Hold your keys in your hands, put on only one earphone out of two to stay on the lookout, dress as discreetly as possible, check if you are being followed, choose the metro train with the most people, walk at full speed. pace in the poorly lit streets, making phone calls, real and false, on the way.
These few reflexes, subterfuge, mechanisms, have been adopted by many women without even realizing it.
Gestures and reflexes so repeated that they ended up considering it normal, usual.
“It's a little innate in us, we grew up with it,” says Inès, 25, a student in the medical profession.
After 7 p.m., curfew time, the streets and transport empty quickly.
Loneliness accentuates the feeling of insecurity.
Going home late at night can become a source of stress, "with the curfew, there are a lot less people and it's not the same population that we find in the streets," says Inès.
"
Ç
has cost me some feathers all these mechanisms," she says, but "the risk is too big, it can go so fast, it is a life anyway," she said, putting her hood .
Hair tied, long fleece jacket, Inès admits, she tries to be "the less flashy possible".
All these automatisms, subterfuges and protection mechanisms, the young woman repeats them mechanically every day.
"It's not normal that we come to this", belches the one who would like not to have to change her behavior by "survival instinct".
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Confinement: in deserted transport, women tell about their feeling of insecurity
Inès has already been violently attacked, more than once.
Many of her friends have similar stories to tell, "whether it's phone assault, sexual assault, and more," she says.
According to an IFOP survey for the Jean-Jaurès foundation made public on November 19, 2018, 86% of French women have, at least once, been victims of some form of assault or sexual assault in the street.
