March 8: One day of sensitivity, 364 days of neglect

Retired Senior Naval Colonel - SAS Commander Alp Lüleci

Every year when March 8 arrives, shop windows turn purple and social media overflows with sentences about "awareness." However, the next morning, the same streets, the same bus stops, the same dark corners, and the same neglect that has remained unchanged for years stand exactly where they were in all their nakedness. Women's safety is not a symbolic sensitivity topic that can be squeezed into a single day marked on a calendar; it is a clear area of responsibility that directly concerns the heart of public safety and from which those in power cannot escape.

There is a very clear truth that reports published by UN Women and the United Nations state in common today: Violence against women is not just a sum of individual cases, but a systematic and predictable security problem. In other words, this issue is not an area to be softened under the heading of "social responsibility," but a matter of direct risk management.

The fundamental approach I have advocated in the field for years is based exactly on this: Women's safety is only meaningful when addressed with a preventive security perspective. I do not defend this approach only in theory; I also apply it directly in the decision-making under stress, crisis management, risk awareness, and behavior-based security training I provide to corporate firms, managers, and field teams. Especially in scenario-based and practical training sessions fed by real cases, I teach participants not how to intervene after an incident has occurred, but rather how to prevent it. to ensure the incident never happens in the first place, I analyze which early warning signs should be identified, which managerial and environmental decisions increase risk, and how security should be systematically designed in environments where women are present. Based on my field experience, I can state this very clearly: A perspective that does not change through education will not change through cameras or procedures either. A preventive security culture only finds its true meaning when it is built within the minds of decision-makers and employees. 

For those in charge today, the picture is extremely clear. For a municipal administrator, school principal, factory manager, or office building operator, women's safety is not just about installing cameras at the door, hanging posters, or issuing press statements after a crisis. Lighting design, blind spot analysis, safe transportation and entry-exit routes, environmental risks based on shift end times, communication chains to be activated in emergencies, and staff training on violence awareness must all be addressed as a whole.

In corporate structures, we still see this reflex very often: "If an incident occurs, we will do what is necessary."

However, in the world of security, this sentence is a declaration of failure. Because security is designed before an incident, not after.

The first and most critical step for administrators is to create a real risk map regarding the areas where women are present. Which areas force isolation? Which hours generate risk? In which processes are women unable to access support mechanisms? Which reporting channels actually work? Without providing technical and honest answers to these questions, it is impossible to speak of security.

However, the responsibility does not end with those in charge.

For individuals, women's safety should not be limited to the "be careful" warnings that have been repeated for years. Being able to read environmental risks, recognizing dangerous areas, not suppressing intuition, viewing asking for help as a professional reflex rather than a weakness, and being able to distinguish the first signs of violence are vital skills. Just like knowing first aid, just like being familiar with a fire evacuation plan.

One of the sentences I hear most often in the field is this: "Nothing will happen to us." From a security perspective, this is the riskiest assumption.

Beyond these and many similar assumptions and teachings of learned helplessness, the real problem is that women are only remembered on March 8. Slogans shared for one day do not cover up the files closed the next day. While stalking, harassment, threats, psychological pressure, and violence continue 365 days a year, squeezing security into a single day means not taking the issue truly seriously.

True equality is not built with flowers, banners, or one-day messages, but with properly designed spaces, conscious managers, functioning preventive systems, and strong individual awareness.

Women's safety is not a matter of "sensitivity," but directly a matter of management quality and social

security indicator. 

And let's be clear: Systems that remember women only one day a year are also systems that remember security only when a crisis arises.

Let's look at the date of March 8 from this perspective as well... What do you think?

News Source: 12punto