The shackles of being the second sex

The past ten days have shown there is, as I have said before – still no vaccine for sexism in the West. The cruel and heartbreaking murder of Sarah Everard in London has shone a harsh light on women’s safety. It is a brutal reminder that we women are in danger even in the simple act of walking home.

The public’s focus has also notably shifted from one woman to another. Last Monday, Meghan Markle bravely spoke out about her thoughts of taking her own life. Many, sadly, reacted with mistrust to this deeply personal admission of hers. Then a few days later that number we all seem to be aware of now – 97 – made headlines and met a similar mistrust and lack of empathy from too many men. This 97 refers to the percentage of women in the UK between the ages of 18-24 that have been sexually harassed. The reactions to this statistic were nothing short of horrific. Online, men’s comments were along the lines of “lets make it to 100 lads”, “aren’t they being a bit too sensitive though” and “how many are lying?”.

These reactions show how far we still have to go to be on the same page. A woman is murdered every three days. Over half the time it’s by a partner or ex-partner. And in many countries these crimes don’t even make the news. The sheer scale of the problem feels overwhelming and I know I speak for many women when I say I’m exhausted.

Some men have decided to be the ones that are outraged, saying not all men do it. “Not all men” has become the 2021 equivalent of “All lives matter”. It’s like saying not all white people do what Derek Chauvin did to George Floyd. Of course they don’t. But the power society affords whiteness makes it widespread enough that it is a systemic problem. So no, not all men abuse and harass women, but enough do to make that statistic so depressingly high. This also comes down to the systemic inequality created by the power society affords men. In Britain, a new crime bill will, if passed, raise the minimum sentence for defacing a statue to twice that of a rapist’s minimum sentence. An inanimate object is worth more than our bodies.

The shootings of Asian Americans in Atlanta this week – many of them women – have only deepened my sorrow. The killer’s sex addiction excuse, that the killings were to get rid of his ‘temptations’, is beyond sickening. Whether he’s telling the truth or not is yet to be determined, but the statement is in itself so inherently disgusting it doesn’t even matter whether it’s true. The fact those words were uttered in the first place epitomises the sexual objectification of women rather than seeing them as fellow humans. This was very likely to have been amplified by racial motivations. Even though the killer denies it, these women of colour were facing an added layer of racial discrimination.

Women should be able to walk home without being kidnapped and killed. Women should be able to go to the spa without being shot. Women shouldn’t feel unsafe in their own homes. Girls who haven’t reached puberty yet (and of any other age for that matter) should be able to walk down a road without being honked and leered at. Walking past a group of men, or a man walking behind you after dark, shouldn’t awaken that dormant volcano of fear inside us. Because the misogynistic forces that created that volcano shouldn’t exist in the first place.