Her Discussions by Dr Faye - Do Personal Safety Alarms Actually Make Women Safer? | Mini Episode

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

Another Thursday, another mini episode!Every Thursday, we’re sharing the Buy or Bye Bye segment from one of your favourite Her Discussions episodes - a breakdown of what actually works for your health. This week, we're revisiting our episode with Amy Watson, founder of HASSL, a social enterprise working to tackle harassment and violence against women and girls.In the full episode, we discuss:📱 #1 reason why safety apps aren't the solution 🤝 what men can actually do to help women feel safer 🚨 why women's safety isn't a women's issue 🚩 the biggest myth about women's safety 💬 how to talk about misogyny without making men defensiveListen to the full podcast here:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/1iSxMCol0sGCzwXOcGn7BX?si=9B8OOkMOQJCzit60n638gw YouTube: https://youtu.be/PqR2mM8dXEA Can I ask you a BIG favour? 💙Please leave a review or rating. It helps us grow the podcast and bring you more amazing guests.🔔 Join the HERd* broadcast channel here: ⁠https://www.instagram.com/channel/AbY4liwxlLnewx4H/?igsh=MWhuaXFweGtucTB3cA==⁠📱 Find us on socials:Instagram & Tiktok - @drfayebatePodcast Instagram & Tiktok: @herdiscussionspod📩 Want to reach out?Email: ⁠[e-mail]⁠🛑 Disclaimers:Opinions are my own. This content is for educational / entertainment purposes and not medical or financial advice.

We're going to play a little game called Buy or Bye Bye Bye Bye. I'm going to show you something and I would love to know whether you would buy this thing or you would say bye bye to it. There's only one rule. We love nuance. If you want to give balance, you're welcome to. If you also want to say get in the bin right now, you're welcome to. Personal safety alarms. Can I give the nuance now? Yeah. Okay. Give nuance. It's not like phone a friend. You can use the nuance on everyone. Okay. I would say, I would say with all personal safety stuff and I feel like this can apply to all. lot of these. If on an individual level, it makes you feel safer, do what you need to do. This problem isn't solved overnight. You know, I think that way more time and energy needs to be put into prevention. But if there are things that you need to do in the short term, the only problem is with

a lot of personal safety things. They either don't work, make you more unsafe. If you go to court, they can be used against you, so many different things like that. What do you mean if you go to court they can you be used against you? So you can get those personal, like, key chains. They've got like different tools on them, right? Like instead of carrying your keys between your fingers. But again, it can be like, you are carrying a weapon. So then, like in a lot of cases, if you're carrying a weapon, you have some form of violent intentions, it can be, so there's this whole thing.

And I mean, even like personal safety alarms, like, yes, they can work. But what if they just in, they could make the person more angry and no one around could even hear them? And this is why I'm like, I'm not against them, but they're so. complicated in terms of they're not just like, oh, they're going to make you safer. And I'd imagine we don't have research and data into how these personal safety features play out in real life. Like, I can't imagine there's research into how an attacker actually reacts if a personal safety alarm is pressed and they're trying to attack you, you know?

I think it's something that's very, very hard to collect data on a like quantify, right? I mean, I know there was one, I want to say it was in France, but I might be wrong, where it's like an app where if you're in danger, you can press something and any woman within a certain radius gets an alert, so they come. And there was a case where they came and the woman was dead, I want to say. But I'm pretty sure that was a story. But otherwise they wouldn't have found her body because the women went and found her. But also all of these apps then like that, great idea in theory,

apart from the fact that it puts way more responsibility on women, but also men can pretend to be women to use, like what's the vetting process? Like I know there was quite strict ID checks and all this kind of stuff. But I know I was talking to one of our ambassadors and she's in Canada and she was saying, like, they have this buddy system where like you can request a buddy to help you home, but also is that also prone to violent perpetrators abusing it, you know? saying we went to the Met and they did like a whole day

basically on technology that's being manipulated for and they were saying things down to like what's it called like the weather what are they called the little things yeah like that you that people were tapping into them to monitor people like seeing when they were in the house like like AirPods they were dropping AirPods to track where they were going like when their kids were like

like all of this stuff is just technology is amazing but also it never solves a problem. This is the thing. They all just plaster, even if they help temporarily or in the moment. And I'm not saying, I think it's just very individual,

right, in terms of like how you feel in that moment. But personally, it doesn't make me feel safer. Like, there's definitely things I do. Like, I ring my mom, if I'm on my own and things like that. And I would choose, like, a taxi on an app rather than just, like, calling in the street or whatever.

