We’ve been taught from a formative age that saying ‘no’ isn’t even an option for us if we want to leave the situation with our lives. Instead, we’ve been forced to become bomb disposal experts and terrorist negotiators: trying to placate someone who won’t take no for an answer as we desperately try to disarm the weapon, knowing that one false step will no doubt lead to annihilation.

I think that shared experience of having to fight for our lives with a smile and soothing words is why the young girl’s death in Croydon resonated with so many women on social media. She is us, and we are her. We’re all perpetual victims of the same violence and values that uphold a system that allows men to continually laugh in the face of ‘no’.

It hasn’t even been two weeks since another teenager, this time 16, claimed she was the victim of a man refusing to take no for an answer. She alleged she was raped by comedian Russell Brand, a claim Brand has vehemently denied. After the anonymous alleged victim, now an adult, went on the record explaining how she felt coerced and pressured by this significantly older man, the consensus was that if she really wasn’t into it, she would’ve just said ‘no’ to him in the first place.

It was the same complaints levied against other women who made allegations against him, all of which he denies, who either felt uncomfortable from the outset, consented to some activities but not others or initially consented before withdrawing their consent at a later point. Surely if these women didn’t want anything to happen, they would’ve just said no, right? Wrong. As women, we’ve been socialised to learn that saying ‘no’ isn’t really an option for us, especially if the power dynamics suggest that if we do so, we’ll face losing our lives. And when push comes to shove, these fears are far from unfounded.

“For women, the most dangerous thing to say is ‘no’ – and this truth feels so heavy”