Written by: Muskan Shah, Moitrayee Das
Nirbhaya. The fearless one. Nearly 14 years ago, when the details of the case were made known to the public, Indians took to the street to express their outrage, demanding harsher punishments and increased safety measures. Every few years, we have seen a familiar cycle- a horrifying sexual assault occurs, followed by outrage and protests, and eventually a return to daily life. While the banners and posters go back into the drawer and the streets empty out, every female feels a greater burden which is much harder to count.
The details, names, and the manner in which the case was dealt with, leaves a longer impact on a female, whose ‘ordinary life’ itself changes, as they account for something which crime statistics ignore: constantly calculating risk.
When we talk about women’s safety, we rarely discuss the psychological toll women face. As vigilance becomes the norm to ensure physical safety, the conversation about the toll it takes on the mind and body needs to be encouraged.
The Invisible Workload
Before travelling anywhere, there are multiple calculations which take place in a female brain.
Should I take a cab at this time? Why is the person constantly walking behind me? I should take the longer route just because it’s well lit. Should I share my location with my friends even though my parents already have it? Should I charge my phone a little more, just in case? Can I drink tonight if I have to get home alone?
Individually, these may seem like simple questions anyone asks, but the cumulative effect of constantly making these decisions, even for tasks as simple as going downstairs to buy groceries, is. When you are constantly exposed to news and crime statistics of sexual assault happening everywhere in the country, you are constantly focusing attention, behaviour, and autonomy on the risk of threat exposure. The safety work and practices in public, simply for keeping themselves safe, limits women’s space, making them responsible for preventing violence against themselves (Vera-Grey & Kelly, 2020).
The calculated decisions are not questions that pop up, but rather, they follow a patter. It starts with paying attention to the surroundings. Who is around me? Who should I be keeping an eye on? Why is that person looking at me like that? Moving on, it becomes cognition. What could possibly go wrong here? How would I manage that? The cognition shapes the behaviour- what road to take home, whom to call while travelling, when to leave, which mode of transport to take and if it would be safe at that point, what places to avoid or be especially careful at.
Emotionally, the questions remain. Is it okay for me to relax here, or do I need to constantly stay vigilant. Noting the constant mental cycles playing, the body is vigilant too, responding not to a threat, but to the possibility of one. Consequently, autonomy is impacted, compromising just in order to feel safe. What do I want to give up- a party, drink, late dinner, or journey- just so I can feel a bit safer?
While everyone else considers and thinks about everyday decisions, the problem is not that women are thinking so much, but rather, they are being asked to think about safety along with everything else, at every single moment.
When Threat Becomes The Mental Background
Vigilance is not anxiety, and caution is not trauma. A woman checking whether the child lock is on every time before she enters a new cab is not hypervigilant, rather, she may simply be rationally responding to a risk. The psychological risks and consequences do not occur only if one has experienced violence firsthand, but can also be a result of constant exposure which leads to the possibility of violence permanently occupying a space in the mind. Further, constant exposure to news and details of sexual assault cases may also lead a sense of anticipatory anxiety, i.e. the fear and worry of these events happening to the individual may become excessive, impacting daily life.
In the absence of a tangible threat, there may still be differences in how the individual perceives themselves to be safe in a situation, and how safe they themselves feel in the moment. Actual safety may not always ensure perceived safety and felt safety.
On a biological level, the human nervous system is designed in a manner to anticipate and detect signs of threat, and when necessary, mobilise the body, protecting us. When the danger or perceived threat passes, the nervous system returns to a regulated state. In situations where there are constant anticipated threats and perceived danger, the return of the nervous system to a regulated state becomes harder. Every moment where a woman checks her surroundings may not be dysregulatory at a biological level, but chronic exposure to threat, direct or perceived, does have psychological consequences.
The rest experienced when the nervous system returns to the baseline state, once there is no longer a high level of direct threat such as when a woman is at a safe place, may be less restorative. The attention is yet repeatedly focused on possible danger, limiting the opportunity the body has in order to experience uncomplicated safety. This begs the question: For women, how much relaxation depends on having successfully controlled every possible risk?
True psychological safety is not simply the absence of assault or direct threat, but the ability to constantly stop anticipating one without having to scan, calculate, and prepare.
The Problem With ‘Be Careful’
Every female has been given instructions by everyone around her on what she should and shouldn’t do.
Don’t travel alone. Don’t stay out late. Don’t talk to any strangers. Don’t drink. Don’t wear that. Share your location. Carry pepper spray. Take an auto so you can jump out. Go only if you know someone else. Stay in a group.
Individually, all of these may have practical value, and may even be suggested from a place of good intentions. But collectively they can produce a disturbing psychological message: Safety is your responsibility.
In India, there have been reported cases of horrific sexual assaults and crimes within hospitals, medical schools and colleges, school buses, and within well known institutions. The recent case of sexual assault in a public park near a Lady Shri Ram College in Delhi, led to classes being shifted online (Kaur, 2026). Rather than ensuring increased measures to protect women, despite this not being the first case, and punishing those responsible, students were asked to stay inside. Around the same time a case of sexual assault in Cornell University in the US, known for its legacy and exceptional academics, indicates that this institutional betrayal is not geographically limited (Saad et al., 2026).
Institutional failure to protect can compound the threat anticipation, making it even harder for women to experience and sustain a sense of safety. The society continues to focus on females rather than holding the perpetrators accountable, reinforcing the idea that the onus of safety is on the females.
What should be done now?
The cognitive load of always being on and being consistently told that you are solely responsible for your own safety as well as others’ behaviour can have mental health repercussions. As psychologists, ensuring trauma-informed and accessible psychological care, not only after an incident, but even before, is important. Responsibilities also include paying attention to sleep, anxiety, shame, avoidance, and interpersonal trust.
At an institutional level, there needs to be a mechanism where institutional responses do not retraumatise survivors and punishments which are grave in order to make it known that these behaviours would not be acceptable. If ‘safety’ is only focused upon temporarily after another scarring incident occurs, what good is it?
We praise women for being vigilant and call it being sensible, careful, and responsible.Not once, however, do we ask what the constant vigilance costs. As a society, we need to stop individualizing women’s safety; the goal cannot be to teach women how to manage danger effectively when the sources of danger are allowed to run rampant. The solution to structural safety problems cannot be individual risk management behaviours. A psychologically healthy society is one in which safety does not require constant mental calculation.
References:
Kaur, L. (2026, September 22). Minor girl gang-raped at Astha Kunj Park near Kalkaji Mandir by men posing as policemen; friend assaulted. The Hindu. https://www.thehindu.com/news/cities/Delhi/minor-girl-gang-raped-at-astha-kunj-park-near-kalkaji-mandir-by-men-posing-as-policemen-friend-assaulted/article71494085.ece
Saad, N., Epstein, K., & Tawfik, N. (2026). What we know about Cornell University frat house rape investigation. BBC News. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cmpq0r1ljpqwo
Vera-Gray, F., & Kelly, L. (2020). Contested gendered space: Public sexual harassment and women’s safety work. In Crime and fear in public places (pp. 217-231). Routledge.
Muskan Shah is a research assistant at FLAME University, Pune, and Moitrayee Das is an assistant professor of psychology at FLAME University, Pune.