York programme giving voice to female victims of harassment, fear and abuse
She Was Walking Home has been created entirely by a female-led team.
An audio walk project is taking place in York to give voices to women who have faced fear, harassment and abuse.
She Was Walking Home has been created entirely by a female-led team.
Soon to be accessed through QR codes displayed in buildings, windows and toilets across York city centre, audio dramas have been created from the real life testimonies of women living, working and studying in York.
"Hearing tragic stories of women, walking alone and never making it home, as well as our own stories, we felt we needed to respond.
"As a woman, it’s chilling to hear, devastating that we are still told to get a taxi home, that friends need to ask us to let them know when we are safely through our own front door, that we are still being asked to think about what we wear and how we move safely through our city. It’s exhausting", says Kate Veysey, the project’s director.
"As a theatre company, we were driven to use our platform to tell these stories that need to be heard, to do something to make the streets safer and take the burden off women. It’s everybody’s job to keep our streets safe".
Matt Harper-Hardcastle is the artistic director of Next Door But One: "Our team is made up of 60% women, so in the early months of 2021 we looked at how we could support our team in their careers in light of Covid.
"We also looked at how to help them as people with their mental health, and everything to do with women's safety has been really pertinent. A lot of our team were having conversations with each other about keeping themselves safe, along with fears over going back out into the streets after lockdown.
"We just thought 'we're in a position where we need to do something about this'. As a company we take stories, hear stories and try and play them back to the community. We started there and wanted to see if other women wanted to share their stories as well.
"We wanted to become that space in York where women can talk about what's happening, and what they want to see in the future - that was the premise for She Was Just Walking Home".
Part of the project involves four recordings which are a weaving of thirty three stories of women living, working and studying in York.
Playwright Rachel Price has made the stories into four characters so as to anonymise the submissions.
The recordings reflect real stories and give advice on how to be an ally and what support could be put in place in the future, from those who have experienced harassment and abuse first hand.
Matt says: "We didn't want to shy away from the experiences or to sugar coat anything. We do trigger warn at the start so that people know, but we do want these stories to be heard.
"We don't want the usual suspects to hear these stories, because when we talk about this project a lot of the women we speak to are tired; they're the ones that are constantly telling their stories, asking for help and calling for change.
"That can be absolutely exhausting for them, so we're hoping this project can do some of the legwork - but it's men that we really want to listen to these stories, and ask 'what is the role I can play in this?'
"Can men hear misogyny going on, and then step in and say 'that's not right'? A lot of the fear and harassment that women face - the answer isn't to ask them to do self-defence classes or avoid these streets; it's getting to the root cause and stopping violence straight away".
Kate says: "Often the women we spoke to had this internal dialogue with themselves as they were walking at night, a way of assessing the safety of each moment.
"We wanted people who hadn’t experienced this to understand what it felt like and an audio walk fitted that. People can be in the streets, listening to those thoughts, bringing them closer to these stories. It’s also very accessible as it’s recorded, so as many people can hear it as possible, at any time."
Next Door But One collaborated with IDAS and Kyra, two organisations who work to support women who have experienced harassment, or assault.
Sarah Everard, who was originally from York, was killed following a fake arrest. North Yorkshire Police, Fire and Crime Commissioner Philip Allott recently apologised after suggesting that women need to be 'streetwise'.
Matt says there's a 'power imbalance', especially when women who are victims of crime are questioned on their role rather than the perpetrators themselves.
"We like to think that men and women are equal in our society, but there's still a long way to go. Why aren't we turning to the perpetrators and saying 'this is your fault and this needs to be stopped'?
"A theme throughout the experiences shared with us was shame and guilt; that the women felt they were causing the issue. Unless we change the way we look at this, not only are women experiencing these absolute atrocities but they're also carrying this burden of guilt - that it's their fault and they shouldn't report it.
"It's absolutely gut-wrenching and that's why it needs to stop".
You can find the audio projects and recordings here.