Najera to Santo Domingo

I'm incredibly conflicted writing this because today was a great day, but it was the consequence of something awful.

Today I walked with a larger group for the first time, which was an amazing experience.

The reason? Yesterday one of the women was walking alone and a man followed her in a car, got out and started walking behind her while masturbating.

Thankfully she was able to run ahead towards some more pilgrims, but she was lucky; when I walked that way just half an hour later, I was totally alone.

As soon as word spread, it was decided that while we were in the same area, none of the women in the group should walk alone.

Obviously this made sense on a logical level but emotionally I was incensed. It makes me so angry that as a woman I have to change how I live my life because of some pervert going round with his dick out.

That it happened on sodding International Women's Day made it even worse somehow.

What it did offer, was the opportunity for the women in the group to share similar stories of harassment they've experienced with the men of the group - I think they were really surprised by what they heard.

The idea of a man sitting in his car by a known pilgrim route waiting for a woman alone to walk by so he can get off on wanking at her creeps the hell out of me.

Sexual harassment isn't a woman's problem. No amount of pepper spray or rape alarms are going to undermine the misogyny that lies below such as act.

Sexual harassment is a man's problem; we need male allies in the fight against this shit and they need to know what we're up against if they're to support us.

That's why I've chosen to write about this in the blog - awful stuff like this happens to women every day, sadly, even on Camino and it's important to me that my friend's experience isn't just 'one of those things'.