Violence Against Women

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Miss Scarlet in the Billiard Room with the Patronising Media

Wednesday 5th January, 2011 in Media, Violence Against Women by Melaszka | No comments

I live in the Bristol area, where the local media has been abuzz lately with the brutal murder of Joanna Yeates. Before that, the murder in South Africa of Anni Dewani, whose husband is a Bristol businessman, also garnered several column inches in the local press. Several things about the coverage of these two women’s deaths in both the national and the local media have disturbed me.

Firstly, the salacious reporting of both cases seems to have been tailored to cater for the armchair Poirots amongst us. It is easy to forget, when surrounded by news reports which focus in lingering detail on clues and suspects and gossipy details of the dramatis personae’s lives, that the women who died and their family members and/or acquaintances who are now falling under both police and public suspicion are real people, not characters in a novel or a TV series. These women’s violent deaths seem to be being heartlessly plundered to provide the nation with a series of dramatic watercooler moments. I must admit, as a whodunnit junkie myself, I have found myself getting caught up in the lurid speculation, too, and am instantly repelled by my own crassness. It’s hard, though, when every news report seems to frame these women’s deaths in terms more suited to the Reverend Green in the Library with the Lead Piping.

Is it just my imagination or is it particularly the violent murder of young women that gets this voyeuristic treatment? I don’t recall the deaths of young men or older people being reported in this way. It seems part of a general public perception that the abduction, torture and/or murder of young women is somehow exciting, glamorous and sexy, a perception which is fuelled by crime fiction which seems to increasingly focus on the “sexy” female torture victim or dead body with unnecessarily titillating detail.

This fetishisation of female victims of violence is not only objectifying and insulting to women, it can also have negative effects on male victims of crime, whose suffering is often ignored by the media and the public – they’re apparently just not sexy enough. For example, thousands of children go missing every year, but it’s usually only photogenic white girls whose absence triggers a media frenzy, with not only the seedy, quasi-paedophiliac voyeurism that brings, but also the publicity that could potentially be helpful in finding them.

Also, I’ve noticed that, in both media descriptions of Dewani and Yeates and tributes from friends and families, the women’s beauty has been stressed above all else. Why is it that people persist in thinking that the most valuable asset a woman has, the most important thing to stress about her, the most tragic waste if her life is violently cut short, is her beauty? When a young man is tragically killed, it is rarely said about him “It’s such a waste – he was so handsome!” “He had his whole life ahead of him” – yes. “He was so talented, doing so well in his studies or career” – yes. “He planned to marry and have children” – yes, sometimes. All these things are said about female murder victims, too, and yet the kneejerk response when a woman under the age of 35 meets an untimely end is to stress the loss of her good looks first, as if it’s somehow disrespectful to the dead woman to think that any of her talents or achievements are more important than that.

Finally, I find the Avon and Somerset Police’s suggestion that local women should avoid going out alone at night until Yeates’s killer is caught staggering. Statistically, young men are far more likely to die as a result of violent crime than women, and yet I have never heard the police issue a statement suggesting that men submit themselves to a voluntary curfew. It seems unthinkable to subject men to any curtailment of their freedom to travel and socialise as much as they want, no matter how much danger they may be in. And yet if a woman is killed, especially a young, attractive woman, even if there is no evidence whatsoever that she was killed because she was a woman, the motive is immediately assumed to be sexual and all women in the area are held to be at risk and expected to make themselves prisoners in their own homes, or it will somehow be considered to be their fault if they are subsequently attacked.

The links between Rape Culture and Birth Trauma

Tuesday 19th October, 2010 in Parenting, Sexual Violence, Violence Against Women by Suzi | 1 comment

WARNING: This post may be triggering to survivors of rape and/or birth trauma. There are also links within the post which some may find triggering.

