Lately, I keep coming back to the same questions: Why me? What could I have done differently? Do I seem like an easy target?
In the space of a few months, I have been chased and assaulted by a man while running, kissed and hugged by multiple clients without my consent, and screamed at by an older man on a tram after work.
It feels like too many incidents in too little time. My mind keeps searching for something that explains why I have been targeted. That search often turns inward.
I question why I did not stand up for myself. Why I did not push someone away, raise my voice or fight back. Afterwards, I feel angry with myself and promise that next time I will respond differently. Yet, when another incident happens, I freeze or try to placate the man in front of me.
Then I find myself judging my own response, as though his behaviour has somehow become another test I have failed.
I can recognise that these experiences sit within a broader pattern of how women are treated. But knowing that does not silence the voice asking what I did wrong. I replay the details, looking for something I could have changed. I compare my experiences with those of my friends and trying desperately to understand why this seems to keep happening to me.
Telling people can make that voice louder. Even well-intentioned responses often centre on why I did not stand up for myself, or the small things someone else would have done differently. What might be intended as advice lands as another suggestion that I could have prevented it.
Most of these incidents happened in professional settings or with witnesses around. I am not short or physically small. I never had revealing clothing on nor was I under the influence of alcohol. I mention these details because I catch myself assembling evidence that I should not have been an ‘easy target’, as though I need to prove I took every possible precaution before I can place responsibility where it belongs.
But I should not have to make that case.
What I wore, how I behaved, whether I was alone or how I responded should never determine whether I am entitled to safety. The familiar excuses, “look what you wore”, “you encouraged him”, “you should not have been there alone”, “you did drink a lot”, do not explain harassment. They redirect responsibility away from the person who chose to do it.
Still, those messages can become so deeply embedded that we repeat them to ourselves. Even when we reject victim blaming outwardly, we can find ourselves using its logic against our own experiences.
These incidents have also made me think about the culture in which they occur. We talk about violence against women through statistics on domestic violence, sexual assault and women killed by men. We also need to talk about the everyday expressions of entitlement: unwanted touching, intimidation, harassment, and the assumption that women will tolerate it or quietly manage the situation.
These acts differ in severity, but the attitudes that excuse them deserve scrutiny. Each time a boundary violation is dismissed, or a woman is asked why she did not stop it, the expectation that women must manage men’s behaviour is reinforced.
My mind wants a pattern or an answer. It wants an explanation and, perhaps most of all, a way to make sure this never happens again. I understand why it searches my own behaviour: changing myself can feel more achievable than changing the world around me.
But I need to stop looking within myself for the cause of someone else’s actions.
Freezing did not make me responsible. Placating a man did not give him permission. Failing to deliver the response I imagined afterwards did not mean I accepted what happened.
Responsibility belongs to the men who chose to harass, intimidate or assault me. It also belongs to a culture that too often excuses their behaviour, protects their reputations and asks women what we could have done differently.
I am tired of turning their choices into questions about my worth, my strength or my judgement.
The question I need to ask is why they felt entitled to behave that way and why women are still expected to carry the blame.