Women Take Over #safetytipsforladies and Make It 100 Times Better

Oh, cool. Some very helpful person went on Twitter and, out of the goodness of their hearts, started giving out advice to women on the best ways for us to go about our days un-raped and tagging their know-how with #safetytipsforladies. [Correction: #safetytipsforladies was actually started by Hillary Bowman-Smart in response to a victim blame-y post found on The Punch. Credit and blame where credit and blame is due!]

While I’m sure that the person who wrote the article had good intentions in mind, I’m also sure that this kind of advice gets exhausting and is pretty fucking patronizing. For the most part, we ladies know not to walk home alone at night. We know not to accept drinks from strangers. We know that getting black-out drunk should probably be avoided. We know.

But we also know that we should be able to do all of those things and that getting wasted or daring to be outside alone between the hours of 6pm (4:30 in the winter) and 6am does not mean that we are asking for something bad to happen to us. Maybe a little more of the energy that people put towards offering up oh-so considerate #safetytipsforladies would be better spent writing #tips to not rape someone. There’s really only one: Don’t rape someone #tipstonotrapesomeone

Luckily, the women of Twitter took over something dumb and made it into something awesome. #safetytipsforladies has been co-opted.

Here are some of the best (of the best):

Stay off the streets.

Avoid people. Dolphins, too, probably.

Death is the only escape.

Dinosaurs eat man. Woman inherits the earth.

Wingardium leviosa.

You’re not here to make friends.

Hashtag of the Day: #safetytipsforladies [Feministing]