In this week's edition of the student magazine Critic there was a letter to the editor reminding female students that we should not walk home alone and that we should call Campus Watch if we find ourselves alone after 11pm.
Ostensibly, this is just a concerned individual who understands that although Dunedin may seem sleepy, it is not exactly the safest place to be wandering around late at night, alone or not.
And Critic, in endorsing this letter, is indicating it cares about the wellbeing of the University of Otago's female students.
But unfortunately the message this letter sends is not quite as simple as that, well intentioned though it certainly is.
I am a student and I also grew up in Dunedin. I can absolutely confirm that walking alone as a woman in this city can be terrifying at night, and I even feel ill at ease during the day in some parts of town.
And without a doubt, the parts of town that I feel most unsafe in are on and around the university campus.
Students, particularly male students, frequently behave in ways that are deliberately threatening and frightening.
Their behaviour, however, does not change the fact that sometimes women have to walk places.
Sometimes we have to walk alone, and sometimes we even like to walk alone and it would be nice to be able to do so without the fear of verbal or physical abuse hanging over your head.
If you live on campus then Campus Watch will drive you home, but there are plenty of women who do not live on campus, myself included.
When I finish work late in the evenings I do not have much choice but to walk back to my off-campus flat.
And I am pretty adamant this should not be a constant source of anxiety for me.
What people are saying when they insist that women should not walk places on their own is that women do not have as much right to public spaces as men.
There is an implicit suggestion that if you dare to be in a public space on your own as a woman then you deserve any violence that comes your way.
This is a kind of victim blaming, and it is insidious. It is also plainly ridiculous.
If you play a victim blaming conversation out in your head then it sounds absurd.
You tell someone you have been violently assaulted.
They ask you what happened and you tell them you were using a public space and they tell you that you deserved to have your nose broken because you tried to get from point A to point B without an escort.
Nobody should have to anticipate violence when they are just trying to carry on living their lives in the most convenient way possible.
What this letter should have done, or what Critic could have added, was to remind people that it is not OK in any situation to behave in ways that are violent or threatening.
It is patently unfair to place the onus of preventing violence against women on women themselves, rather than on the perpetrators of this violence.
It is time to tell people that if they see a woman walking alone then they should leave her be, and if they feel compelled to hurt a woman just because she has the audacity to be out and about then perhaps they should not be out in public on their own.
Women walking alone is not the problem, it never has been.
The problem is a culture of violence and intimidation that has a disproportionate impact on women's ability to live their lives.
Millie Lovelock is a Dunedin student.