So I definitely think there are things. but it's just, again, it's like, we spend so much money inventing all of these ways for women to keep themselves safe. But if men are getting more and more violent, or even if men are just remaining as violent as they are, it doesn't stop it, you know? It just plasters. Like, it's good, it's well-intentioned. Like, I think this about all of these things. I don't think, you know, people out there making safety devices are, I mean, maybe some. But, like, a lot of people are well-intentioned.

It comes from personal experience, whatever. but it's just every time I'm like... Yeah, yeah, because it's just that mental load. Like, how much money are you spending on this stuff? How much time you spent thinking about it? How many calculation you do? Do I press the button? Do I not press it? Am I, you know?

And sometimes, often you don't know until it's too late. Like, we have a radar, and I feel like women are pretty good at knowing when someone's about to be inappropriate, whatever. But then you don't know what point it's going to get to, and then there's stuff like British Transport Police have a number that you can call, but how quickly they actually come. And, you know, it's just, again, it's, it's, they're all well and good, but they're just plastering.

Yeah. Not really. They still increase, there's epidemic levels. Like, it's not solving the problem, is it? So that's my very long winded nuance to, to know, I like it. But I feel like it applies to pretty much all of the, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Self-defense classes. Yeah. And similar thing, I think if it helps you with, like, your confidence and things like that. And I think, you know, there is people who take the self-defense classes, not just women, just to, you know, especially if they've had an experience before, or they just want to feel safer, or they work in a certain fields or whatever it is.

I don't think that is inherently bad. I just think, again, it's like, oh, well, the self-defense classes, so just go and do that. And it's like, we shouldn't have to do that. And it's that it always disproportionately falls on women. That's my problem, because then it limits it. It's, again, we're not even equal anyway, But then it's adding more financial inequality

because I'm having to spend money on all this stuff. It's adding more emotional mental load onto us because we're having to think about it or having to calculate or having to fit. And again, with all this stuff, my biggest issue with like safety tips and everything is that especially younger women will just go, if something happens, oh, I didn't do enough.

Because all of the messages do this and you'll stay safe. And we get it over and over again where people are just like, I think it was my fault though. Like it's not. literally is never, it's the person who chose to harm you. If you were walking around entirely naked, like it doesn't matter. It doesn't give anyone a right. Yeah. And this is the thing. I think the conditioning is so strong on do this to stay safe. I mean, we were saying this the other day, like we asked our ambassadors, just write, right things that you do to stay safe. And I think within

like 20 minutes, we had about 200 things. Just like these niche little things, you know, down to, oh, if I order a takeaway, I might shout upstairs when they answer the door. Just to show that there's someone else in the house. Or, you know, like these really small things. And I read, and I was like, yeah, I actually do loads of these things. I didn't even think that that's what it was for. Yeah. Because you just, you just trained into it.

But then the problem is with all of them, if something happens, it's like, oh, well, I didn't do enough. God, that breaks my heart as if the emotional burden of going through, something like that. Like young girls as well, because I feel like as you get older, you tend to be able to break that a little bit more. But yeah, when you're a young, teenager. I would always have looked at self-defense classes and gone, if someone wants to attack me, I don't think a self-defense class is going to even help. I worked as a doctor on a psychiatric unit

for four months. We did like breakaway training, which was actually so, so, so useful. And I really, really, really valued that. But then I had an experience where someone threw a glass bottle at my head and that didn't have. Yeah, exactly. There's only so much you can do. And I think a lot of this stuff as well, like, you know, we do. We do. We do. We, do focus more on public harassment and stuff, and I can go into why that's the case. But the reality is the most unsafe place by far is your own home. So again, like safety apps and self-defense and like, you know,

yes, maybe sometimes they can help. But like you said, it can be a split second and suddenly it's launched something at your head. You know? And I think that it all feeds into stranger danger. Yeah. Because it's so much easier to conceptualise violence against women and girls when it's a stranger walking around the corner. Yeah.