I found this post yesterday over on Spilt Milk about how birth trauma and rape culture are linked and I have to say I couldn’t agree with it more. Pregnancy, birth and Motherhood are states in which strangers, medical professionals and well just about everyone, find themselves entitled to question women’s autonomy, to assault women without question and what is more- this assault is socially mandates as acceptable. Pregnant women find themselves met with a barrage of questions from strangers, find total strangers, as well as acquaintances touching and stroking their body without any form of permission. Labouring women find themselves subjected to medical procedures and bodily invasion and assault with out any form of explanation offered or consent required.  Mothers find their parenting choices routinely questioned and opined over in public spaces. These are all examples of the expansion of a culture which views womens bodies and minds as both disposable and in need of guidance and constraint.

There is only one other time where someone can have a medical procedure performed upon them without their personal, informed consent- when an individual is deemed to be unable to understand the consequences of their decision and when a court has mandated that said individual must have decisions made for them.  Women have told me, and my friends and regularly post on the net of the ways in which they have been ignored as they labour. Just this morning I heard the story of a woman who was not asked her consent when a midwife performed an episiotomy. There’s a word for that- ASSAULT.

Whilst there are plenty of situations where medical procedures must be performed quickly during labour and delivery it takes less than 10 seconds to say ” Jane, the baby has X problem and I need to make a cut to help the baby deliver very quickly. Is that OK?”. Checking with independent midwives and NHS midwife friends has also assured me that certainly there is no situation where they as individuals would ever not ask a woman before performing a procedure.

It seems clear to me at least that the arena of motherhood, beginning at pregnancy has so much work that needs doing in it. Let’s make a start by remembering that pregnant women and mothers are people too, and respecting the bodily autonomy of those women. Next time you find yourself about to stroke the bump of a pregnant woman or comment on how heavily pregnant she is, do us all as favour- don’t!

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Cis Feminists and Trans Allies?

Sunday 10th October, 2010 in Protests, Reclaim The Night, Violence Against Women by Suzi | No comments

The wonderful Anji of “Shut Up, Sit Down” has a brilliant new piece up over on The F Word titled “Why cis attendees of RTN are letting trans women down”. For those of you unfamiliar with the argument, every year London Feminist Network host a Reclaim The Night March, protesting Violence against Women (VW). I’ve been once in 2008, and found it an uplifting experience but one which also left me somewhat uncomfortable after hostility between LFN and members of a Sex Workers Rights group arose.  I’ve also noticed that every year multiple feminist groups call upon LFN to explicitly state that trans women are welcome on the march, and every year LFN fail to state this. It’s a horrific example of transphobia, which I don’t think can or should be ignored any longer. Anji explains why LFN need to be explicit in their welcoming of trans women, and I would urge all feminists, cis or trans, to call on LFN to be explicit in their stataements regarding who is and isn’[t welcome to march with them. I would even go so far as to urge feminists to boycott the London March this year- many cities have RTN marches which welcome all self identifying women- Oxford has one on October 22nd – and so in order to put an end to the hideous transphobia routinely perpetrated by LFN, go to one of the smaller marches. That might seem a bit extreme but we aren’t good feminists or allies if we ignore, and are complicit in the abuse of our trans sisters.

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Stranger Danger, People-Pleasing and Neurosis

Tuesday 9th March, 2010 in Accepted Social Situations, feminism, Politics, Violence Against Women by Melaszka | No comments

I recently advertised for a language exchange partner on the internet. You probably know the kind of set-up I mean – they are native speakers of the foreign language I’m trying to learn who live in my town and want to improve their English, and the idea is that we meet up on a regular basis to practise our conversational skills in each other’s language. I soon received a number of replies to my ad, including one from a couple in their 20s who seemed very friendly, lived close to me, and it didn’t take us long to set up a date to meet.

The thing is, I’m well-versed in internet safety etiquette. I know all the rules backwards: don’t give away too much personal information about yourself online, never give out your home address, never take what strangers say about themselves online at face value and, above all, never meet up with someone you’ve met online in real life in a private home. Always set up the first meeting in a public space, like a pub or café. And yet, when my new online pals suggested we have our first meeting at their flat, I immediately agreed, even though the idea made me feel anxious and uncomfortable.

I think one of the reasons I didn’t insist on meeting on neutral ground is that I do tend to be a tad on the neurotic side – I’m the kind of person who goes through a nightly ritual of checking the inside of the wardrobe and under the bed for intruders and regularly exits an Underground carriage the minute a young man carrying a rucksack gets on, just in case he happens to have a bomb in it. It’s a side of myself I’m trying to battle with, so I didn’t want to indulge my paranoia here.

