Fighting back: defining a market for women's safety

Narratives of violence and resilience weave through the fabric of our collective consciousness of womanhood, echoing in the stories of friends, family, and public figures alike. These intimate and distant accounts often serve as stark reminders of the persistent dangers shadowing women's passage through both public and private spaces. Drawing on Brian Massumi's concept of affective facts and Sara Ahmed's understanding of affect theory, this article contends that the circulation of fear-laden media not only shapes consumer demand but sustains societal conditions that render fear an essential aspect of femininity. I explore how this pervasive fear fuels the creation of what I term the ‘market for women's safety,’ a commercial sphere where ordinary feminine objects are transfigured into instruments of defence. In this marketplace, items like lipstick tasers and glittering keychain alarms transcend their practical function, embodying both protection and the aesthetics of empowerment. These products fortify the body and the psyche, cultivating a fragile resilience in environments fraught with risk. Grounded in the lived experiences of sellers, this article reveals how the market's reliance on fear reflects and reproduces the anxieties of those who sustain it. Vendors, often women themselves, straddle the spaces of entrepreneurship and activism, transforming personal apprehension into commercial ventures. Fear, far from repelling, becomes a powerful force, reshaping women's relationship to safety, vulnerability, and the fragile pursuit of self-determination.