And not the reality for those women, where it's the people closest to them who perpetuate this violence. Fake call apps. You mean like where you can kind of have like a man on the phone or whatever? Yeah. I think again, just similar thing. Well-intentioned. I think a lot of people, as I say, I do that.

I would ring my more, more friend or my... my parents, whatever. But again, it is just that, it's the same thing. It's like, it's nice that you're doing this. And I think it's well-intentioned, but is it solving the problem? No. And I also find, and I'm sure a lot of women can agree with this, that every time they invent a new thing, they just find another way around it. Yeah. There's another thing. So then the mental checklist just gets longer and longer and longer and longer because then you're planning for every single eventuality. So one of the things all the time is like, oh, you know, if you say if someone, like someone's being inappropriate, whatever, and I've had it before where they're like, oh, do you

have a boyfriend? And then I say yes, because, you know, it's easier. That's what we've been taught to do. Just pretend you have one and then it gets rid of them. And then I've had it where it's like, oh, but could you be happier? Or I don't want to be your boyfriend. I just want to be your friend. And then you're having to create all of these other narratives. Like it used to be. you could just say, yeah, I've got a boyfriend and it would kind of get rid of them. Do you know what I mean? Like, it's just, they just adapt and they just find other ways. So it never really, it helps momentarily potentially.

And then they go, oh, I'm ready for this one next time. And then they have another answer or another. If someone doesn't respect a woman's voice or woman's boundaries, exactly. Whatever answer you give them, it's never going to be there. 100%. 100%. And this is the thing.

Yeah. It's just still going back to women do more. Yeah. Stop it. dating apps. I mean, I don't think they're inherently bad. I think in, I think in a lot of ways, they, a lot of the major apps are trying to combat some of the stuff.

I think still too much of it is put on women in terms of like, you know, trackers and things like this. I think dating apps, again, it's more like it's a tool in which people, like social media, I don't think social media is inherently bad. I just think it's another avenue. you and this is why like it the problem isn't solved unless you solve the problem at the route yeah because they just will you know social media has many positive and I'm sure you all agree like so much positive that comes out of it and so much that we have been able to do in the world

that we would never have been able to do without social media but there are people abusing it like I think dating apps the same I think you know that's one of the things we talk about a lot is just like the mental load of going on date and how that differs typically, especially between men and women. Yeah. How many men are sending to their friend? This is a photo just in case, you know, just in case I don't make it home. How many, how many boys are their friends checking in, not to see how they are to check, they're still okay. How many men on a date are not leaving their drink on the table just in case or like, you know, like just all of these things that, again, I don't think it's dating apps. I think it's people, you know, I never really think it's

The app isn't the issue. It's the people using the app. And it's more like they need better vetting. Like they need better. Like, you know, once someone's reported, this person assaulted me on a date, then they should be removed. Like, there's not, again, it's not strict enough in preventing the harm happening in the first place.

It's a lot more like, oh, here's, you know, you can send to your friend that you're on a date or whatever. Yeah. Which is like always well intention. But I just think societal narrative is just so focused on women staying safe that people, how often I have meetings with people and they're like, oh, we could give women and I'm like, no, why are we still giving women more stuff to do?

No. There's a million tracker apps, safety apps, alarms, personal safety devices. Like, the problem is not going away. Yeah. We have to start looking at it from a different lens. And yeah, it's just that, I think that's the thing, like that all of these things are, they're just like, yeah, a dating app is just a tool, right?

I think it can be used for very positive things as well. It's just there's not enough, like society, there's not enough prevention of harm. There's not enough consequences when harm does happen to prevent further harm happening to other people. I think that's where the big problems are. And we have to better incentivise these companies to actually focus on that part of the problem. Thank you for listening. If you would like to hear the full episode with even more jam-packed knowledge, then just click the link in the description.