Rethinking Safety for Women Runners: It’s Beyond Time to Move from Personal Responsibility to Community Action

30 years on from a brutal murder, women's running safety remains a critical challenge. A long-overdue movement is growing to reclaim safe outdoor spaces for women and girls.

Nearly 30 years after a New York Times op-ed criticized the public response to a woman’s tragic murder while running, we’re still facing the same challenges.

Recently, freelance writer Christal Griffith, an advocate for women who have gone missing or been murdered while running, brought my attention to Susana MacLean 's 1995 piece, The Victim Gets the Blame in Central Park. In it, MacLean, a 30-something New York professional and regular park-goer, recounts how, after the brutal murder of runner Maria Isabel Pinto Monteiro Alves, the public response focused on advising women to avoid parks at night, bring a friend, carry protection—or, as one leaflet put it, "become Rambolina and be ready to defend yourself." Instead of asking women to retreat from public spaces, MacLean called for practical, community-driven solutions, urging city planners, police, community groups, sports brands and others to come together to ensure women’s safety.

Reading this struck a chord because it’s exactly the kind of work we’re striving for at Run Her Way —because here we are, almost three decades later, with tragic incidents still affecting women runners and research showing that the vast majority of women continue to feel unsafe running outdoors.

The recent murder of runner Alyssa Lokitz, paired with the annual reminder of darker days as clocks turn back, has sparked a wave of online discussion about running safety. And yet, much of the conversation still centers on what women can do to stay safe: pick your safety device of choice, set a personal alarm, take a self-defense class, find a running buddy, get a dog, hit the treadmill.

Don’t get me wrong; personal vigilance is essential—I take my own precautions. But we need to broaden our focus beyond individual responsibility and ask what are we doing as communities to change this. Safety shouldn’t be a personal checklist—it should be a shared commitment. As the #runforalyssa campaign points out:

"Alyssa Lokitz did everything right [...] she ran during the day, on a populated trail, took a self-defense classes, carried pepper spray, and [when she was attacked] she FOUGHT BACK."

Fortunately, there’s a growing movement working to address this issue from different angles. In communities across the UK, for example, organizations like These Girls Run and Her Spirit are creating supportive, safe spaces for women to be active together. Campaigns like This Girl Can 's #LetsLiftTheCurfew and Her Spirit’s #ownthenight are driving awareness and rallying various parts of society to take a stand for women’s safety. Companies such as running mate —a self-described 'Uber for running'—connect women with verified running buddies, fostering both community and security, while big brands like adidas and its partners focus on research, awareness, male allyship and education.

Run Her Way 's goal is to add a complementary layer to these efforts by acting as an engine for change at the grassroots level, combining top-down systemic solutions with bottom-up, community-driven action. We want to play the role of local advocate for women and girls and a bridge between their experiences and the institutions and stakeholders that shape their environments.

We know systemic change is critical, but from experience, these shifts can often feel intangible in the day-to-day. That’s why we’re committed to working directly in local communities—mobilizing stakeholders, gathering data, and co-creating solutions with women and girls at the center.

Our aim is to pilot a range of practical, community-led initiatives—following in the same spirit that MacLean championed years ago. Everything from improved lighting and landscaping, clearer route signage, increased patrolling, and strengthened incident reporting and response mechanisms to designated safety hours for runners, safe spaces along routes supported by local businesses, community education workshops, and a safe-route accreditation system built on comprehensive safety standards. Most importantly, our hope is that the women and girls we serve will lead us to new ideas and solutions we haven’t yet considered.

As we bring our plans to life, we’re drawing from the inspiring initiatives I mentioned while staying flexible to address gaps and tailor our approach to each community’s needs.

MacLean’s call for a community response nearly 30 years ago is exactly what we need today, what we needed last year, and the year before that. As she wrote in 1995:

“Isabel Alves was not just one woman. She was every daughter. Every wife. Every colleague. Every friend. She was us.”

And yes, here in 2024, she is still all of us. Let’s not find ourselves writing the same op-ed in the years to come. Let’s make change today.