This last week has been traumatic for women.
Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive was allegedly abducted and then murdered while walking home from a friend’s house. For many young women this has felt deeply painful and deeply personal.
This horrific attack has reminded women — all women — that we are not safe. No matter what we wear, where we are, or what time of day it is, we are always under threat of sexual harassment, assault or abuse.
This problem extends to Jewish spaces. Young Jewish women are at risk of sexual assault too.
As a community we often trick ourselves into believing we are immune to these issues. We struggle to imagine nice Jewish boys harassing or assaulting nice Jewish girls. But trust me: it happens. In our schools, in our shuls and in our JSocs.
In religious spaces, young girls are made to feel like sexual objects. We can’t wear short skirts because men will look at us. We can’t sing too loudly because men will hear us. We can’t take up space because men will see us and they won’t be able to control themselves. Men have no responsibility for their actions, so the onus falls on women to protect themselves. We are always on guard.
From a young age, my friends and I were told by teachers to pull our skirts down so we didn’t distract the rabbis. It was 14-year-old girls, not adult men, who were the problem.
This immediately made me feel watched. I felt as though all my male teachers, my rabbis were constantly looking up my skirt and that it was my fault. I would make a conscious effort to never walk up the stairs in front of a male teacher, especially the religious ones. School staircases become an uncomfortable place to be.
At a religious girls’ school in north-west London, one ex-pupil claimed a male teacher would frequently drop things on the floor so he could bend down and look up her skirt. She said he would do this to all of the girls. The length of their skirts was irrelevant; it always has been. At Shul, women are also victims of harassment and unwanted attention. I remember vividly how a boy from shul, who was several years my senior, sent me inappropriate messages for weeks. He persistently asked me personal questions about my sexual history, asking, “How far have you been with a guy?” For weeks it wouldn’t stop so I decided to block him online – but that didn’t stop me bumping into him every week at shul. Others have complained of being touched inappropriately at Kiddish; men grabbing waists in order to push past women.
Sharing a community, a school, or a shul with your harasser was for me incredibly unpleasant.
Calling out harassment, assault, and rape is incredibly challenging for survivors, but these challenges are exacerbated when you live in a close-knit community where everyone knows everyone.
At university, students who have left home for the first time turn to JSoc to find a community, to feel a sense of comfort. One shomeret-negiah friend disclosed that at a “BoozeForJews” event she was backed up against a wall by a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer. She can’t decide whether or not to class this as assault because “it’s a very routine occurrence”. And she’s right. I’m a final-year university student and I know too many friends who have been assaulted by men. Friends who have been groped in Shalvata (a nightclub in Tel Aviv) or assaulted on the street. Friends who have had their nudes shared by Jewish boys without their consent. Friends who have been ogled and honked at and followed home. In fact, I’m yet to meet a single young woman, Jewish or not Jewish, who hasn’t been harassed in some way by a man.
So when I walk home by myself, clenching my keys in my fist, those are the reasons why. Because I know that I am constantly under threat.
Sarah Everard’s story is tragic and we must never forget her or what happened to her. However, it also proves something all women — in every single community — have always known: that we are never safe. In our schools, in our communities and in our shuls, women must constantly be on guard.
