It’s been two weeks since Sarah Everard disappeared, and a matter of days since she was confirmed as murdered. Sarah Everard was a 33-year-old woman who decided to walk home from a friend’s house at 9 pm on a Wednesday. Her murder has forced society to talk openly about male violence and street harassment, but as we have these conversations we shouldn’t forget that this ‘body’ we discuss belonged to someone with a name, a face, and a life. Sarah Everard died because someone else decided she should, and as women, we live with the knowledge that what happened to Sarah could happen to any of us.

When I discuss this with the women in my life, the fact that we’re constantly in danger isn’t what has surprised us; what we’re surprised by is that men aren’t able to see what’s right in front of them. We know that women walking at night are vulnerable to being abducted, attacked, and killed – so much so that that is the basis of pretty much every crime drama we’ve ever seen on television. Yet, no matter how many faces we see of women who’ve been taken, raped, murdered, or a combination of the three, still, society persists with asking why the woman was out so late, or what she was wearing, or whether she was drunk, or why she didn’t stop it. There are even those who will roll their eyes and shut down when they feel the inevitable ‘would it be the same if she had been a man?’ coming along. But it’s a privilege to be able to roll your eyes, because if you can do that, then clearly you’ve never had to seriously imagine the situation.

It wouldn’t be the same outcome if Sarah Everard had been a 33-year-old man walking home from his friend’s house at 9 pm. Nor is it likely to have been the same if Sarah Everard had been a younger man walking home at a later time, or any other variation of the time or age because those aspects don’t matter. What matters, is that women are not safe and we are frightened, and the whole world knows why but it chooses to do nothing about it.

Like every instance of oppression and discrimination, those who are automatically grouped as part of the ‘oppressor’ excuse themselves because they don’t think they’ve personally committed blatantly oppressive or discriminatory actions. But that’s not the point: you don’t have to have killed a woman to contribute to the patriarchy. Whether we like it or not, our gender, our race, our sexuality, everything we are born as, affects how we are treated by society. So even if you think you are a ‘good’ man, if you are male you benefit from the patriarchy, and thus, you are safer than your sister and your mother and your female friends.

There are things that women do every time they step outside of the house, that men wouldn’t even begin to think of. For example, my version of the checklist for going anywhere at night is as follows: I don’t walk anywhere alone, I keep to main streets, I don’t use headphones, I stay hyper-aware of everyone around me, I check if anyone is following me, I don’t walk anywhere near a woodland/a river/a canal/backstreets, I regularly text someone my location, I keep my keys in between my fingers (sharp side-up), if I’m drunk then I pretend to be as sober as I can, I don’t walk too close to men I don’t know, I don’t make eye contact, I don’t respond to anyone who shouts at me if I don’t know them, then when I’ve finally made it home, I unlock the door and get inside as quickly as I can, making sure to text someone that I made it home. I do all of these things without thinking and still, my decision to make it home safe is never completely my own. If a man came after me, my physical disability makes it such that I couldn’t even run away: I would have to go wherever he took me.

This is what women live with every day, and we can’t stop it. It’s the responsibility of men to wake up and realise this part of the female experience and to acknowledge that it is they who have the power to stop it. I am a strong, independent female and it pains me to ever feel weak or vulnerable, but I know when to ask for help and I don’t want to die because of my gender. So please ask the women in your life what you can do, and don’t forget about this the second Sarah Everard’s face leaves the news, because there are so many Sarahs , and all they want to do is go home.