The police came under fire this week after urging women not to use mobile phones or headphones while walking alone, after a spate of sexual assaults in London.

The police advised women to "take care’’ while walking alone, to "stick to well-lit areas’’ and "be alert’’ to their surroundings, adding "don’t use earphones or hand-held devices.’’

The advice was criticised on social media with many accusing the police of putting the burden of sexual assault on victims, rather than the perpetrator.

As well as moving the focus from perpetrator to victim, this guidance also ignores the extensive steps women already employ, often unconsciously, to navigate a world where sexual assault is rife.

Some women don’t use use public transport after certain times, or if they do, they deliberately sit next to another woman. Many already factor safety considerations into their route home from work.

Dating is a fun and normal part of life, but women often put extra safety measures in place in a way that men simply don’t feel the need. We let a friend know who we are meeting and where we are going. Some bars and nightclubs display posters in the women’s toilets, informing them of a codeword they can use to staff if they feel unsafe and need help getting home.

We don’t leave our drinks unattended when we are out, and we let our friends know when we get home safe.

The reason the guidance provoked a backlash is not because it is at all surprising to women to have the burden of preventing violence against us placed upon our shoulders.

It is the explicit vocalisation of those expectations. The proof that women don’t just take these safety precautions independently of one another, as a personal choice, but rather we have been socialised to see male violence prevention as an entirely normal and necessary part of womanhood.

The anger comes not only from women being sold the myth that modifying our behaviour will keep us safe, but that to do so is obligatory to prevent us shouldering the blame when we are harmed.

For women, personal responsibility means not only subscribing to the warped notion that alcohol, clothing and headphones are the real problem – but that if we don’t, then we are being irresponsible in our behaviour.

To understand the frustration of women being advised to change their behaviour in response to a series of sexual assaults, it’s important to view sexual violence in the round.

Sexual violence is a cause and consequence of gender inequality.

We are unequal because we are the primary victims of sexual violence and we are the primary victims of sexual violence because we are unequal.

That fundamental problem is interlinked with how society views sexual violence and it cannot be separated from it if it is to be addressed properly.

"Victim blaming’’ – the charge levelled at the police in this case – is where victims of sexual violence are blamed, either partially or fully for the violence they experience. The list of things that women are told to avoid to keep themselves safe is ever-growing. What might seem as a practical set of steps that women can take is actually a grotesque checklist that women must adhere to in order to be a "real’’ – read, "faultless’’ – victim.

While we are advising women to not go out after dark, to walk in groups and abstain from alcohol, electronic devices and certain types of clothing, we are missing an opportunity to address the elephant in the room.

We must wonder where we have gone so badly wrong as a society where a de-facto curfew on women is palatable, but an honest conversation about the impact and scale of male violence, is not.

When we say to women "you need to do this to be safe’’ what naturally follows is that the women who choose to live their lives with the unthinking freedom that men enjoy are blamed when they are harmed.

When we frame sexual violence as an avoidable consequence of the recklessness of women, we perpetuate the problem.

What is seen as "common-sense’’ advice serves to obscure the real cause of sexual violence. Which – to be clear – is not headphones or walking alone, but violent men.

The emphasis on personal responsibility denies the reality that most women are harmed by a man they know and trust. The unconscious alterations that curtail women’s ability to live fully and freely are a consequence of the very real fear of male violence, not a prevention to it.

Women already do all we can to try and stay safe, yet most of us have been, or know somebody who has been, the victim of sexual violence.

There is cause for optimism, however. In Scotland, the Scottish Government and MSPs of all parties are content to be guided by the voices of experts, such as Rape Crisis Scotland and Zero Tolerance in how they approach the scourge of sexual violence. The conversation in our parliament is grown up and fact-based. It may take time for societal understanding and media representations of violence against women to catch up, but with the will and work they can.