And maybe I was being overcautious – after all, while my love life is solidly vanilla, my more sexually adventurous friends seem to spend half their time in the bedrooms of people they’ve only just met and no-one’s taken an axe to them yet.

But deep down, I suspect that the real reasons I completely ignored the ground rules I’d decided to set were because:

(a) like – I’m guessing – a lot of women, I have a horror of seeming rude, of putting people to any inconvenience. They preferred to meet at their home – who was I to say different?

(b) I am also reluctant to be viewed as the local nutter. I know through personal experience that women who insist on taking taxis short distances at night instead of walking, refuse to open the door to strangers or demand to see IDs from tradesmen, tend to get treated like they have acute psychiatric problems, even those are all things which we are officially advised to do.

On my way over to my language partners’ place, my anxiety grew. As I walked the couple of miles to their address, I mentally replayed what I knew about this couple and all sorts of innocent things they’d mentioned in their e-mails suddenly seemed to take on a sinister significance. They’d seemed very eager – suspiciously eager? – to set up a meeting as soon as possible. They’d made a big deal about the fact that they were a couple and had attached a photo, but that’s exactly the kind of thing a solitary rapist or people-trafficker would say to try and put his potential victim at ease and the photo could have been of anybody – any idiot with a search engine could find a picture of A Random Couple and pass it off as himself and his non-existent wife. After my first e-mail, they’d Googled me and found my Facebook page, which hadn’t seemed odd at the time, but now started to appear macabrely stalkerish. And, come to think of it, all their e-mails had been in English, so I had no proof that they even spoke a word of the language which they claimed was their native tongue. Before long, I could hear Kirsty Young’s voice in my head, appealing to the public to help solve my murder on Crimewatch.

Well, I eventually reached their block of flats and, as you’ve probably gathered from the fact that I’m here writing this blog, they weren’t axe murderers: fortunately, they were exactly who they said they were. They were, in fact, utterly charming, I spent a highly enjoyable couple of hours with them and I’m hopeful that the language exchange partnership will go swimmingly.

But this experience has, yet again, underlined for me how, despite talking the feminist talk and knowing the theory, in actuality I’m incredibly easily swayed by media crime scaremongering, yet equally easily convinced that, as a woman, my right to set boundaries which make feel safe and comfortable is negligible and that I am obliged at all times and in all places to accommodate others.

I wonder how many other women feel continually torn between two totally unreasonable and utterly conflicting societal dictats – on the one hand, we’re taught to be people-pleasers who shouldn’t inconvenience others with “selfish”, “neurotic”, “rude” demands, on the other we’re bombarded with victim-blaming propaganda that suggests that if we fail to observe a 24-hour curfew and apply for a full CRB check on anyone we speak to, should something untoward happen to us, it is somehow entirely our fault.

Speak out – a story

Wednesday 16th December, 2009 in Protests, Violence Against Women by Dorri | No comments

Reese Witherspoon was on TV last week talking about her work with Avon’s Four Ways to Make a Change campaign.

1 in 4 women are dealing with domestic violence
2 women die every week at the hands of their partner or former partner

This got me thinking – how has domestic violence affected me?

In the work I’ve done as a psychotherapist I’ve had many clients who’ve had to deal with the issue to prove to me that a great many women have experienced domestic violence, and that it is much more insidious than I had realised – however, for obvious reasons, I’m not gong to discuss that any further.

I have not had to deal with it myself, but from a few comments my mother has made I think that she was brought up in a house where it was an issue.

When I was 16 I started my A-levels. I used the opportunity to get out of my country school and go to a college in a neighbouring city. I made new friends – some great, some not so great. One of the great ones was a woman who was a few years older than me. She was someone I met through other people, we didn’t share any classes but she had worked out in the real world for a few years and now had a determination to get the grades she needed to get to university. She studied hard, held down a job, and kept an active social life going. I’m guessing you can see why I admired her; as time went on that admiration turned to a deep and abiding friendship that I treasure to this day. She is funny, witty, rude, kind, compassionate, brave, and tells me the truth; simply thinking about her makes me smile. When I left home at 17 she helped me find a job and introduced me to city living and our friendship deepened again. It was then that I found out that she had once been the victim of domestic violence.

