“Aren’t you afraid of sharks?” the man asks.
We have just met and we’re talking about ocean swimming, which I have practised for a few years now. I started my forays into the ocean with the women I normally run with. Two have bronze medallions, so if I struggle there will be not one, but two people to save me.
Swimming in the ocean (after I learned not to swallow mouthfuls of seawater) is thrilling. There are blue gropers, sea turtles, and wobbegong sharks. Beneath is deep blue water. Schools of tiny luminous fish dart past and silver bubbles roll off my fingers. Swimming in winter is especially exhilarating: the emptiness of the beach, the water temperature not much colder than the air, and the way the neoprene wetsuit muffles the cold. I watch for the spray of whales on the horizon. There is the different perspective – not just looking out at the ocean but being in it. And there is the fear of sharks.
But while the primal fear is always there, my logical mind knows better. Only four people died of shark attacks in Australia in 2023, and there were only 15 unprovoked shark incidents. I am more likely to get hit by lightning (100 a year). Or die in a road accident (1,266).
I run more than I swim, sometimes with these women, sometimes with my dog, sometimes alone. Recently I was in regional Victoria for a holiday and I laid out my running things as I went to bed, excited to explore new trails the following morning. But then I woke up in the middle of the night, remembering. Wasn’t it regional Victoria where Samantha Murphy – a 51-year-old mother of three went missing after going for a trail run? A 22-year-old man was charged with murder over her disappearance. Her body has not been recovered.
I lay awake for hours, fear accelerating my heart, wondering whether or not I should go. I was in an unfamiliar place. I knew where the trails were, but I didn’t know who else might be on them. Then again, I wanted to run – there are few things I enjoy as much as seeing a new landscape while moving through it.
In the morning, when my alarm went off, I put on my running shoes and left. I ran the trails alone that day. The air smelled of dry gum leaves and distant back burns. Sweat cooled on my skin and gravel and twigs crunched beneath my feet. I had already decided that if I heard someone approaching I would duck off the trail and hide, but I didn’t see or hear a single person. Just the graceful hop and thump of kangaroos.
I don’t know any men who have lain awake at night wondering if it is safe to run alone.
Fear is caused by the threat of impending danger, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, and statistically women are far more likely to be in danger from a man than from a wild animal. In the United States, some female runners have taken the extreme measure of carrying a gun.
One in three women will experience sexual or physical violence in their lifetime, according to the World Health Organization. In Australia, women are being killed on average once a week. But the numbers from 2024 are already higher – recently there were nine women murdered in 18 days. That is not one woman a week, that is one woman every other day.
There is so much more to fear.
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In the recent viral TikTok video Man or Bear, an interviewer asks eight women on the street whether they’d rather be stuck in a forest with a man or a bear. Seven out of eight say a bear. Of course, we don’t have bears in Australia, but I understand their responses. I know what to expect from bears, how to avoid provoking them.
One woman responds: “If I got attacked by a bear, people would believe me.”
Another: “No one would ask what I was wearing if it was a bear.”
A man might be safe or dangerous, but it is the weighing up of risks that keeps women vigilant. You don’t know if a man you come across is someone to be trusted. The point isn’t, of course, that all men are dangerous – the vast majority are good. They are our friends, lovers, brothers, sons and fathers. The point is that women must constantly anticipate the risk. The burden of staying safe sits on our shoulders.
So here is what I should have said to the man who asked me about sharks, instead of shrugging and saying I try not to think about them. I am less afraid to swim in the ocean, with sharks, than run in a forest, alone, where I might come across a man.
Shark or man? I choose shark.
Eleanor Limprecht is the author of What Was Left, Long Bay, The Passengers and The Coast