talk right”)
- women in prison for defending themselves against violent and abusive relationship partners
- women on campuses, women in temples, women in pews, and women who mother children.
We listen to women who have spent their lives mapping the danger and listening to other women, so we don’t have to wander into it blindly.
Prevention begins with the truth—unfiltered, unpolished, and unblinking. We get no peace until we deal with that. We listen to women and not just those saying what some want to hear.