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he might not wear a T-shirt with a Venus symbol, or even understand what feminism is. But an outspoken, middle-aged woman in a public minivan in South Jakarta certainly did her part in addressing violence against women this month.

Before leaving to cover a rally to end violence against women last Valentine'€™s Day, I had a rather discouraging phone conversation with a friend on the subject.

This 30-something-year-old friend was recently assaulted when riding an angkot (public minivan) home.

Angered, she threw a punch in her attacker'€™s face and pulled him out of the door. The attacker ended up with a bloody face and a broken cell phone, but, to a sexual harassment victim, injuries on the attacker'€™s side usually serve as only half a consolation.

My friend has been cautious about using public transportation since she was young, but decided to take an angkot that afternoon. She is not rushing to take another one after the incident.

'€œI am going back to becoming bloody middle class again,'€ she said, again, with a hint of cynicism, '€œI'€™ll take taxis and regular ojek [motorcycle taxis].'€

More depressing stories followed later that day, as I chatted with two women amid preparations to celebrate the One Billion Rising (OBR) movement to end violence against women '€” an initiative started by American activist Eve Ensler.

The two lamented the lack of safety for women in public and private spaces.

Organizers of this year'€™s OBR Indonesia have chosen safe public transportation for women as their theme. It was fueled by many things, including widely covered cases of women being harassed, raped and murdered when using public transportation in Indonesia.

Take the 2014 incident in which four Transjakarta officers sexually assaulted a woman who lost consciousness on a bus. If there was one consolation, one of the women said, it was that the rising recorded numbers of women experiencing violence was caused by more people realizing that violence against women is intolerable, thus more of them are reporting it.

It is not looking good. But despite all the lamentable incidents, including the one that befell my friend, her story actually reflected what the OBR activists said: more Indonesians are aware of how unacceptable sexual assault is.

Aside from sheer anger, one of the things that prompted her to throw that punch at her attacker'€™s face were screams from another woman on the angkot, telling the attacker off.

The woman was around 50, and my friend described her appearance as a '€œtypical Betawi [native Jakartan] ibu-ibu [maternal-looking woman] who would go to Koran recitals'€.

When her attacker looked like he was about to strike back, a group of onlookers stopped him. They included security guards and police officers, because the incident occurred near a district court.

At first many thought he was a pickpocket, then my friend and the screaming woman explained what he did. A police officer offered to make a dossier.

'€œPerhaps it was the support from that screaming woman. And the angkot driver also stopped. He didn'€™t just drive away,'€ she recalled.

The screaming woman was probably not aware of the OBR movement, and she might not have been there at the rally with hundreds of others that Valentine'€™s Day, but she showed that there are many ways to join the fight against violence against women.

And maybe, just maybe, she, my friend and the other people who helped my friend fight her attacker that day, have shown that there is actually hope in winning this fight.
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More Indonesians are aware of how unacceptable sexual assault is.
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The author is a freelance writer.