For the last 24 hours, I have been overwhelmed with fury and heartbreak at the disappearance of Sarah Everard.
Every conversation on my WhatsApp is about Sarah. All of my social media feeds are about her.
The 33-year-old was walking home when she vanished from the street. She was walking along a well-lit road, wearing bright clothes and called her boyfriend.
She did all the things we as women are taught to do from childhood to keep us safe from men.
We do not know what happened to her. Police say human remains, believed to be Sarah, have been found.
The tragedy has deeply effected women everywhere and heightened the fears many of us face every time we go outside after dark.
I like running in the evening, but I haven't been able to do that since September as it's dark by the time I log off work. So I set my alarm an hour earlier every morning so I can go out before I start.
It's not a big deal and I don't think much of it. But when I do think about it, it is a big deal. I have to change my routine every day just because I'm a woman.
Winter and lockdown means I can't see anyone in the week at the moment as I don't feel comfortable walking to and from my socially-distanced walks in the dark.
It's 2021, how are we at a point where women still don't feel safe walking alone. And it's not just at night.
When Sarah vanished, there was a disgusting yet predictable outpouring of 'why was she walking alone at night' comments on social media.
Swathes of society have a default position of blaming women for being the victims of violence and harassment.
To highlight the issue, women have been sharing what they do on a daily basis to keep themselves safe. From carrying their keys as a potential weapon in case they need to fight back to always planning walking routes in advance, these are all things we don't even give a second thought anymore - we just have to do it.
Interestingly, many men have admitted they didn't realise the extent to which women are afraid.
Interestingly, in the wake of Sarah’s disappearance men have admitted they were ignorant to the extent to which women are afraid.
I am not alone in changing my day to day to avoid certain situations. Far from it.
Speaking to the Mirror, a group of woman have shared the things they do every day - and how it has an impact on their lives - to highlight the true situation we still face every single day.
By Rhian Lubin and Zoe Forsey
Sam, 37
When I run I plan my route to make sure at any point I can detour if needs be, I have and still will walk with my keys between my fingers.
I want to say I feel safe but I don't.
Caroline, 34
My husband now takes the dog round the block for his bedtime toilet trip every day since I was spooked by a group of men following and shouting at me to stop and they just wanted to play with my dog and say hi.
This was not a badly lit or out of the way road.
I still do the mornings in return (after it gets light) but I regularly feel I need to make a snap call whether to keep walking past my house to the main road or risk approaching my door and being trapped as I fumble for keys if there is just me and one man on the street.
I cannot look forward to or enjoy these solo walks with my dog, always planning the safest roads to get to the park, hoping the park is busy enough I’m not always looking over my shoulder.
Pre-lockdown at night I used to tell my husband when to expect me and walk the five minutes from the tube station with my keys between my knuckles.
I was harassed and followed by a man from a bus stop and called a c*** for not wanting to speak to him and not one person stepped in, just looked at the floor.
I walked into the high street instead of home and stayed in a corner shop for 10 minutes waiting until I felt safe to walk home.
Except it’s never really safe for us. This is just two examples of many.
Karolina Ba, 28, entrepreneur, Edinburgh
I grew up in Poland where I was always the only black person in every room.
I was harassed and cat-called since I was a young girl. But a few years ago I was studying and working part time as a receptionist at a hostel in Edinburgh.
Once after finishing at midnight, I was walking home and a car passed me then turned around and parked in front of me.
A man got out and opened the boot then started saying strange things to me, still standing by the boot.
I had my keys in hand, my heart was beating so fast, I thought that was it.
I told him that my boyfriend was waiting for me and he seemed to get spooked.
I passed him quickly, still looking behind me, he got in the car and left and I just ran home.
It was the single most frightening experience of my life.
I never took an evening shift at the hostel after that.
Clementine, 22
I hate talking on the phone, it makes me anxious and I can never focus on the conversation.
Yet I will always call someone if I’m walking alone, no matter how short or long the journey, it’s something I know I have to do. Just in case.
Kate, 25
Whatever time of day I'm out walking I'll always do a glance round every five or 10 minutes just to make sure that I'm not being followed, and I always avoid eye contact with other people walking past.
If I'm meeting a friend I always make sure it is a public place and if they're a bit late arriving then I make sure that I stand somewhere where there are lots of people round and try to look busy on my phone.
And in the days when we could go out if I am walking back late then I most often always wear flats.
Samantha, 32
One night at university, a drunken male student broke into my room. I was asleep and he got in my bed and I woke up as he was on top of me and had his hands around my throat. He was a lot bigger and stronger than me. I thought I might die.
He seemed to think it was funny.
Luckily, some other male students heard me trying to call for help and came in and got him out. At the time, I didn't want to make a fuss, I was 18, had just moved away from home for the first time, he was drunk so it was kind of brushed off as funny... but it really traumatised me.
It was far from the first time I'd been harassed by a man (even as a child - I think a lot of girls have stories they don't tell about childhood stuff), but I think what's interesting about this experience is it was a 'decent' man.
It was a man from a nice family, who on every other occasion had been nothing but 'nice.' Now he is married and thinks of himself as the kind of man who wouldn't hurt a woman, I'm sure.
He has been able to disassociate himself from that experience - and that is the crux of the problem.
EVERY woman has a story like this. But hardly ANY men seem to know a man whose done it.
We picture the kind of men who attack women as monsters - they're 'other', they're not 'us.' Actually, they are us. That is the problem.
And i also feel guilty for allowing it to be brushed off. Because I don't know if that was the last time he behaved in that way to a woman.
Because it is always on the victim to change things - it's always the woman's fault never on the perpetrators.
I could not have been doing anything *less* than 'asking for it. I was in a locked room, alone, asleep. I wasn't even safe there.
Nikki Kopelman, 33, translator, Cardiff
As a student, I was accosted by men on a particular street in Cardiff on my way home from nights out.
It only ever happened if I was on my own.
The men kept “complimenting” me as I walked past, then matched pace with me even if I walked faster.
I turned a corner to see if they kept following and they did, so I ran for several blocks before eventually doubling back to my house.
This happened more than once.
Jane Kennedy, 61, magazine publisher, Wiltshire
From Suzy Lamplugh to Sarah Everard, the fear has not gone away and the threat is constant.
Suzy was the first time that as a woman, our safety and risk came onto my radar. I was working in sales at the time visiting strangers in their homes, just like her.
It is not ok to feel unsafe, to watch your back, to walk in fear, to never know who is watching, to carry keys ready to defend yourself.
It is not all men, but some are predators.
