A Glasgow councillor has shared an experience which she said was an example of a man stepping up to ensure a woman was safe.
She told a meeting of Glasgow City Council of an incident where someone spotted she could be in danger and took action.
Lana Reid McConnell, Green councillor for Victoria Park led a debate on violence against woman and girls this week.
She said: “When we talk about the safety of woman and girls in our city it can mean many different things.
“It can mean your experience of taking the train or the bus to work, walking down the street as the sun starts to set, passing an area of town that’s all of a sudden a lot quieter.
“It can mean whether you get to make it home safe or whether once you make it home, you’re in a safe place.
“We all have friends or family, or us ourselves have countless experiences that span these locations, these occasions that have scarred us a little or gives us something that lives at the front of our minds for the rest of our lives.
“Many of us have shared our experiences in this chamber and I could talk at length of personal experiences that I have reflected on and felt it could have gone differently.
“About 10 years a go I was in a club in Edinburgh and I’d stayed a bit later with two men that myself and friends thought we had befriended that night because they were going to be walking home the same way as me. My friends were walking the opposite way.
“It wasn’t long until one of the bouncers came up to me and said cold he speak to me in the staffroom.
“He said ‘I can’t let you walk home with those guys tonight. I’ve overheard them having a conversation and I don’t believe you are going to be safe with them’.
“He got the manager, and both of them looking quite worried, he showed me to the side door and insisted on booking and paying for my taxi home.
In that moment I was in shock but I’ve often reflected and remembered this moment over the years and felt grateful to that bouncer who literally made it his job to make sure I got home safe that night.”
She had a message to men talking to the streets under the guise of ‘protecting women and girls.
She said: “Obviously talking the root cause is the goal but in a world where we will always see violence from some that’s an example of looking out for people.
“What is not an example of looking out for women and girls is running around the city in balaclavas spouting misinformation and attacking a minority.
“Violence against woman and girls can mean a very varied set of circumstances and there are many things men can do in their homes, friendship places, workplaces, random encounters in public to wither show solidarity, stick up for, or literally make woman and girls feel safe.”
Source – Glasgow times
