28/03/2026
👧🏻👩👩🏻🦰 Women's Wednesday - Topic 1: Safety 👱🏿♀️👩🏽🦱🧑🦳
We were joined this week by Avon and Somerset Police and South Gloucestershire Council to talk about women's safety.
We had a really interesting evening listening to one another's experiences of occasions where we felt unsafe. Unfortunately, far too many of us have been harassed when running, even in the slightest of ways.
We also discussed different ways each of us keep ourselves safe and how men often think it's neurotic, but in reality it's simply a sign of the lengths women have to go to to protect themselves. Fortunately for men, these just aren't considerations they necessarily even think about because they dont have to.
We were given some great information and learnt about different initiatives involving CCTV - the project to put cameras along certain sections of the cycle track and the use of cameras at metrobus bus-stops (did you know there is an emergency button at the pay station, which a control room can then immediately monitor the bus stop CCTV and contact the police if required? - next time you go past a bus stop, have a look!) We came away with plenty of other information and resources, including equipment, apps, how to report incidents and how to report unsafe locations/conditions e.g. overgrown bushes along footpaths.
Take a look at our slides to read some of the things that the women at our club have experienced whilst running, how they keep themselves safe, and how men can support when in making them feel safe.
We'd be interested to know your thoughts on any of the topics in the slides or mentioned here.
Special note: We collectively agreed on the night that we hadn't experienced this from men at our club and didn't feel unsafe with our male club members 💚🖤
