I took the above photo in my neighborhood this week. It seems someone tossed this large stuffed animal in the trash and a local tagger decided he must mark “his” territory.
Oddly, this got me thinking about my final gym job — before the lockdowns and mandates.
The health club was housed in a massive building that used to be the old Astoria Theater and the entrance was on the third floor. The elevators felt and sounded ancient (and were always crowded) so I chose to walk up and down three flights of stairs several times each day.
One day, a female client of mine texted that she would be a little late. When she arrived, she explained that one of the elevators was out of order and the other was running slowly. I suggested she use the stairs next time and she replied: “No way!”
Her explanation was simple. She did not feel safe in the industrial-looking stairwell. When I walked the stairs later that day, I took notice of the graffiti, the garbage, and other signs of an unsupervised venue.
Over the next week, I asked all my female clients if they ever took the stairs and every single one of them gave some version of “no way!”
When I told the gym manager about this, he said, “I never thought of that.” Bingo! How many men would consider this reality because how many men would be nervous to use a mostly empty stairwell?
This brings me back to the topic of graffiti.
I appreciate some graffiti murals and I respect the “walls are the canvases of the poor” philosophy. But it’s crucial to recognize what spray-painted buildings can also represent. The majority of graffiti artists are male but it’s women who most fear walking alone.
If a guy with a can of spray paint has enough time to commit the crime of creating an elaborate piece without getting caught, that means men have time to perpetrate other crimes without risking arrest.
How does this feel to women, kids, the disabled, or the elderly? They’re not swooning over guerilla art. More likely, they’re hoping to avoid such locations for fear of becoming a victim.
Whether it’s a rarely used gym stairwell or a desolate urban street, we all need to raise our awareness and discernment. Just because you don’t think it’ll happen to you doesn’t mean it won’t often happen to someone else.
This is precisely where the social justice term “privilege” comes from.
Broaden your perspective and deepen your connections by having eyes to see and ears to hear…
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Thank you, as always, this is something I’d not considered from that point of view. My wife had mentioned how she doesn’t like our parking garage at night, I never really understood what difference it made. Feeling a little thick headed all of a sudden.
Great point. When my husband died several friends in (small) town asked if I was not going to move into town instead of living alone here in the woods. I told them I never saw a deer with a gun. In the last few years, crime has mounted in small town and I am glad to live in the woods still.
I cannot even imagine living in a big town like NY and absolutely can agree with these women not used the stairwell (even though it would make great exercise)