"Not all men practice violence against women but all women live with the threat of male violence every single day. All over the Earth.”
~ Fuad Alakbarov
Given last week’s news about the horrific last moments of Sarah Everard and the murder of Sabina Nessa we have handed our newsletter this month over to Jess Leigh of Our Streets Now. She will also be appearing on our online allyship panel at Masculinity in the Workplace 2021 on 19th November (more info and tickets here).
I’ll hand straight over to her powerful words…
Rox
When Sarah Everard was murdered, we received an influx of interviews, media and followers. And in every interview I would say, “Sarah Everard was not the first and she will not be the last.” With the murder of Sabina Nessa recently, I found out what that really meant. According to the ONS, 207 women were killed in Great Britain in the year to March 2020 and that figure doesn’t appear to be slowing down.
The last few months have shaken women and marginalised genders everywhere. It has left us afraid, overwhelmed and angry. Why? Because it manifests everything we have been told to fear from the day we were born. And it makes certain that that fear, that threat of violence, is very, very real.
I believe that if you are not actively on the side of ending violence against women and marginalised genders then that, by default, puts you on the other side of allowing it.
The reality is, if individualistic ‘solutions’, like better lighting, rape alarms and clothing, were actually solutions, they would have worked by now. All of these individual actions only serve one purpose; something that is actually pretty dark. All they say, unconsciously, is, “Hurt the other girl, don’t hurt me.” The thinking is, “They are going to hurt someone, maybe by throwing them off somehow they will hurt someone else”.
How is this a solution if we are just shifting the violence from one women to another?
You might be able to solve it by offering and engaging men in spaces where they can unpack and dissect masculinity, power dynamics and violence before they turn into toxic traits that then, in turn, create male violence. Lighting and rape alarms do not do that.
Women cannot fix a problem they did not create in the first place.
Men started it, and they can finish it, by doing the work and actively standing with us.
We are angry that time and time again we are told to change our behaviour to keep ourselves safe. If you were in a room of women and asked them to raise their hand if they had ever taken precautions to keep themselves safe (carried keys in their hand, took a taxi home rather than walking or restricted their behaviour in any way) nearly every single woman in that room would raise their hand. It is a normal part of growing up. We learn that if we are sexually harassed it must be our fault because we didn’t take the correct precautions. But this couldn’t be further from the truth.
This is not just a public space issue. Sexual harassment is well and truly alive in our workplaces. A survey by the Everyday Sexism Project and TUC found that, “52% of women have been victims of unwanted sexual behaviours at work, from groping to inappropriate jokes.” And worryingly, many women do not report it. If we allow these “lower level” incidents to take place, we pave the way for more serious forms of sexual violence to occur.
Male based violence is a pyramid; it starts with a culture of misogyny and then breeds more serious incidents. And if we are allowing these incidents to take place on our workplaces, or not talking about them, then we are further normalising that they are acceptable by society.
And yes, it is true that not all men harm women. But do all men work to make sure their fellow male friends and colleagues do not harm women? Do they interrupt problematic language and behaviour that they see in others? Do they have conversations about women’s safety and male violence with their sons?
Are all men interested in women’s safety?
Are you complicit in a system that breeds misogyny and violence and if so, what are you going to do to change that?
Jess
Our Streets Now
MIW 2021
Jess will be joining our virtual allyship panel at MIW 2021 on 19th November. Head here for tickets to the panel event as well as to the whole morning of exciting speakers. All the links in this newsletter will give you 15% off the tickets.
Female Careers and Leadership E-learning Module
It feels apt to mention our e-learning module that addresses the worrying fact that a gender gap still persists in the workplace. Women get paid less, have access to fewer opportunities and have more barriers in the way of their progression. This all before Covid hit and women experienced unprecedented job losses as a result of the pandemic. This online training will help identify and modify some ways of thinking so we can all be part of creating an inclusive culture where this is possible - sign up here.