We women are often told that equality has arrived. It’s time to calm down and stop being victims. That the #MeToo movement went too far. I mean, Amber Heard, right? That it’s #NotAllMen. Then you open your phone, pick up a paper or listen to the news and it feels terrifying to be a woman. Story after story involving women being beaten, abused, humiliated, raped or killed by men — often their partner. I recently got chided on a show for saying there was an “epidemic” of violence against women. I stand by every word.
We have learned that Epsom College headmistress Emma Pattison may have been shot by her husband shot alongside their seven-year-old daughter. Two days ago, a man was found guilty in Edinburgh of luring Bennylyn Burke and her two-year-old daughter up to Dundee where he killed them both. She had been hoping for a better life.
Yesterday in Leeds, a man is facing a life sentence for the savage murder of Lauren Howe, his former girlfriend and mother of his two children. Also yesterday, a man who pretended to be the cousin of boxing champion Tyson Fury was jailed for 27 years at Chester Crown Court for rape, tormenting women with sickening acts (including making them eat their own faeces) and subjecting them to coercive control.
Meanwhile, here in London, David Carrick, the former Metropolitan police officer, was sentenced to a minimum of 30 years in prison after pleading guilty to 49 charges, compromising 85 offences including multiple rapes, making him one of the worst sexual offenders in modern history. The 12 brave women who came forward described how they had been assaulted, raped, controlled and degraded by Carrick.
One victim told of being whipped, handcuffed, sexually abused and locked in a cupboard naked. He got away with it for so long because he had the ultimate trump card — he was in a position of power and no one would believe her word over his, because, as he told his victims, “I am the law.”
At this point, I should start listing solutions and remedies — but what’s the point? The details of each case bring tears to my eyes — the trust of these women. They mainly wanted to be loved. And their bravery to come forward and speak of their trauma and the effect it had had on their lives.
We must listen to women who have been victims of male sexual violence in other areas of policy making. It makes recent decisions to place rapists in female prisons all the more crass and shocking.
I worry that the scale and frequency of these stories numbs us. That each case which should be a watershed moment ends up washing over us and nothing changes. I don’t know what the answers are. But claiming #MeToo has gone too far is not one of them.
Male power — physical and structural — is the problem. Because, no matter what we do, women are only as safe as men allow us to be.
The wondrous Vanessa Feltz
One of the most impressive human beings I’ve met in a long time is Vanessa Feltz, below.
Her brain is razor-sharp, her vocabulary rich and her work ethic is something else.
At one point, she was up at 2am presenting two different breakfast radio shows, writing columns, popping up on TV before attending red carpet events in the evening. And doing all this looking fabulous, with a dazzling smile and bags of charisma.
She has also mastered Instagram, sharing her life, home and family with her many fans. We are all devastated that she has split from her partner Ben Ofoedu, who allegedly cheated on her. What a wally. She’s the catch of the century, in my book. Brains, beauty and bags of fun. While she will be nursing a broken heart, many women — especially in the media — see her as a feminist hero and national treasure.
