Ladies Alone on the Trail

The other day, a woman in the hiking fb page I'm part of made a post about being frightened on the trail when she's by herself and asked how others stay safe.  Probably a doze or more other women said they also really want to get out and hike, but they are scared to do it alone.  
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Lots of folks chimed in, with lots of helpful tips.  Nearly all the men (and a few ladies) said get a gun.  Let me say this - I have no issues with gun ownership.  However, very few folks out there are going to be well enough trained to pull a gun under duress/surprise attack and be able to shoot it accurately.  I don't carry a gun because, frankly, I'm clumsy and I'm much more likely to get a twig stuck near the trigger and shoot myself.  I read somewhere once that under a 100 hours on the range and don't even bother. 
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After doing some reading, carrying a gun without significant training and practice can also lead to a false sense of security.  You have the gun, right?  So folks often become lax in keeping up their other safeguards.  
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And while a number of guys chimed in that they, too, were scared when they first started hiking alone (kudos!), I was surprised to see woman after woman posting.  So why so many women?  Well, let's be real - society teaches women that it's dangerous for us to go out alone.  Rape culture, right?  Carry your keys, be aware of your surroundings, etc.  It's a real thing.  There's safety in numbers.  Add the visceral fear humans have of the unknown AND being alone in the woods, and it's easy to see a stranger waiting to hurt us behind every tree. 
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What's also real, though, is (taken from the Bureau of Justice Statistics):
- Females are generally murdered by people they know.
- In 64% of female homicide cases in 2007, females were killed by a family member or intimate partner.
- In 2007, 24% of female homicide victims were killed by a spouse or ex-spouse; 21% were killed by a boyfriend or girlfriend; and 19% by another family member. 
- In an additional 25% of cases in 2007, females were killed by others they knew. An estimated 10% of female murder victims were killed by a stranger. 
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I tried to google information about crime/attacks on women in National Parks, and frankly couldn't find any (I kept getting information about bison and bear attacks).  I tried local state parks in Ohio, and came up with a grand total of 3 instances over forty years - a man with a mask approached a jogger on a trail, but she ran past him; a woman was murdered in a parking lot by someone she knew; and two children were taken to a park from elsewhere and killed.  Horrifying.  
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There were other instances of violence in some urban metropark parking lots, but they involved those that went there for things other than hiking (drug deals, etc.).
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Random attacks by strangers in rural areas is lower than those in urban areas.  Can something happen on the trails? Sure, of course.  Yet, throughout the day, we still walk to the store, go to the movies, take our kids to the park...go about our every day lives.  And as we do, most of us don't actually take any precautions at all.  We don't even think about it, if it's daylight. 
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I'm not downplaying these instances or fears by ANY means.  But I do believe that you can be a woman (or man) and enjoy the trails on your own, without fear, by taking good safety precautions.  We should make sure that our fear of being alone on the trail is proportionate and appropriate, not paralyzing or preventative.  We're going to talk about these precautions later on this week.  They're also good against animals, too, because to be honest you're more likely to have a run in with wildlife than a person. 
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Have a tip for safety on the trails when out there alone? Leave it below!