One in three Australian women fear being sexually assaulted in public places at night.
According to the”A Right to the Night” report, many women also believe they should never travel alone on public transport.
What on earth are we doing, Australia? For a nation that is supposed to be advanced, civilised, tolerant and about equality, how can Australia have one third of women feeling afraid to be out at night? This is the 21st Century, right?
Being shocked at such claims of female fear should quickly give way to sad reality. We only need to note how widespread campaigns against domestic violence — particularly violence against women — have been prominent across Australia. For the past few years. Truly, that’s a depressing and damning testimony against male and female relations in Australia.
Perfect love vs. fear
Without suggesting I can instantly fix what “A Right to the Night” lays bare, it does lead me back to comforting and transformative words about perfect love driving out fear.
The New Testament letter of 1 John includes stacks of cool stuff. One example is in chapter four, where it is boldly declared that “God is love” (1 John 4:8, 16) The writer of the letter, John, goes on to urge us to remain in this divine love. Doing so places us on an incredible trajectory to the perfected love that will be fully realised when Jesus Christ returns on “the day of judgment” (1 John 4:17). Being caught up in such a love also means not being afraid. “There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment.” (1 John 4:18)
While that last sentence refers to God’s perfect love in Jesus driving out any fear we might have of God’s wrath, it’s also a positive principle to take into our lives right now.
Think about it: if we all seriously tried our best to share God’s perfect love with each other, the kind of fear that one third of Australian women are carrying around could be banished. Fear would no longer need to be present, because the love of Jesus would have taken over.
Imagine an Australia like that.
Ben McEachen
