A review of rape alarms over on Shiny Shiny got me thinking. I've never carried one. It has occurred to me that I should get one. I live in a not too swanky area of London and I walk home from the bus stop alone late at night. Sometimes, quite worse for wear. So why aren't I carrying a rape alarm?
I don't want to tempt fate by writing this piece, but I actually don't know many women who carry a rape alarm. In fact, I know of one who has one with her at all times. So why aren't we going out with these? What is it that stops us carrying them?
I can see several (albeit not very clever) reasons. I'm not sure that rummaging about in my bag is going to be top of my list if I'm in trouble. I carry all manner of crap in my bag and sometimes it can take me ten minutes just to find my travelcard. I'm not sure someone attacking me is going to wait while I rummage about in my bag.
And as a few people have said over on Twitter, they tend to sound a lot like car alarms. And whilst I'm sure they help shock an attacker, they're not going to have anyone running to your aid. What do you do when you hear a car alarm? Ignore it. How is that going to help you?
And then there's the fact that they're pretty well known for going off at any given moment. So after you've thrown all of your shopping into your bag you have to then stand in the middle of the street trying to switch off the alarm. Drawing more attention to yourself than you ever wanted to in the first place.
None of these are particularly good reasons for not doing something that improves our safety. But do they really help? I'd really like to see some statistics about whether or not they help women in trouble. And if the majority of women I know don't have one, is there any way they can be improved so we do carry them? I don't take my safety for granted, but I'll be honest about not being that vigilant sometimes.
So tell me what you think, ladies. Do you carry a rape alarm? If you've ever had to use one then do let us know in the comments. I don't want to belittle these if they could stop someone from being attacked, but I'm keen to find out why we're not using them.