I was shocked to be honest – it didn’t seem to fit with the gutsy, take no-nonsense, woman I loved and admired. As she told me her story, not all at once, but a piece of information here, a word there, I began to see how it had happened.

Of course she was younger then and he was older – she was impressed by his age. That was uncomfortable to hear because I could see that happening all around me, heck I could see myself having done that! He was nice to her and to begin with his concern about her whereabouts looked like caring, not an attempt at control. The abuse really started long before he hit her – her friends, the places she went, what she told her parents all became things he influenced; a thousand small methods of control. She told me that the first time he hit her he had been so sorry, so apologetic, and so certain it would never happen again that she believed him. After a long period of abuse (long to a teenager perhaps if not an adult) it ended – not because anyone stopped him, or because she left him, but because he was sent to prison for something else altogether. My friend visited him in prison, wrote to him, stayed faithful, but her friends used his absence as an opportunity to remind her of their friendship and its’ joys. She saw how much her life had changed. She was reminded what it was like not having to worry about the violence she had endured yesterday, or might endure today, and how much better she felt not lying to her parents to hide the abuse from them (how she managed that I don’t know, she was still living with her parents when all this happened – I can only say it is a credit to her ingenuity but perhaps, just this once, I do wish she wasn’t quiet so clever.) Anyway, the time apart allowed her to see what her life really should be – safe, and this lead to her ending their relationship while he was still in prison.

It’s an old well-worn story – the detail, or at least the details I have, are not really that important here. What is important is that if a woman as smart and strong as my friend could be the target of domestic violence then I knew any woman could be. It’s an uncomfortable truth. Since then I have known too many women who have had to deal with the same difficulties, some did not escape, some did. But I always remember that first encounter and I remember how she escaped – because her friends were her friends and stepped up to the plate when they were needed, they saw an opportunity and made the most of it. In the end even making a cup of tea, or telling a story, can be a powerful feminist action – it can help change a life.

Please take the time to visit Avon’s Four Ways to Make a Change campaign.

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How Sexual Assualt leads to Identity Theft

Tuesday 1st September, 2009 in feminism, gender, Sexual Violence, Violence Against Women by andieberry | No comments

Warning: This post may be triggering for Sexual Violence survivors.

Standing up to a ‘minor’ sexual assault.

Picture the scene:  you’re a woman who is gaining confidence in who she is and what she does. Upon entering Higher Education (something you never ever thought you had the brains for) you find yourself looking at the top spot on the student union and thinking to yourself  ‘I can do that’ . You run for office, you succeed. The college administration has respect for you because you unearth diplomatic skills you never thought you had, students like you because everything gets sorted and at the top of your ‘to do list’  is student welfare, every single time.

You help to organise the end of year  ball, and  you dress up-  not in a posh frock, but in a ringmaster’s costume (because some wag said the student union was a circus). You turn up to the ball,  and naturally people want to talk to you and take photos because you are one of the few that has turned up donning fancy dress. You have a couple of drinks and go outside for a cigarette.

Its dark outside but that doesn’t matter this place is familiar to you, it is safe. Suddenly you feel someone place their hand on your arse and stroke right across the cheek. You turn around to see someone you barely know, another student. You tell them to ‘fuck off’ . The person towers over your five foot six small frame by at least a six inches. You figure the verbal warning was enough but the person takes it as a challenge and proceeds to do it again. Again you tell them to ‘fuck off’!  The person explains that you must be ‘up for it’, otherwise why would you be talking and joking with every one?  Why would you be in fancy dress?

You don`t move from your position because it’s the only way you can show you won’t be cowed. It happens again, then a male friend comes around the corner and the person runs off. You try and shake it off , after all, you’ve worked in bars for years and put up with all sorts of sexist shit, but this time it feels different-  the experience was threatening.

