In fear of being alone, in fear of the dark

"I DON'T walk borne alone at night. I'm afraid to. Aren't most women?"

"I barricade the door when my flat mate is away and keep a poker under the pillow. And then I take the phone into bed with me"

"During last summer, I remember nights when I nearly died of the beat but was still too afraid to leave a window open."

"Up to now, I used to think I'm not going to let fear stop me living a normal life, but I presume that's what Marilyn Rynn used to think."

None of these is the voice of a shrinking violet. The speakers are women in their 20s to 40s who, on a few heady nights as recently as 1989, linked arms and chanted something about looking for the right to reclaim the night.

Most women have experienced the icy terror of merely hearing footsteps echoing behind them at night of wanting to turn and look but knowing that could be interpreted as an invitation of wanting to break into a run but terrified of what you might provoke of wondering if you should exchange civilities and hope it defuses the situation but might not that be construed as an invitation, too?

A tragedy like that of Marilyn Rynn a fit, sensible, stable 40 year old civil servant has women digging even deeper into our domestic burrows, fearful for ourselves and our children, our lives circumscribed by the availability of bright light, companions and secure parking.

For a while, it seemed women were breaking the mould. There were enough feisty, single women like Marilyn Rynn insisting on living normal lives to persuade us it could be done.

As well as asserting independence in their personal and working lives, it seemed that women might also be able tub win control of their own environments. But was it a false dawn? The random murder statistics say no.

The numbers have remained, fairly static for many years. Statistics also show that, in, general terms, the most like crime victim remains young and male and so is his assailant.

Rape figures will always be" controversial because of under reporting in previous years, but the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre says there was an average of 32 cases of rape a month in 1994. In 1995, that figure had risen to 58 a month.

No one knows what the true rate is because no serious research has been undertaken by the authorities, but DRCC research suggests that well under a third of all rape cases are reported to the police. Government figures show that fewer than half of the files on sex offences sent by the Garda to the DPP's office result in prosecutions.

Carole Stephenson, the American who introduced self defence classes for women to Ireland 16 years ago, believes ironically, that women may be victims of their own success. "Maybe because women are more in control, they believe they are not as vulnerable but does that mean we are taking more risks?"

Many men and not a few women reacted with incredulity to the apparent failure of common sense that led Marilyn Rynn home through an ill lit laneway late at night. In their eyes, it was an unacceptable risk. But others, like Ann Meade, Victim Support's administrator, would argue that a no go area becomes just that only if the community allows it to become one.

"Defence," says Carole Stephenson, "has to happen at a community level. For example, instead of me worrying about the short cut, maybe I can hassle the local authority to light it or fence it off. We had a light out on our cul de sac and it took three months to get it fixed. Another light on a short cut took six months."

Olive Braiden of the Dublin Rape Crisis Centre has little faith in preventive measures, such as personal alarms or, learning self defence.

"At a deeper level, what should worry us is why 51 per cent of the population is afraid of the other 49 per cent? Why, are women always expected to do the protecting of themselves? It's time for decent men to come out and have something to say about the dangers to women on the streets and to show solidarity.

"Maybe there should be guidelines for men on how not to frighten women, such as not to walk too close."

Transition year students in several Dublin schools are benefiting from tuition under Madeleine McDonagh of the Santry Kenpo Karate Club. She is someone who can justly claim that one of her students after six months training did manage to fight off a rapist on Dublin's north side and provide information that led to his capture.

The objective of any good self defence class, Carole Stephenson says, should be to build up awareness and, basically, to remind you of your mother's old dictums, beginning with the one that went "The longest way home is the shortest way in the end."