We may not be 100% confident how to pronounce Saoirse Ronan’s name, but we’re unlikely to forget it after a now viral point she just made.
The – stop me if you’ve heard this one before – token lone female guest on a TV show also hosted by a man of course, Saoirse was on Graham Norton’s sofa with Eddie Redmayne, Denzel Washington and Paul Mescal.
Redmayne told a story about training for The Day Of The Jackal, and being shown how to use his phone as a weapon in the event of an attack. Oh, how they laughed.
Paul Mescal quipped: “Who is actually going to think about that though? If someone actually attacked me, I’m not going to go ‘phone’.” Guffawing along, Graham Norton mimicked putting a hand up to an assailant, asking, ‘can you hold on a second?’ while patting his pockets looking for his mobile, to which Eddie Redmayne giggled, and agreed, ‘That’s a very good point’.
“That’s what girls have to think about all the time,” Saoirse said, a simple, sharp sentence that instantly burst their bubble of privilege. What happened next provides welcome insight into what needs to be done here.
Because there was a long moment of stunned silence. Dead air. Utter confusion as the men struggled to make sense of Saoirse’s statement.
It showed that we’re taking too much for granted. We can quote facts/figures/statistics about how many women are attacked/raped/murdered as they try to go about their lives, but apparently that doesn’t hit home.
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PA)What now seems clear is that men have no idea about the basics: what it’s like to move about the world as a woman.
And how could they, really? It’s alien to them. We need to explain it, spell out our reality, so they truly get it. Men, listen to this: every woman you know is on high alert all the time. Not just late at night, or even after dark – all the time.
Not just in quiet secluded areas – everywhere. Not just with blokes who look creepy or scary, not just with strangers – with all of you. You never know, you see. Sorry – to be entirely unambiguous – we never know.
So, to recap: high alert, all the time, everywhere, with everyone. We can’t tell who’s lovely and who’s dangerous from the footsteps behind us. We also have to hide being on high alert.
If we make it too obvious we’re dawdling so you have to walk ahead of us rather than behind, or studiously avoiding eye contact, or crossing a road to get some distance, or that we’re uncomfortable, wary, frightened, that might make you angry, and then you might confront us about that.
So instead we act, like our lives depend on it, because sometimes they do. Every woman you know has pretended to be suddenly transfixed by a shop window, stopped to look for something in her bag, answered an imaginary phone call.
The sobering realisation I’ve just had is that nobody ever taught me any of this. Maybe it’s different for others, but I picked it up without noticing. It’s not second nature, it’s first.
So, men, now you know. Not all of it, not even the half of it, but at least some of it. Hopefully you understand. And thanks to Saoirse, now you’ll remember that deciding whether you’ll use the keys between your fingers or your mobile phone to defend yourself is no laughing matter.
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