You shrug it off and drink some more and get back to the ball but you find yourself unwittingly clinging to your male friend. You find yourself talking to your male friend outside and then suddenly the perpetrator comes walking past you and  addresses your friend saying that you’re a ‘slag’ and asking  ‘what are you doing with THAT mate?’  Next thing you know you’re cleaning blood off someone who has tried to help the perpetrator,  after he decided to put his head through a glass door.

You wake up in the morning and realise the danger that could have occurred!  How can the behavior of this individual go unpunished? He`s clearly a danger to women and to himself what do you do? Your best friend advises you to call the police and register a complaint; you were touched without consent in a sexual manner and also verbally abused.

The next day you are visited by a lone male police officer, you give your statement and hand over clothes for DNA analysis. You feel foolish, like you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, after all you’re thirty something tough cookie, you put it to the back of your mind and get on with things.

You explain what happened to your boyfriend, he`s sorry that it happened, it wouldn’t have happened if he was there, then if not me who would it of happened to? Would they have handled it the same way as me, what if my friend hadn’t walked around the corner , what if I was by myself when the verbal assault happened? No-one would have seen, they were all inside. Had he done this before ? Why didn’t I move? What if?  What if?

You go to the shops you start to see tall skinny men just like him, is it him? Your heart quickens and you freeze- what do you do if it is him? You walk through the park, see tall skinny men, is that him? What do I do?

You examine in detail what you are wearing, you dress down more than usual, a bit less make up, looser jeans. But then you look in the mirror and you realise it’s stupid- it’s not about what you wear.  In fact it’s not about you at all. It’s about him.  It’s not about sex it’s about power. He didn’t get what he wanted and he put his own head through a glass door.  This guy has serious problems but that’s not my concern. I want to stop being scared of what ifs .

I talk about it with close friends,  and the more I talk about it, the more I get angry, the more I want to get some people to go after him and kick the shit out of him. The rational part of me says it won’t solve anything. But what will happen? Will the police take it seriously? The P.C informs me that he believes me and he is reporting to a sexual assault ‘Tzar’ in the Thames Valley Police.  Why does a PC need to tell me that he believes me?  I’m smart, I’m in a position of trust, I don’t normally display intense emotional responses with complete strangers. I said I was willingly to take it to court without having certain protections such as a video link, instead of appearing in court in person. I know I’m right to report this I’ve never called the police in my life but I know deep down this individual has to stop and examine what he’s doing and what he thinks is normal behavior to females.

I go and report this to the principal ,she’s behind me one hundred percent as are two of my tutors , I find a different response with the third tutor who implies that I’m aggressive.  Aggressive how? Ok, I’m forceful but that’s my personality and anyway isn’t that a cop-out? Aggressive personalities don’t deserve to be sexually assualted anymore than anyone else. Examining my personality, this tutor knew me and knew that deep down I wouldn’t have taken such steps if I thought it was just a bit of `party banter’.

I go to the women’s officer, a Marxist feminist, and explain the situation and how I’m feeling. I was seeking support in bringing the case to the college authorities- I know he’s done this to other women on campus who for their own reasons won’[t speak up. The next thing I know its all about him according to our ‘Feminist’Womens Officer ‘well he is from a council estate you know’.  Erm…well so am I and believe me most males from a council estate would never act like that. Yeah I know he`s got problems but does that make it ok to act out in a sexually aggressive manner? A male friend of mine commented that every pat on the back side from a male to a female has two thousand years of patriarchy behind it. Well I never think that deeply I just thought the situation was bang out of order.

The P.C rang me up ‘we nicked him’.  Great.  Now what?  When questioned (after a night in the cells) he claimed that  ‘it was that sort of night…it was banter..I thought she’d be ok with it’. He claimed the time between taking photos and chatting was immediately prior to the assault. In short his word against mine, and therefore the CPS won`t take it up. ‘Well at least he got a night in the cells, that’s not very nice’ said the PC. No mate, but neither was the self evaluation, the anger, the fear and the retrospection. The feeling that no matter how much I gain confidence there’s always a patriarchal pat on the backside that can make me question my personality, my appearance and what  makes up my identity.

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