Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay Passage - is it safe for women?
I walked through H Passage this morning from Fairfax to the next road, towards the Salsibury direction(what is it again?) and was about to enter the passage when a tall man ahead of me stopped in the passage and was looking down and fiddling with something(?) and looked at me as if waiting for me... I therefore turned round and walked out of the passage and waited for a bit, then I peeked round the corner and he had walked a bit further and stopped and was looking in my direction again.... what was he up to and why? Was he lurking? Was he a flasher? Was he up to no good or was it all totally innocent?......... Women have to weigh all this up... I was not about to put myself in the position of being alone in the passage with no one else about, but him lurking there....anyone else see him? I waited for a bit and then looked again and he seemed to have gone.......... so carried on walking through.
Tags for Forum Posts: rape
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Sapphireblue on
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Whatever.... now back to the Harringay Passage across the Ladder.... where were we with that again....
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Permalink Reply by Benedetto on
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I use H Passage as a shortcut during the day but I have also used it a couple of times when it was already dark. I have never had a problem so far (fingers crossed!) but I am sure that unpleasant things happen there especially at night. During my walks in the early morning I have noticed plenty of vomit, broken bottles and also syringes which are a clear sign that some people like hiding there and indulge in "prohibited" activities. I will walk through the passage again but now (thanks to you) I am also aware of the weird people you can meet there. Thanks for sharing your story, you did the right thing, never take a risk!
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Unfortunately for most women we have to be especially careful about going into dark passages at night ( although men too can be mugged, they are not statistically anywhere near at so much risk of sexual assault. )
Actually even in the day I am very careful as a large percentage of rapes occur in the early morning (did you know?). so personally I would not ever go into the Passage at night and would be careful early. In the day I check carefully before entering to see if there are any lone males around and whether they look dodgy, before entering the passage - I'd rather go the long way and be safe than put myself at risk. Having said that I walked through yesterday(daytime) and there were a few males in the passage but they looked OK so I carried on. I think men could help us women in these situations by not coming up behind us too quietly (cough or something) and by not attempting to make eye contact or be friendly (unless we know you of course!). Think about (or even check) what female friends, relatives and partners would feel safe with. But we women do (unfortunately) have to be responsible for our own safety too...
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Permalink Reply by Birdy_Too on
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Men are statistically more likely to be physically attacked.
I will not be a miserable bugger in the passage and will smile and say hello to people as I do. I want to help make Harringay a nicer place to live not and unfriendly cold community.
People get mugged and attacked in the parks and streets as well, the police have a variety of prevention initiatives that may deter or scare off any potential mugger.
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Yes but this topic is about whether the passage is safe for women is it not..?. I did say that men are vulnerable to mugging... but I reiterate women are statistically far more likely to be raped and so must be careful. Men who attack women are physically stronger and more able to overpower and cause more physical(and emotional) damage...I'm sure you could start a discussion about how men can keep safe from mugging couldn't you? That was not the purpose of THIS discussion....
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True, but I think the safety of all of us is paramount and making the passage safer for all of us is the aim. But in answer to the original post, yes it's as safe for women as for men IMO as long as you use common sense and instinct. I'm not that comfortable opening a debate soley about the safety of men as I see it as a broader picture, hence my hi-jacking - apologies.
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I can only reiterate the subject ... and of course everyone should use common sense... but women have far more to fear than men due to physical size and fear of sexual motives for an attack. I'm sorry but I do not agree that men and women are on an equal playing field here.
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I didn't say they were, but creating constant fear and encouraging unfriendly and innocent encounters in our community doesn't help. We should be looking after and helping each other (that means everybody) and not segmenting who does and doesn't need to be wary. There are many people who are inferior physically, age wise, ability wise or mentally to an attacker.
I have limited experience in this subject but would not wish to disclose this on a public forum.
If you would rather me not contribute to this post because I am not a women, then please say.
