Sometimes as a woman you watch the news and you just feel sick.

It happened this week. First there was a horrendous story from France about a 71-year-old man standing trial for repeatedly drugging and raping his unconscious wife and recruiting 72 other men to rape her during over a decade of appalling abuse. She only discovered what had happened when police informed her.

Then there was the story of an Aberdeen electrician who was imprisoned after being found guilty of putting hidden cameras in the bedrooms and bathrooms of 17 women over a 10-year period. He watched them having sex, in the shower and using the loo. He might never have been caught except that one victim discovered a device under her bed.

Will there ever be a time when women are safe from depraved men?

I’ve yet to ask a woman about her own experience of sexual harassment and assault without being told of a litany of experiences, ranging from verbal street harassment to being touched on dancefloors or on public transport, to being “flashed at” (what a travesty of a euphemism) up to the most serious forms of sexual assault including rape.

I once confidently believed things were improving for women and girls, but I’m older now and if not wiser, then more sceptical. Women have become more outspoken about endemic harassment and abuse, certainly. Of the women I know who have been raped, none has ever reported it, but there is a growing willingness on the part of victims at least to talk to the police, even if the conviction rates for sexual offences remain depressingly low.

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© Herald Scotland