Remember Their Names

On March 3rd, Sarah Everard was walking home from a friend’s house. She was walking in a well-lit area, wearing bright clothes, and calling her boyfriend. She had agreed to meet her boyfriend the next day, and was last seen at 9 p.m in the night. However, she didn’t appear the next day, and a week later, her remains were found in a neighboring county. On Friday, a serving male police officer was arrested on charges of murder and kidnapping.

She was just walking home. And yet somehow, she was still murdered senselessly, just for being a woman walking out in the dark. Since when has it gotten to the point when women can’t even walk out of their own homes in fears of being harassed or assaulted?

For centuries, women, and only women, have been talking about these issues which have been perpetrating into our societies since the beginning of time. It has been women who’ve stood silently at the vigil of Sarah Everard. And that is exactly what the problem is.

For far too long, men have idly stood by while women have stood up for women’s rights, human rights. For far too long, they have been stuck in the patriarchy, which is allowing tragedies like what happened to Sarah Everard to continue. Some men have stood out and expressed their beliefs for equal rights and a united society, but ‘some’ are far less than the majority. More and more men have to start exiting this bubble that enforces this belief that “women are lesser.” The way that men are participating in these conversations has to start changing.

We live in the 21st century, which is a blessing among many others. Along with new technology and discoveries, we’ve developed a new mindset too, one which allows us to accept others for who they are, regardless of their sexual orientation, race, beliefs, and more. Yet for gender, it’s just not clicking for so many people. Even with the outpouring support for women’s rights from all over the world, women are still afraid of walking outside of their own homes, as men still continue to harass and assault women on the street. As a result, stories like Sarah Everard’s suddenly pop on the headlines on every single news outlet, but slowly vanish after a couple of days. With every story like hers, we proclaim, “Remember her name!” but we never do. It’s a cycle of looking at the headline, reposting their face on Instagram, and then their name fading from our lips two days later.

Yet the number one thing we cannot allow ourselves to do, no matter what, is stand by. We should never refuse to do something when the time calls, especially if the cost of standing by is lives. Because if someone had chosen to do the right thing at the right time when it came to Sarah Everard, she could have been alive today. She could have been smiling and laughing with her family today, and we wouldn’t be using her as an example to have this discussion today.

So to all women, check in with your friend. If she’s talking too long on her daily walk, give her a quick text, or call her. Possibly even use apps like Circle of 6, or Tonraj, which both alert your friends and close contacts if you ever find yourself in a dangerous situation. Make sure everybody around you is safe, but above all, make sure you are.

But it’s not just up to women to help end this terrorizing cycle of harassment that’s bleeding into our society today. Men have to speak up for this movement, and they have to continue to speak up. If you see somebody getting harassed, strike up a conversation with the victim to distract the harasser. Speak up if your friend makes a sexist comment or remark. While it may seem hard to speak up, staying complicit and remaining a bystander to this type of behavior can be just as harmful. Listen first before rushing to conclusions. Don’t justify reasons for harassment just to protect the bubble in which you live so comfortably in. Don’t make jokes on this topic out of “dark humor,” which only normalizes this type of behavior. Incorporate this belief of standing up for common rights in your everyday life.

We have to stop portraying each other as enemies, and instead start to hold hands for a common cause; to help build the world that we all so badly want to live in. We can stop thinking of an equal world as a distant utopia, and instead start to slowly build towards it.

Likewise, on a last note, it’s important to remember that this isn’t just Sarah Everard’s story. This is also the story of the hundreds of women out there, their life tragically ended, whose names have been forgotten. We keep on brushing this conversation away, saving it for a later time in the later future, but if not now, then when? We can’t let these women become another statistic, which is exactly why we have to start speaking up now. We have to start changing the conversation. Stop “protecting your daughters,” instead “educate your sons.”

This is the story of women’s rights, and human’s rights, and just simply standing up for what is right.

Remember their names, and never forget.