A week which started with International Women’s day was one of the worst for women
Friday afternoon, usually a moment of jubilant celebration. The working week is nearly over, soon the celebratory glass of wine will be poured, and the animated discussion about which takeaway order will start. Then the TV will be on and the living room will be filled with laughter, courtesy of, in my case, The Last Leg and Gogglebox. The world always feels a little lighter on Friday nights.
But yesterday, I was feeling far from jubilant. As a journalist, you can become somewhat anesthetised to bad news, and it can be easy to forget that it can be your job, but it can also be deeply personal. This week, the week which started with International Women’s day, has been jam-packed with misogynistic rhetoric.
What should have been a week that kicked off celebrating women, became a week about questioning women; whether that was about what they said, or how they felt, or even what they did, and crucially, whether bad things that happened to women, were the fault of women.
The shocking thing is that while much of the nastiness has had a very public outlet this week, nothing has in fact changed from midnight last Sunday night. The world did not become less safe for women because Sarah Everard disappeared, but the attitude towards women was, once again, thrown into stark relief.
Monday began with the fallout from the already infamous Oprah Winfrey interview with Meghan Markle and her royal husband Prince Harry. Meghan spoke openly about having suicidal thoughts while struggling with her new position. She said she asked for help from the “institution”, but was told it was difficult to seek help as a member of the Royal Family.
One of the loudest voices was that of Piers Morgan, now ex-Good Morning Britain presenter, who used the opportunity to announce: “I don’t believe a word of what she says, Meghan Markle.” The same story of laying all the blame at the woman’s feet became the rallying cry of the anti-Meghan brigade. Prince Harry, largely, escaped the bulk of the nastiness.
Piers tried to walk back his comments about Meghan’s suicidal thoughts, but that declaration, “I don’t believe her”, hung in the air.
The missing person case of Sarah Everard, the 33-year-old marketing executive, had already cast a dark shadow over the week.
By Wednesday, a serving Metropolitan police officer had been arrested in connection with her disappearance. Later that day the case became a murder investigation. Police have now confirmed human remains found in Kent belonged to Sarah.
The news came as a blow to women across the UK. Over the last few days, women of all creeds started sharing their stories of feeling unsafe on the streets and demanded men do their bit to make women feel safer.
But for sheer luck, we all could have been Sarah. Like clockwork, there came the comments: “She shouldn’t have been walking alone at night”, “She wasn’t being sensible walking in the dark” or even “why wasn’t she following lockdown rules”.
Women already take an extraordinary number of precautions to stay safe when moving around at night, if we can’t walk home “sensibly” through leafy, middle-class Clapham, where can we walk?
And that’s not all: another woman in the public eye was grappling with harassment. Rushanara Ali, MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, said she was marking the “end of a distressing period”, after a man who had sent her death threats, escaped jail. He was banned from contacting members of parliament for 12 years.
One of the threats was to “blow up Rushanara’s office terrorist-style with petrol”. Another: “With a hand (gun) to do her Jo Cox-style”, referencing the Labour MP murdered in 2016.
This week women were reminded that we are not safe and not listened to. When we raise concerns, they are often not taken seriously.
There’s another tale missing in the tragic case of Sarah Everard. Not one tale, but many. It’s the stories of all the other women and girls who have gone missing. Sarah’s alleged murder stirred the heart of the nation. She was blonde and blue-eyed. There are countless women and girls of black and minority ethnic background whose stories go unnoticed. Their lost lives, uncounted.
The situation is also grave for trans and working class women, who are more likely to face discrimination and come to harm than white, working class women.
As Caitlin Moran pointed out: “Trans women and women without wombs also feel just as scared. We’re all scared, together.”