We’ve all done it. Psyched ourselves up to somehow go outside of our comfort zone by repeating the mantra: “The worst thing that they can say is ‘no’.” We’ve said it to our friends when they need that little extra push, we’ve repeated it to ourselves for that final burst of energy before applying for that dream job, and god knows that groups of men have said it to each other before sidling up uninvited next to a solitary woman at a bar.

After all, the worst thing we can say is no, right?

It’s an affirmation that’s become well-trodden over the years, but one that reveals only half a truth. Namely, that the power ‘no’ holds means a very different thing for women than it does for men. For women, in fact, it can be a word that costs them their lives. On 27 September 2023, it was reported that a 15-year-old girl died from a stabbing, with the wound purportedly being inflicted by a 17-year-old boy.

While the case is still ongoing, news outlets are reporting that the girl may have been killed after supporting her friend in rejecting the boy’s romantic advances. An onlooker claimed that he stabbed the girl after her friend, who was believed to have previously been in a relationship with the boy, rejected his flowers and love note.

Of course, until this case goes to trial and the facts are truly determined, it’s impossible to say with certainty what the motives behind this stabbing were. But if these accounts are to be believed, it means that one simple word cost a teenager her life. And no matter the outcome of this particular case, it has brought to light just how insidious and, frankly, dangerous it has become to exist as a female.

While the very notion of rejection is a man’s worst-case scenario, for a woman, it’s the consequences of uttering that rejection. In the same way that men are told by ‘alpha males’ and ‘pickup artists’ that the worst thing women can tell them is ‘no’, we’re constantly faced with the very real prospect that if we do say no, it will be either ignored or punished.

As women, how often have we been told that we just need to ‘be polite’ when faced with unwanted attention? Haven’t we all had to grit our teeth through smiles as we’re pawed at like exhibits at a petting zoo, pretend our skin isn’t crawling as we’re catcalled by a group of men while walking alone after dark or scribble down an old disconnected phone number in the vain hope that the man twice our age at the bar will leave us alone? 

We’ve been taught from a formative age that saying ‘no’ isn’t even an option for us if we want to leave the situation with our lives. Instead, we’ve been forced to become bomb disposal experts and terrorist negotiators: trying to placate someone who won’t take no for an answer as we desperately try to disarm the weapon, knowing that one false step will no doubt lead to annihilation.

I think that shared experience of having to fight for our lives with a smile and soothing words is why the young girl’s death in Croydon resonated with so many women on social media. She is us, and we are her. We’re all perpetual victims of the same violence and values that uphold a system that allows men to continually laugh in the face of ‘no’. 

It hasn’t even been two weeks since another teenager, this time 16, claimed she was the victim of a man refusing to take no for an answer. She alleged she was raped by comedian Russell Brand, a claim Brand has vehemently denied. After the anonymous alleged victim, now an adult, went on the record explaining how she felt coerced and pressured by this significantly older man, the consensus was that if she really wasn’t into it, she would’ve just said ‘no’ to him in the first place.

It was the same complaints levied against other women who made allegations against him, all of which he denies, who either felt uncomfortable from the outset, consented to some activities but not others or initially consented before withdrawing their consent at a later point. Surely if these women didn’t want anything to happen, they would’ve just said no, right? Wrong. As women, we’ve been socialised to learn that saying ‘no’ isn’t really an option for us, especially if the power dynamics suggest that if we do so, we’ll face losing our lives. And when push comes to shove, these fears are far from unfounded.

We all know violence against women and girls is as big a problem as ever, with a woman being murdered by a man on average every three days in the UK, but at the root of this horrific violence is often rejection. Between 2018 and 2019, 43% of women killed by current/former partners had either already left them or were in the process of leaving them. High-profile murder sprees like those carried out by Elliot Rodger and Jake Davison were both found to have links to the ‘incel’ subculture – an online community which, at its core, involves straight men channelling their inability to find a romantic or sexual partner into radical, misogynistic rhetoric and alt-right extremism.

As all this is happening, the wider ‘manosphere’ is proving to be more influential than ever. Young boys are being told that females are objects that they must enact complete control over: that they must be aggressive seducers, pick-up artists and ‘alpha males’ if they want to succeed in attaining the women that they’re already being regularly told that they’re entitled to. They have to keep aggressively pursuing these women and girls because hey, at the end of the day, the worst thing they can say is no, right?

Men’s aggressive entitlement over women’s minds and bodies is something I’ve been aware of for as long as I’ve been alive, but in the past few years – probably ever since Sarah Everard’s murder – it’s felt a lot heavier. More suffocating. And definitely more brazen. Whatever happens, I’ll always look back at this month and remember it as a moment when a new low in women’s safety was reached – at a time when it truly felt it couldn’t get any lower. If we can’t even reject someone’s advances on the street out of fear of getting stabbed, where are women and girls meant to go from here? How are we meant to feel safe? Truth be told, I don’t think a woman or girl has ever truly felt safe – and even if they did in the past, we can’t exist in society as it is and ever expect to feel safe again.

Images: Getty