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Of course everyone has a right to comment on the subject if they have something constructive to say. And highlighting what is safe practice and what is not is not being negative. Ignoring and hiding dangers keeps women in the dark and denies the real experiences of women everywhere.
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Permalink Reply by John D on
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This seems a rather sterile argument. No place is "safe " for women. just as no place is, perhaps to a lesser extent, "safe" for men. Assaults, muggings and rapes can occur anywhere.
I would have thought that anybody, woman or man, would look at the Passage and would exercise a bit of judgement as to whether to take the Passage or go the long way round. After dark, late at night, I might well decide on discretion rather than valour.
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Taken me a while to reply to this. Sorry I was clearly not applying male logic to the discussion. I was thinking about the safety of the passage from a woman's perspective and from a women's fear viewpoint. This seems to have generated some outrage and dumming down and dismissal of these fears from the male community out there. This is normal though I guess... sigh!
Anyway here's a few quotes from research papers:
'...Results are consistent with the vulnerability hypothesis, specifically the greater ‘ecological vulnerability’ of women (Sparks 1982), but there is also evidence of male ‘discounting’ of risk and fear. Further research is needed to assess the extent to which female vulnerability is more important than male discounting in accounting for risk perceptions and fear of crime.'
GENDER DIFFERENCES IN RISK PERCEPTION AND NEUTRALIZING FEAR OF CRIME : Toward Resolving the Paradoxes
http://bjc.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/37/4/608
'a national survey of Canadian women, this article examines whether women would frequent certain environments more often, that they currently perceive as unsafe, if they felt safer. The article concludes that fear may be limiting women's movement around their environment, and by reducing fear, lifestyle options should increase'.
Evaluating the Influence of Fear of Crime as an Environmental Mobility Restrictor on Women's Routine Activities '
Carl Keane
Department of Sociology at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario
WILLIAM R. SMITH and MARIE TORSTENSSON* http://eab.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/30/1/60
'Apprehension and fear: Learning a sense of sexual vulnerability
'adult women report much higher levels of both warnings and fear of sexual assault than either their adult male counterparts reported, or than they themselves felt as children.'
http://www.springerlink.com/content/r44g3555u6q6j3x7/
Different Measures of Vulnerability in their Relation to Different Dimensions of Fear of Crime
Martin Killias and Christian Clerici
School of Forensic Science and Criminology, University of Lausanne, Switzerland.
'Vulnerability has, in research conducted over the last decade, been found to be significantly related to fear of crime. It seems to be particularly helpful in explaining seemingly disproportionate fear levels among women and the elderly...... It is concluded that, in comparison to demographic and contextual (neighbourhood) variables, physical vulnerability seems to play an important and consistent role in the genesis of fear of crime. '
The British Journal of Criminology 40:437-450 (2000)
© 2000 Centre for Crime & Justice Studies (formerly ISTD)
The UK Reality• 167 women are raped everyday in the UK although it should be added that
'Current partners' were responsible for 45% of rapes reported to the British Crime Survey'.
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/content.asp?CategoryID=10309
To conclude, I would say that although statistically men aged 18-35 are amongst the highest crime victims for violence/mugging etc, - mostly I suspect these take place in pubs, clubs and are related to drinking and drugs, rather than in places such as the Harringay Passage..
Women have been socialised from birth to fear rape and avoid walking in dark places due to their disproportionate size and strength and if we take the Amnesty statistics above and discount partner rapes, that still leaves over 80 rapes a day in the UK - so it is well for women to take care when walking down a passage where they may be vulnerable to attack. And most women are fully aware and have been since an early age, of common sense measures to take., which is why I raised the question - in order to be aware of any incidents that may have happened there and to keep informed for my own (and other womens') safety. -
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Fine by me - as I said my question related to women and yes I am a feminist and proud of it. There is no level playing field when it comes to physical safety and equality is also about recognising difference. We are NOT all the same - we all have an equal right to our opinions - you can choose to read mine or not as you wish.
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