Well, I studied at Manchester Victoria University. I've often said that Manchester was the most dangerous place I've ever lived in - and that includes London. During my three years there, I learnt to be very cautious. So many females students were attacked; a Japanese tourist had her handbag ripped from her shoulder by a jogger on the main street of Oxford Road - a busy street full of people; a grandmother was murdered in a nearby park; hands were thrust into student rooms through open, ground-floor windows in an attempt to steal whatever they could; there was a peeping Tom at the back of our student hall; security guards escorting female students from the nearby student hall of Owens Park Tower would attack and rape them instead. Even I was attacked from behind while going to visit friends in a private house in a residential area. The place was not safe. And, naturally, the perpetrators were all male. That is why all women were urged to be alert at all times.
But that was many years ago and you would have thought that things had improved by now.
It seems not. Listen to this poem which was first broadcast on Women's Hour last week and was then on Pick of the Week as so many people contacted the BBC to ask if they could hear it again. If it's too fast, use the settings (the symbol that looks like a cogwheel or a daisy) to slow it down a bit. Or listen to it again and again... it's bloody good.
At What Point - by Caitlin O'Ryan
