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We're used to women being told to modify our behaviour as a reaction to male violence.
As the Metropolitan Police comes under fire for their mishandling of the vigil to Sarah Everard who was murdered (allegedly) by a serving Metropolitan Police Officer - women and girls in London are not surprised and have zero shits left to give to a force who does nadda to protect them, other than suggest they stay in doors, to stay safe.
We’re used to women’s freedoms and women’s bodies being up for debate, you see. We’re used to women being told to modify our behaviour as a reaction to male violence. Women may not be under a formal curfew but you only need to look at the disgusting victim-blaming that went on with Sarah Everard to see that we’re under an informal one. Why was she out at 9.30 at night? Why did she walk home instead of taking a cab? What did she expect? Our freedom of movement after dark may not be restricted by the government, but we often don’t have the freedom to fully relax. We regulate our behaviour automatically; we keep our keys in our hands, we stay on high alert, we pay extra to take a cab because we’re worried about walking home. Street harassment is so common we brush it off as “nothing”; after all, it’s not like there’s anything that we can do we about it anyway. As a recent letter to the Guardian pointed out, “you can be fined for dropping litter in the UK, but not for harassing a woman or girl in public”.
[link:https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/mar/13/men-curfew-sarah-everard-women-adapt-violence|
Jess Phillips MP on a Andrew Marr (a political news show on the BBC this morning):
“The police have got it wrong at every single turn,” she said.
Not just the final image that we see, but all day yesterday and the day before, the police did not try and find a way for a peaceful protest - not a protest, actually - a vigil, a moment.
The did not try to find a way to work with women who are sad and angry and upset to be able to, not even gather but just go to Clapham Common.
There are a million ways that that could have been organised but the police put their foot down before they put their boot in and at every stage they made the wrong call.'
Emphasis mine
A vigil for a woman who had been kidnapped and murdered...and young women get manhandled by the colleagues of the man who allegedly committed this sexually violent abhorrent act of murder.
That in 2021 we are still having to have the conversation about our safety on the streets is deeply depressing. We have been having the same conversation for decades and last night the actions of those who are paid to protect us and abjectly fail to do so on an on going basis was shocking. The lack of prosecutions for sexualised violence against women in the UK has effectively decriminalised rape and yet when young women and girls want to express their dismay and anger at the murder of Sarah, a very predictable outcome to the countries embedded patriarchal and misogynistic structures of policing and 'justice', are met with those very structures trying to silence them.
And if anyone says, but Covid, I will bite them...
31 replies
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One long enough to really impact those people with dicks and those who support their offensive practices.
