I get Sam Kerr’s fear, all women do. But that doesn’t give you a free pass

Almost every mistake I’ve ever made has been while drunk. Trolleyed and standing – swaying – on a balcony rail balustrade on Donegan’s third-storey London flat while he played guitar. Taking my clothes off with the wrong people. Fighting with the right people.

You’ll know the feeling. Do a quick flick through your own back catalogue of Pissed and Stupid Deeds that still prod drinkers’ remorse. There should be a cure for it by now, only then there would be even less of an incentive to get off the grog.

Matildas star Sam Kerr is facing charges of “racially aggravated harassment” of a police officer. Credit: Getty Images

Which is why I feel empathy for Sam Kerr. We’ve all read tons about the UK court case where the Matildas captain is accused of racially abusing a police officer by calling him white (and stupid).

At the start it pretty much seemed a straightforward job of someone getting on it and losing their shit and composure and someone else arking up in response and thinking, “I’ll fix your little red wagon.”

But it’s not actually straightforward, at least not to this matron who would usually back any woman in a legal, physical or emotional fight. By my age, we’ve all had enough of being mansplained to, sexually assaulted, told our tits are too small or too big, kissed on camera without permission, to not want to jump straight to the sisterhood.

I want to be backing two women who say they thought a cab ride had turned into a kidnap when the driver suddenly changed direction. That rush of primal fear? Every woman knows it. Doesn’t matter if you’re stone-cold sober or three sheets to the wind.

When Kerr says she felt unsafe because the cab was going the wrong way, that resonates. Every woman has that mental checklist: phone charged, location shared, keys between fingers. Just in case. To also be a woman of colour and queer likely (and understandably) added even more fear to the mix.

Our vulnerability in those moments is not just about the detour. It’s about the loss of control. And Kerr said in court she had a phobia of taxis after hearing stories growing up about how WA’s Claremont killer could be a cab driver, and was leery of police after UK woman Sarah Everard was stalked and murdered by one.

I’ve talked before about being there. 1988, the Istanbul bus depot at night. My friend Pies and I got in a cab. Another man climbed in next to the driver. “Get out,” I said. Pies’ eyes were huge: “Can’t. No door handles.” Another driver saw us bashing the windows, screaming. He let us out and copped a belting while watching security guards laughed.

So if Sam Kerr and her fiancée Kristie Mewis say they felt scared, I know firsthand fear can make anyone do things like kick out cab windows, especially with adrenaline and alcohol in the mix.

But being scared doesn’t give anyone a free pass to act badly. Vomiting in someone’s car and refusing to pay the cleaning fee when first asked crosses lines about entitlement and disrespect. It impacts a livelihood. It’s shithouse.

I don’t even know what to make of the racial element. While calling anyone who is white “white” might be stating a fact, context matters in confrontations. That said, charging someone with a crime for pointing out whiteness feels like an overreach.

Straight up, the police officer plays as a sensitive snowflake who could have recognised the situation as a drunken outburst, not a calculated insult. But if it crosses a legal line, it crosses a legal line.

What’s really frustrating is how this case undermines both women’s safety concerns and personal accountability.

The “Sam was drunk and paranoid” narrative misses how legitimate it is for women to fear being taken off course in a cab. And the “Sam was protecting herself, this is a storm in a teacup” crowd ignores there are ways to handle fear that don’t involve abuse and showing off your stonking bank balance to further belittle.

Instead of picking sides, maybe the win would be in learning how to be better at ensuring women’s safety, better at respecting service workers, better at de-escalating situations.

And better at examining why a female athlete’s drunken belligerence generates more headlines than cases of male athletes facing allegations of serious violence.

Sam Kerr is superhuman at soccer but now clearly very human. Interesting to see what the price for that will be.

Kate Halfpenny is the founder of Bad Mother Media.

The Opinion newsletter is a weekly wrap of views that will challenge, champion and inform your own. Sign up here.