Women Nightwalking

I’m writing a book about the importance to conservation of empowering women to nightwalk, as we cannot protect a world we do not know.

So few of us venture out into the night, even less of us if we’re women. This must change, we need a culture shift, a new perception and understanding of the rhythms of the night.

When we think of conservation, we think of it in daylight, which is only half the story. The other half – the half women are rarely privy to – is in darkness. If we do not find the courage to inhabit the night-time world, we cannot know it, and we cannot protect it.

The UK is one of the most nature-depleted countries in the world. One in six of our species are threatened with extinction. It goes much further than just that’s a bird our children might never see, it goes down to that’s a crop we cannot pollinate, that’s an invasive weed for which we have no natural control.

There’s a further story here too, we need to understand why women are so separate from the night-time world, and we need to fight and overcome that separation. We have as much right to walk where we please, when we please as a man does, yet we don’t, we’re afraid. I know this from my own experience and talking to others, and it’s wrong. The night-time world has so much to offer us in terms of enrichment and connection to the natural world.

It is vital that women wake-up to the night-time world, that we bear witness and we make our voices heard. The world needs a hear about women nightwalking. Daylight is only half the story, and we cannot save what we do not know.

Why should I be the woman to write this book? Because I’m ordinary. I’m not a scientist, nor an ecologist. I’m an ordinary woman, a wife and mum, as brave and scared as anyone else. And it’s ordinary women that we need in this story.

If you’d like to know more about the book, and talk about the issues within it, you’re very welcome to find me on Instagram, @MrsCarlieLee