Reclaim These Streets
I have no words to describe how I feel about the UK’s descent into authoritarian fascism before our very eyes. Following the horrific kidnap and murder of Sarah Everard by a serving Metropolitan police officer, women up and down the country began pouring out their stories of harassment, abuse and victimisation at the hands of men.
A female protestor is manhandled by Met police officers in Clapham Common, on 13th March 2021
The statistics are truly chilling.
Approximately 85,000 women are raped and over 400,000 women are sexually assaulted in England and Wales every year.
Conviction rates for rape are far lower than other crimes. Only 5.7% of reported rape cases end in a conviction for the perpetrator.
On average, two women in England and Wales are killed every week by a current or former male partner.
In response to the news about Sarah Everard and as an outpouring of grief, women across the UK came together under the banner ‘Reclaim These Streets’ to hold a candlelight vigil at Clapham Common in honour of Sarah, and of all the women impacted by male violence. Following a contested hearing in the High Court, the Met informed the organisers the gathering could not go ahead. The organisers sent the same message to their followers via social media.
Regardless, they gathered. And the image above is how the Met police responded. By forcefully subduing some protestors and arresting them.
Women in the UK have experienced harassment on an almost universal scale; everything from verbal comments and outright abuse, to lewd gestures and stalking, and of course, rape and murder. There is a systemic disconnect between the lived realities of so many women, and the way the state responds to them in times of need. It is not for no reason that so many women feel ‘nothing’s going to be done,’ and so, do not even go to the bother of reporting the majority of lower-level harassment.
I am angry that women suffer at the hands of male violence.
I am angry that female victims are not believed.
I am angry that “slut-shaming” is even a concept with its own tagline.
I am angry that the problem is the behaviour and actions of men, but it is women who are policed. Women who are told they shouldn’t have been there or done that.
I am angry that the threat to women’s safety is not taken seriously.