For Sarah Everard, Sabina Nessa and 77 women in England who have been murdered since Sarah's case, and for the millions of women who endure a culture of sexualised oppression. For my mother, my sisters, their sons and daughters, for my daughter and for all her contemporaries. For every boy and girl growing up in this culture. For our present, and all our futures.
I have written
many, many, articles over the past 20 years, about the issue of
women's safety,
sexual violence, genderism, misogyny, misandry,
child abuse,
trauma and culture. I am deeply effected by this issue. We all are.
The problem
is a cultural problem, and denying this is putting off the inevitable, it is exposing more women, children and men to more harm and is yet another infuriatingly banal evil. We
must come to our senses.
Ever since I first heard the phrase
"The Democracy of Fear", a phrase coined by
Robin Morgan, it has has rung around my head and psyche. That ever present fear is debilitating, energy sapping and all the more so because the behaviour of cultural maleness is antagonistic, it carries an expectation of entitlement to women's bodies. The fear that so many women carry, that at any point she may be targeted by a man, for sexualised innuendo, banter, harassment, assault or murder.
https://bylinetimes.com/2021/09/24/can-women-be-safe-in-britain-when-the-police-fail-to-hold-their-own-to-account/ - an article by Sian Norris of Byline Times asks the question "how can women
feel safe when it is clear that the police as an institution, and the courts are both failing them?"
"Safety is more than a word. It can’t simply be stated and then, like magic, the fears evaporate. For women, safety starts with having equal access to public space as their male peers. It is not being told to stay home, walk in groups, avoid the dark, take out your headphones, don’t wear this colour clothing, or this length of skirt, don’t get drunk, just leave him. It’s knowing that when the worst happens, you’ll be believed and not blamed.
Safety also means that, when the worst happens, the people who are in charge of supporting women to find justice are not, in fact, perpetrators themselves.
How can women feel safe in London, and across the UK, when those charged with keeping us safe are guilty themselves – both of the crimes they are investigating, and of failing to care? "
I think that there are four threads to this problem - the personality of the abuser, the culture out of which the abuser emerges, the vulnerability of the victimised and the attitudes of the bystander.
Vulnerability is not weakness. Vulnerability is a situation. Vulnerability is a situation that abusers exploit. The urge to dominate exploits vulnerability. The urge to dominate leverages power to be able to exploit any vulnerability and then get away with it.
As bystanders we all understand that we too are vulnerable. Even if we do not consciously acknowledge it. There is an element of fatalism in the bystander setting. We won't get involved because we cannot change things or fear it might be dangerous.
I am think that resolving the problem has to involve all of these threads, woven into a congruent material that permeates out entire culture.
Our culture is a dominator system, with co-operation trying to emerge all the time, stymied by those who hold power and are addicted to it.
As to the personality, the matter confronts us with the need for a much more honest, humane and evidence led approach to education, with a focus on supporting healthy parenting, providing safe and well informed child care as ways to prevent the development of psychologies of bullying.
All institutions of the State must be better informed by behavioural and developmental science, not least by being intentionally aware of trauma informed approaches.
All of these elements must be supported by economic security. All of this because we are aware of the dynamics of traumatised behaviour patterns without being sentimental or judgemental about these issues.
In short, adverse abusive behaviours in adults are most often rooted in childhood trauma, they are learned behaviours and they start early, and there are plenty signals that are missed, opportunities to intervene and help the individual to re-set. Prevention is always a sound option. Bullying is rife in our culture.
Punishment is already too late.
Punishment is too late, yet justice can build safety. There is no 'punishment' that fixes the behaviour of the psychopathic abuser, who acts without remorse - the only safe approach is to set the abuser aside from society, indefinitely, as a matter of health and safety of the community.
It it best done as humanely as possible. Punishment does not help the people victimised as much as knowing that the abuser can never harm anyone again, or ever step into society, free to abuse more people. The safety of the survivor is the key element that underpins the safety of the community. If the survivor does not feel safe, then the community is not safe. Prevention is critical.
Stopping an abuser from being able to abuse is one part, generating a cultural social material environment where all abuse is rendered immediately visible and accountable is another part. Act on the earliest signs. Thwart the development of bullying as a behavioural dynamic as early as possible. Wherever it emerges. As soon as it emerges.
Why is bullying still common in schools?
Why are school girls subjected to sexualised harassment in schools?
Why is this allowed to happen? Why is this not at the very centre of the curriculum, at the very core of what is taught? It is more important than maths, more necessary than geography, more critical than literature, more vital to health than PE.
What is going on here?
Why are so many responsible adults in Education reduced to impotent bystanders?
Culture
The cultural problem is linked into the prevailing systems of hierarchy of wealth, power and violence. Wealth assumes power, and protects that power with many forms of violence. This is undeniable.
Misogyny is rooted in that power system. The urge to dominate and exploit is rooted in, inculcated and exploited within that social power system. Domination is the core driving ideology of the prevailing power system, and it absolutely impacts all our lives, all our interactions, all our social settings.
Institutions protect their power, their status and their image rather than adopt material changes that protect the vulnerable. They prefer that those who are abusive within their ranks are dealt with privately. They typically fail to act on the earliest signs, they allow abusers to get away with 'minor infractions' and when serious abuses occur, the institutions prefer to keep the matter private, for internal investigation and action.
"Sarah Everard's killer exchanged misogynistic, racist and homophobic material with colleagues who are now under criminal investigation. Five serving police officers, including three from the Metropolitan Police, allegedly shared grossly offensive material with Wayne Couzens."Source :
https://inews.co.uk/news/wayne-couzens-sarah-everard-killer-shared-abusive-texts-police-officers-white-1227149
Team work, no attempt at de-escalation.
Given the social power structural dynamics, the silo effect of 'the team', 'us against the mob', us and 'civilians', the separation between officials and citizens at large, there is plenty room for abusers to wriggle out of full accountability. They can operate within the institution as little groups of similarly minded individuals, invisible among the crowd.
We have plenty evidence that this - closing ranks, internal inquiry - is the prevailing pattern or response to survivors who speak out. Ranks are closed. The Institutions seek to insulate themselves by claiming the abuser is a bad apple.
Most people are decent.
Most people are bystanders. Most people are ruled by a minority. That minority are jealous of their power, and they protect it, and most people pay the price, bear the cost, endure the oppressive burden of that jealousy. That must cease to be the case. Everything that is problematic about this culture is coming to the surface. Sexual Assault and Harassment of Women by Men is one of these problems.
Most women experience sexualised and genderised oppressions to some degree. Why do we know this?
We know this mostly because the victimised, the harassed, the assaulted are speaking out, courageously, congruently, persistently. Survivors voices and those of their advocates speak out, and they speak for for the dead who no longer can speak.
Four threads, one weave, a congruent garment. There is much more to this than this writer can articulate.
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