The word 'dangerous', according to the University of Oxford's Lexico dictionary, means:
- 'Able or likely to cause harm or injury', or
- 'Likely to cause problems or to have adverse consequences.'
Antonyms for the word include 'harmless' and, notably, 'safe'. This area in Paris was described as 'not safe' for lone women at night. Therefore we can assume that this place is the opposite of safe: dangerous. Right? Not exactly.
The issue here is something of a doublethink problem. The place in question can be both dangerous and safe at the same time, because it is not dangerous and safe in the same situations for the same type of people. It is generally deemed safe, because the people for whom it is seen as dangerous are viewed as exceptions to the rule of safety. Yes, this place is safe - except for women, especially women on their own and particularly women who are out at night. There is an element of danger here that is being acknowledged, but that danger is seen as minor enough that it can be left out of the overall verdict of this place being 'safe'.
Some people, my friend most likely included, might not see a contradiction here. After all, no place is 100% safe for everyone all the time. Still, it got me thinking: how do we define a place or a situation as dangerous? Moreover, who gets to define them as such? Is a place safe if it's only dangerous at night? Is it safe if it's only dangerous for women?
The answer probably depends on who you ask. In the past, I've been shocked at my male friends' ignorance of the dangers women experience. I once had a guy friend at uni tell me about a time he thought he was being followed home at night, which scared him so much he held his keys between his fingers in case he was attacked. When I told him that I did that every time I walked home in the dark, mysterious follower or not, he didn't believe me. The idea that our quiet little university town could appear dangerous even without the presence of an obvious threat (e.g. someone following you) was unimaginable for him. Likewise, when I've said that I find Saudi Arabia in some ways a safer place than the UK because I experience less street harassment in the former, women have understood while the men I spoke to were incredulous, insisting that there was no way anything like that happened more in the UK, a country they saw as not nearly as dangerous when compared with Saudi.
This ignorance is not limited purely to men though. A little while ago, a report was making the rounds on social media that said the majority of same-sex couples were afraid to hold hands in public, for fear of harassment or worse. This was hardly a revelation for me or my then-girlfriend, who would always do a quick check of our surroundings before considering any public display of affection or would simply avoid it altogether in some situations, such as when walking past groups of drunk people at night. Although I appreciated that awareness was being raised, it did kind of surprise me that the report was news to anyone. I was even more surprised when I realised many of the straight people I knew were shocked to find out that people like me and my girlfriend were ever afraid to hold hands anywhere in the UK. Even though I knew straight people didn't experience it, I thought this threat of homophobic harassment was common knowledge. Once again, people failed to recognise danger when it didn't affect them directly.
This is not to say that I am in any way exempt from these sorts of blind spots. As a white person, I am often ignorant of dangers which primarily affect people of colour. Although I don't trust the police anymore, I was still able to last well into my teens before I began to stop viewing the British police as the benevolent authority figures I'd been taught they were as a child. For many people of colour, this distrust can be instilled in them since childhood. I was able to maintain that ignorance because for white people, the police do not present so much of a threat as they do for people of colour. My whiteness had allowed me to develop a kind of privileged naivety, just as maleness or straightness had done for my friends.
We all have our blind spots, no matter which minorities you might belong to, and my point in writing this post is not to condemn people who were just trying to give me helpful advice about an area in Paris. In fact, just acknowledging that an area is dangerous for women at night is more than I get from some men, who neglect to consider that an area which is safe for them might not be nearly so safe for women. The flat I currently live in overlooks a street, and sometimes when I look out at night and see men walking alone while there is not a single woman in sight, I wonder if they know how lucky they are. That is what I am asking for in writing this post: a consideration of how you experience danger, an acknowledgement of how privileged you might be if a place seems safe to you, and a reminder that just because you deem an area harmless, that may not be the case for everyone else.
