Welcome to Women’s Health
When I moved to London from my home village at 18, desperately excited to start my new life in the big city, I cruelly dismissed my mother’s obvious discouragement as a lack of ambition. How could someone who’d never lived outside the South Wales Valleys have any concept of the vibrancy and opportunity that awaited me? Twenty-five years later, as a mother myself, I can see now that she was simply terrified of the dangers I might face in a vast unknown city – and I’ll freely admit she had every right to be concerned.
I experienced sexual harassment on an almost daily basis. Catcalls that turned into aggressive shouts when I didn’t reciprocate with a sweet smile of gratitude. Nights when I was mistaken for a sex worker when walking home from my student bar job. The time the uncle of a fellow university student pinned me against a wall in our halls of residence and threatened to insert a lit cigarette in my eye because I’d made it clear his feelings for me weren’t reciprocated.
Decades later, in my thirties and pushing my baby son in his pram, I was followed by a male teenager into a car park; it was only when a passing boy on a bike shouted, ‘Why are you following her?’ that I felt the confidence to turn around and confront the man on my trail. He stood and stared until another passer-by intervened. I remember the fear – for myself and my son – still now.
Looking back, that fear was an ever-present threat that I’ve continued to tolerate, day after day. Like so many women, I’ve accepted it as a sad but unavoidable fact of life. But this year, I’ve been forced to face the matter with a new clarity; the relentless horrifying headlines about the appalling and needless deaths of Sabina Nessa, Sarah Everard and the 78 others who’ve been killed by a man since March have shone a light on what women experience at the mercy of men, and rightly caused a groundswell of outrage. Sabina and Sarah were simply going about their daily business, much like I was when walking home from my bar job or taking my son out in his pram for fresh air.
I know members of the Women’s Health team have felt bereft; overwhelmed by injustice and incandescent with rage. It’s why in this, our annual Mind Issue, we charged writer Lauren Clark to investigate the mental health impact of this pernicious threat of male violence. The hidden harm is worse than I’d imagined; research has found that this kind of fear activates your body’s stress response, which, if triggered frequently, causes harmful structural changes in the brain associated with trauma. There are also studies that recognise the link between sexual objectification and negative body image, which WH’S own Project Body Love campaign research found can cause deep-rooted mental health issues and hold women back from everyday personal and professional opportunities. The impact on women who’ve experienced sexual harassment can be devastatingly long-term; they’re twice as likely to experience elevated blood pressure, suffer with insomnia and have increased risk of depression and anxiety years later. Turn to page 110 for our must-read feature, including accounts from four women whose lives have been altered irreversibly by their experiences of male violence.
Take care, stay strong and enjoy the issue. Until next month...