You're listening to Nocturne. I'm Vanessa Lowe.

This is part one in a series about the nighttime and women. Specifically, the ways in which, in general, the nighttime is different for people who are a female or non-binary versus male.

More specifically, I personally know very few men who significantly alter their behavior at night due to concerns about safety.

That is not the case for me. When I take my dog out for a walk at night, I stay pretty close to home. I'm very aware of dark shadowed places beside where I'm walking, and I often carry my cell phone in my hand.

Either for its flashlight feature, or if I'm feeling particularly antsy, with my finger on the little button that if I press it five times quickly, will send an SOS to emergency services and the emergency contacts on my phone.

If you didn't know, that's a feature on iPhones. It is not fun for me to tell you these things. I find it embarrassing. In fact, I rarely talk about the fact that I pretty much always feel hyper-aware, if not nervous, when I'm out alone at night.

Sure, I've shared my anxiety here about some extreme situations, but not the fact that I've run to my car when leaving a music venue alone in the dark, or that I reflexively scan the street if I come home alone at night.

Doing these things makes me feel embarrassed because it feels like I have no objective reason to do them. I live in a pretty safe area. There's not a lot of violent crime. It's somewhat different for Hannah.

Hannah Drake. I am in Louisville, Kentucky. I am a writer and a poet. In the neighborhood where I live, there's a lot of drug activity and prostitution, and I live across the street from a drug house.

In my neighborhood, I garden with my gun. I remember a few years ago, I was in my yard planting seeds and around the corner comes two cars and it's two men shooting at each other.

And I had to run behind my house in duck. They were just having this full-out shooting in the street next to my house.

It's not just when I'm gardening if I'm taking my dog outside in the morning. I take my gun with me because I just can't be out in my yard and not be fully aware of what's going on around me.

And so even in my home, which I absolutely love my home, but I put bars on all the windows except for my bedroom window and it's a huge window.

And I just said, I have to look out the window through bars every window of this house and I want one space where I can simply look out the window and not be looking through bars.

And I know people may think, you know, it's a little overboard or a little paranoid, but when you think of all the things that have happened and can happen, then you just want to be extra cautious.

I don't care for the nighttime at all. It's not something that I enjoy at all.

Well, it's not really that Hannah doesn't like the night.

You know, I like the stars and it's pretty at night and it's peaceful. You know, there's so many things I wish I could do at night just because it's nighttime.

You know, go sit outside on my deck, go light my fire out in my yard and sit in front of the fire and read a book.

And there's so many beautiful things you could do at night, go hiking, go walking, take my dog out.

So I guess there are beautiful things about the night and darkness, but because of things that happen at night and in darkness makes me dislike the night.

So you could not pay me money to take my trash out at night and there have been many days that I'll be in the house.

...