60 years after being harassed on a bus, MSP Christine Grahame says nothing has changed. But it must – Alastair Dalton

Sixty years ago, a teenage girl on a bus felt a man behind her stroking her hair, and he then followed her as she got off.

That girl is now the veteran MSP Christine Grahame, and her observation about the incident – and another since – was the most telling, and depressing, contribution to Tuesday’s Holyrood debate on women’s safety on public transport. All those years on, she concluded: “Nothing has changed.”

The politician said she thought there was not a woman in the Scottish Parliament who had not experienced some form of harassment, often sexual. She also said she did not feel safe taking a train to her constituency office in the Borders from an isolated rural station, even though it was covered by CCTV, because she had returned to find her car was the only one parked there and vowed never to do that again.

Several other female MSPs told of their own experiences of feeling uneasy while travelling because of men’s behaviour, including Pam Duncan-Glancy, who suffered harassment while returning from a night out in her wheelchair. Transport minister Jenny Gilruth, who commissioned research to tackle the “systematic problem” of women’s safety when she was appointed a year ago, which was published to coincide with the debate, has also spoken of encountering intimidating men on trains.

Transport minister Jenny Gilruth commissioned research which showed many women are fearful of travelling by bus or train (Picture: John Devlin)

Chilling testimonies from 35 women and girls who were interviewed for the report further underline the need for urgent action to tackle a scourge that has afflicted half the travelling population at some point in their lives, if not as a regular nightmare. But for all the report’s recommendations, from improved staffing to better lighting and accessing help, the nub of the problem, as it is across society, is how men treat women, and what they think is acceptable or can get away with.

As I’ve written before, this is such a fundamental issue that it needs to be addressed far more comprehensively and rigorously and from a very early age, then constantly and consistently reinforced as children grow up. Males may be hardwired to act in certain ways, but if their attitudes and behaviour are not corrected by the time they become adults, it may well be too late.

Among the male MSPs in Tuesday’s debate recognising the need for men and boys to change their behaviour towards women so they did not feel threatened, Joe Fitzpatrick described this as a “huge responsibility”. He said men, rather than women, should “maybe” cross the road so the latter did not feel intimidated. I would say that should absolutely be happening.

Transport also needs to better reflect the population, as Scotland’s Railway – ScotRail and Network Rail Scotland – managing director Alex Hynes told the Rail in Scotland conference in Glasgow on Wednesday, organised by Modern Railways magazine. He said the rail industry was only about 20 per cent female. That was not enough, and increasing it would help improve things for female passengers.

“If we have a workforce which reflects the diversity of a modern Scotland,” he said, “we would deliver a better service because we would be more empathetic to the service that our customers receive.”