“Please take a taxi and call me when you get in.”
This statement, uttered by a friend, is not inherently frightening or melodramatic, yet my pulse races and I brace myself for the familiar yet challenging task of returning to my studio apartment.
Along with the opportunities available to a young, single women in a major city such as Chicago, there exists the reality that a younger woman walking alone after dark too often is a target for violence. This is not to say our lives are preoccupied with fear. Rather it is an ever-present undercurrent.
Thousands of single women share my position. They live alone or with other single women. Our living arrangements, so common for young college graduates, seem unfathomable to my mother and my grandmother, who lived with their parents until they lived with their husbands.
In response to our lifestyle, my friends and I have formed an ad hoc set of security guidelines in an attempt to ease the risks of living alone.
Primarily, we check up on one another, our answering machines and voice-mail systems well used as security devices. A long succession of lights blinking on my answering machine indicates the presence of numerous inquiries: “Just making sure you got back” … “Leave a voice-mail message to let me know you got in” …
I don’t find these messages intrusive. They are comforting assurances that someone would notice if I were missing, hurt or worse. Among my friends, it goes unquestioned that late-night phone calls are mandatory if someone’s roommate is out of town or if a friend has heard strange noises in her building.
My friends and I debate the practicality of using Mace, a shrill whistle or even a handgun. Transportation plans are carefully sketched out. Everyone learns which bus stops have good lighting, which streets are deserted and when to avoid the elevated train.
Safe walking techniques are considered as well-walking quickly, being ready to switch sides of the street, always looking confident and even walking down the middle of the street to reduce the chance of attacks. (Being run over by a car is a separate issue.)
Apartments and buildings are evaluated for their intercom systems, security monitors and stairwell lighting. Windows by fire-escapes are questioned and bars over windows are seen by some as advantageous, despite their presenting an obstacle to escape in the event of fire.
Why do I and so many others live in fear?
Young women in my age group are being given so many opportunities for personal and career advancement unavailable to previous generations. We can choose virtually any career, work to get ahead while experiencing the excitement of personal independence in a diverse and interesting urban setting. But city living carries risks in these days of increasing violence against women.
If one of us wanted to eliminate all the risks of life, she would have to stop living. So instead, we adapt to the situation as we find it-and cope with the dangers of living alone.
Someone knows where I am and when I am expected home, and I know where my friends are and their estimated times of arrival at the receiving ends of their telephones.
We still may be vulnerable, but our improvised safety system gives confidence to each of us to enjoy the benefits of urban life.
And it guarantees a perpetually blinking answering machine filled with caring messages.
