Why is violence against women and girls not central to this election?

With the rise of incel culture, Parliament and the Police posing an increasing threat and an all time low rape conviction rate - parties should not be able to get away with inaction

Since the last general election in 2019, one issue that continues to dominate news cycles, is violence against women and girls. As a platform we feel privileged that a lot of you have shared your thoughts and experiences with us through the articles you have submitted. This is why this general election we are particularly disturbed by the lack of attention paid to the issue. As yet, the only notable acknowledgement and commitment to policy action has come from the Conservatives. They have promised to rewrite the Equalities Act to exclude trans women to “protect women and girls. The rationale is that trans women are not real women, and so pose an inherent danger to women and so should therefore not be allowed in women’s only spaces.

In 2021 Covid restrictions ended and young people across Britain were excited to return to nightclubs. What awaited uni students up and down the country? A spate of spiking. According to universities.ac.uk there were nearly 5’000 cases with 74% identifying as female. In 2021 serving Met Police officer Wayne Couzens used his police officer credentials to kidnap, rape, murder then burned the body of Sarah Everard. Later investigations would show he remained an officer despite being reported for indecent exposure 8 times and was given the nickname “the rapist” by fellow officers. After the case another officer was found to have been sharing memes about the body being burned. Later, more women were attacked by officers at a vigil in Sarah Everard’s memory. The commissioner Cressida Dick claimed The Met had “a few bad apples” before being ousted by London mayor Sadiq Khan. Earlier this year inews reported that the number of officers arrested for domestic abuse has risen by 500% in 5 years. Perhaps politicians are hesitant to engage with this issue, is because it would reflect poorly on their own conduct. This year The House of Commons voted that MPs who had been arrested for serious violent or sexual offences, will face a commons panel, who will decide whether to bar them from the parliamentary estate. The rule was only approved by one vote. 170 to 169. This means that 169 MPs felt that being arrested for sex offences didn’t constitute the consideration that you should not be in Parliament. This is not a party political issue. The Tories kept Natalie Elphick as an MP after she defended her ex-husband (a convicted rapist) saying that him being “attractive” and “attracted to women” made him an "easy target for dirty politics and false allegations”. Keir Starmer then welcomed her to Labour.

This year we learned that the Tories top donor Frank Hester had said that seeing Dianne Abbott on TV made him want to hate all Black women and that she should be shot. Not only did top Tories like Rishi Sunak and Michael Gove forgive him (despite not speaking for Dianne Abbott or Black people in any tangible way) the party accepted another donation from Hester afterwards. Later, Dianne Abbott stood to speak at a debate about the racist comments and was ignored 46 times. Though heartbreaking, it perfectly encapsulated the misogynoir experienced by Black women and was the perfect visual metaphor for Parliament’s inability to tackle social issues effectively. Away from Parliament, in the bedrooms of our children and teenagers, misogynistic content is on the rise. The now deceased Kevin Samuels, the Fresh & Fit podcast, Freddie McGowan and most notably Andrew Tate have risen to internet prominence with viral misogynistic content. In 2021 a 22 year old Jake Davison shot and killed 5 people. He was part of the online incel movement and displayed an open hatred for women and gay people in online postings. This year 15 year old Elianne Andam was killed after being repeatedly stabbed by a teenage boy. She was reportedly defending a friend who was the assailant’s ex and was found to have a bouquet of flowers as well as the two foot long knife.  These cases suggest young boys are being taught that women are “things” and that if they don’t adhere to their wishes, they are disposable

*Disclaimer for “not all men commit…etc etc” responses*. The point of this is not to say that all men are a danger to all women, but with a rape conviction rate at less than 2% and statistical evidence showing that women are disproportionately impacted by sexual assault and domestic violence, a basic understanding of maths (in lieu of women repeatedly making these points) would lead any sensible person to the conclusion that violence against women is a growing problem. Politicians are good at framing the conversation around what they think they can score well on. Two of Labour and the Tories biggest respective policies are around national service and charity status for private schools. Think carefully, how many times have you thought about either of those things since 2019? Now think comparatively: how many times have you seen a news story about violence against women that has disturbed you in the same timeframe?  There are no easy fixes to this. There isn’t a magic policy that can end misogyny. But small scale steps like pledging more money to women’s shelters, mandating education around consent and relationships, more pressure on social media platforms to moderate content properly, a 0 tolerance approach to assault and domestic violence throughout government institutions are all achievable and would be more effective than banning trans women from toilets. The mainstream media also have a role to play here. We are a comparatively small platform, but these questions should be posed in leader’s debates and news conferences. The public will should dictate the content of election content and we believe a country with less fear is the public’s will.

Article by Martyn Ewoma