Women in the UK are covering their drinks with cling film and must flag buses if they feel unsafe. It has never felt so overwhelming to be a woman on this island.
Garage worker Kicu Selamaj, 36, has been charged with the violent murder of Sabina Nessa in the Old Bailey, on the same day and in the same place as Wayne Couzins who was sentenced to whole life imprisonment for the rape, kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard.
How many more candle-lit vigils must happen before it is accepted that in this country, statues of Winston Churchill are valued more than women? We attend these poignant gatherings in solidarity, we march, we cry, we shout, but where are the men? Why are they not finding the cure to this epidemic of violent misogyny? Philip Allot, the North Yorkshire conservative police commissioner, blamed women, who should be “streetwise”. Sarah Everard should have resisted arrest. This perfectly epitomises the delusion that has shrouded over women, unchanged since the 1980s when women were told to stay indoors so they didn’t get murdered by Yorkshire the Ripper.
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan has stated: “Men have got to be allies in addressing this issue”, yet this sentiment seems to be muted by a deafening outcry of ‘not all men’ and a non-response from the government.
Priti Patel published a new strategy in July: Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls, including the promise of ‘20 000 police officers, ‘to make our streets safer’. Will these officers be like Wayne Couzens? Repulsive sadists who abuse their power to rape and kill women. Assuring women can walk the streets safely by having more patrolling police officers, or predators, is the same as covering tower blocks in flammable cladding; deadly and redundant.
Nadia Whittome, Labour MP, tweeted:
“15 former and serving police officers have killed women since 2009.
The last 5 years saw 800 allegations of domestic abuse against officers & 52% found guilty of sexual misconduct kept their jobs.
This isn’t “one bad apple”. We need justice, accountability and culture change.”
The relentless rhetoric that Couzens is an anomaly in the Met Police mirrors the complaints male murderers are outliers in the otherwise sound male population group. These bad apples propagate and come from a system that is poisonous to the core.The Met have said women can run from lone officers if we do not feel safe in their presence. Ladies, it’s ok! Run away from the men in uniform who should protect you. Or, even better, flag down a bus! As for more bad apples, two police officers took selfies with the bodies of Bilbaa Henry and Nicole Smallman after they were murdered by Dunyal Hassain in a Wembley Park. Their memories and lives were diminished by a sickening act carried out by more men in blue. How can women possibly be safe if we must run from uniformed and non-uniformed men in the dark?
It’s clear we should just brace ourselves and hope for the best, armed with only the best rape alarms, house keys and the find-my-friends app.
There have been calls for Met police chief, Cressida Dick, to resign since the organisation she leads endangers women.Before it gets to the point that we need police officers to ‘protect’ us, we need a reversal of the toxic masculinity that breeds rapists and murderers. Stopping a man that is about to attack a woman is the same as re-bandaging an old wound that will not heal. It is a short term solution until the next predator strikes.
A YouGov survey in March of this year revealed four fifths of women in the UK had been sexually harassed. Violence against women is a seismic problem rippling through the entire system, whether it is a catcall in the street, being stared at on public transport or being groped in a nightclub, misogyny is rife.
The Everyone’s Invited movement was created to call out rape culture in UK schools and universities, and give survivors a platform to share their stories. Each year as the university term starts, stories circulate of girls being spiked. A video from Bristol circulated recently showing a man who appears to be in his twenties allegedly spiking a woman of a similar age. Although there is little information released regarding the incident, the alleged spiker and his friend appear to have refined their spiking methodology down to a fine art. Each year we are told to #AskAngela and do not accept drinks in bars. We are now at a point where women are covering their drinks with cling film. We are forced to take these preventative methods on the off chance we can enjoy a night out without being drugged.
As Marina Hyde has stated in her most recent column, “women don’t need to learn any more lessons.“ Yet, the government and police are relentless in wanting to teach us more. Jess Phillips, Labour MP is a longstanding advocate for women’s rights. This year on International Women’s Day, she read aloud all the women who had been murdered by men that year.
“One woman is killed every three days in the UK.”
She emphasises that this is not a rarity, the violence we are subject to is just something society has come to accept, as common and routine as having a morning cuppa. She added that society has “just accepted dead women ” as “one of them things”. This acceptance buries the epidemic deeper below the sand. Women know the reality of fear. We are scared when we walk in the morning and late at night, we are scared when we sit on public transport. We are petrified when fellow women like Sabina, Sarah, Bilbaa and Nicole are murdered. The epidemic can only be cured by the perpetrators, men, who need to stop preying on us, spiking us, wolf-whistling us and killing us. Systematically, the whole toxic culture needs to be wiped out of our organisations and institutions. Individually, men need to do more. Call out your friends who make vile comments in group chats or the ones who take home extremely drunk girls. We will never forget Susan Everard’s plea “don’t get in the car”. Society must stop giving the keys of this car to infantile boys who learn to drive and thrive in violence.