When I was 19, I got a rape alarm for Christmas. My brother got a fishing rod.
Now to be fair, I had asked for the rape alarm – and frankly, were I to be gifted a fishing rod, I may have used it to poke my eye out (privately, of course).
Two years earlier, I had moved out of home and across the state to attend university. It was a terrifying move, but the hardest surprise for me was the consistent state of anxiety I felt any time I was out past dark. In a storyline parallel to Princess Fiona and her initial fear of nightfall on the journey back to marry Lord Farquaard, I too would scurry into the nearest cave, style a make-shift door from bark and lock myself inside until the sun rose. Metaphorically speaking.
Only, instead of transforming into a “hideous, ugly beast”, there was the risk of…well, you know, severe bodily harm, a loss of autonomy, assault, rape, murder etc. etc.
I remember dreading the days my classes finished late, anxiously awaiting my 9pm bus home; earphones plugged in but no music playing. Once I’d arrived at my dimly lit bus stop, the worst part had would only just begin: a 15-minute walk to my share-house. This path wound its way between several streets, past a handful of construction sites and lastly, through an unlit park.
Nothing ever happened to me, but every week I’d have to steel myself for that trip home. Whether or not I had basis for that anxiety is rather irrelevant; the statistics speak for themselves.
The year of 18th birthday parties was also the year of being non-consensually groped on dirty nightclub dance floors. Amongst the sickly vodka mixers and newfound, exhilarating freedom came an unshakeable sense of foreboding every time another friend celebrated their milestone.
Throughout the same year, a trip to get groceries meant almost always being catcalled by passing truck drivers, as I crossed the busy road between my house and the local Coles. I was left standing on the edge of the street like a deer in the headlights; anxiously pulling on my clothes and wishing desperately to be invisible.
If feeling uneasy was the worst of it though, you were one of the lucky ones. That year also marked the first time a friend disclosed a sexual assault experience to me, whispered in hushed tones across the passenger seat of my car. Just like that, the first domino had tumbled.
I stood helplessly as one by one, my friend’s fell victim to another man’s entitlement, hearing about it weeks, months or years later as they brought their story to me. Quietly. Questioning.
I watched as they grappled with what had happened to them, their lives irrevocably split in two: before the assault, and after it. Meanwhile, the person who did it just carried on – often joyfully oblivious to the harm they had caused. More than once, they’d go on to refer to themselves as “good blokes”. What makes a good bloke, I wonder?
My name is Hannah. I’m 23. And I’m sick of my friends being raped. I’m sick of carrying my keys between my fingers. I’m sick of hearing these stories, time and time again. I’ve had enough.
As with anything though, you cannot change something, unless you understand it. Rape culture is an insidious, far-reaching beast, baked into the very fabric of our society. It’s a poisonous concoction brewed by the patriarchy itself; a mix of outdated gender roles, cultural norms, social expectations and in the words of Jess Hill, an underlying, simmering contempt for women.
I have spent the last eight months in a deep dive on rape culture in Australia; carefully peeling back each layer of the issue until I met the root.
What I’ve found has been equal parts shocking and affirming; heartening and heartbreaking – an experience chronicled in the new eight-part investigative podcast, ‘Asking For It’.
At its conclusion, I wish I could say that I’m now embracing the Princess Fiona story arc; throwing caution to the wind and stepping into fear, regardless of the consequences. But I’m not. I continue to modify my behaviour in a desperate attempt to keep myself safe. Like Fiona, it is the curse we live with and simply knowing why will not magically lift it.
Instead, it is a process of slow unpicking. And ironically, after centuries of imposed domestic work and homemaking, that’s something I believe we’re pretty good at.
You can listen to Asking For It on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.