As your friend, peer, colleague, family or a simple stranger, I want to share what keeping myself safe looks like. When I discussed some of these with male friends, they were genuinely surprised. So, I decided to to share them with more people. Not to spark an argument about how men too, live life in fear. Just a simple look into your friend Jacqueline’s everyday life.

1. 10 people have my location at all times
2. I text my roommate every time I am going to head home from somewhere so she knows to expect me
3. I am a server who works late hours, I will not walk outside to my car alone no matter what. I don’t care who it is I walk out with I simply will not walk out to the parking lot alone.
4. As a reporter who works out of Hilton, sometimes I am the last one to leave the media room which is terrifying, I call someone to talk on the phone with me until I am in my car driving away
5. Sometimes if a dual goes late enough I will take all my work home even though I don’t work well at home just to avoid walking alone
6. When I am walking to my car I scan every possible area around my car, I peer in my back seat and I look at the cars next to mine before getting in my car
7. I carry my keys in a way that I can use them as a weapon at all times
8. I memorize license plates when driving on the interstate if I feel any doubt at all.
9. When I am traveling out of state alone and someones behavior seems very off and is acting in ways I’ve been warned by law enforncement to be alarmed by, I’ll text two different groupchats with a ping of my location and the licence plate number of the suspicious car.
10. I will not take back roads at night anymore
11. I have 6 people listed in my Medical ID in case I ever need to use that in an emergency
12. I do not stop at truck stops ever
13. I won’t get gas in the middle of the night, I make sure to be filled up so I can avoid stopping at gas stations at night
14. If I will be riding an Uber alone, I make sure to avoid standing outside alone while they arrive, I’ll wait inside the building or in some cases as close to the bar bouncers as possible, I also won’t get in the car until I hear the Uber tell me their name so I don’t risk an Uber scam
15. I park as close to business entrances as possible especially at Walmart
16. I’ve driven around the block from my actual house if I ever get sketched out by a car because better safe than sorry
17. I never pay for my gas inside, I always use my card in hopes to spend as little time at the gas station as possible. If I have to use cash and it’s a place that’ll let me fill before paying, I’ll drive myself up to the building and pay instead of leaving my car at the pump after hearing men were sneaking into women’s cars or choosing to hide under.
18. I always have a phone charger on me and I will not drive home without my phone being charged. I do not care where I am, everywhere has a plug in to keep my phone charged.

I don’t do this to be dramatic. Take the time to google crimes on women and read the statistics. Talk to law enforcement and some of the things they see women face in something as mundane as a trip to go grocery shopping. There’s hard proof that a walk to your car can result in something bad. It’s an ugly world.