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Sad Reality For Homeless Women

It’s hard enough for men to be homeless, but women face unique challenges

Shefali O'Hara
3 min readNov 2, 2023
Source: https://theconversation.com/just-a-piece-of-meat-how-homeless-women-have-little-choice-but-to-use-sex-for-survival-101113

The other day I heard about a fairly well-off women who wanted to help those less fortunate than herself. So she bought several pretty dresses to give them during a charity event for the homeless.

She was surprised that there were no takers.

So she asked one of the homeless women why no one wanted the dresses.

“What am I going to do with a dress? You should have brought pants,” was the reply.

The reality for homeless women is that they are often vulnerable to rape, and wearing pants makes it harder for that to happen to them. Some will decide it’s better to trade themselves to one man in order to have a safe place to sleep. So they unwillingly find themselves acting as prostitutes.

There are other unigue challenges faced by women on the streets.

One of the biggest fears that a homeless person has — that the little they still possess will be stolen from them.

Unfortunately, sometimes homeless people prey on each other. Because women are often physically smaller and less muscular than men, they are more likely to be robbed.

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Shefali O'Hara
Shefali O'Hara

Written by Shefali O'Hara

Cancer survivor, Christian, writer, engineer. BSEE from MIT, MSEE, and MA in history. Love nature, animals, books, art, and interesting discussions.

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