Where do women in the UK find themselves on International Women’s Day in 2022? In truth: more fearful about their safety, more anxious about their economic futures and wondering if the monumental gains made in gender equality over the last decades are at risk. But they are also louder and more determined than ever.
It is impossible to reflect on the last 12 months without focusing on the seismic revolution of understanding of male violence against women and girls (VAWG).
Research from Rosa, a grant-making charity for frontline women’s organisations, reveals that 89% of the 320 organisations they surveyed think public understanding of the problem has transformed since the murder of Sarah Everard one year ago.
The past year has also seen a rupturing of the trust between women and the state agencies that pledge to protect them. At a vigil to honour Everard in Clapham Common, which police had tried and failed to prevent by threatening to heavily fine organisers, women who had come to mourn were instead forcibly removed.
What trust was left took a further blow with the prosecution of two officers who shared pictures of the murdered sisters Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, the exposure of vile sexist and racist Whatapp messages shared between officers based at London’s Charing Cross police station, and ongoing reports of officers accused of domestic abuse going unpunished, or worse uninvestigated.
Speaking to the Guardian on Monday, the new national police lead on VAWG, Maggie Blyth, promised change – a prioritisation of crimes against women and a crackdown on men within the ranks of the police who abuse their power. There is a moment of opportunity, she insisted, and it is too important to waste.
There is hope. At the grassroots level, councils like Greenwich, where Sabina Nessa was murdered, are helping fund plays about sexism and toxic masculinity, local youth rugby clubs are asking how they can help prevent violence against women, an outpouring of grief after the murder of Everard raised more than half a million pounds that will be distributed to small charities working at the vanguard of tackling misogyny and male violence.
On the national stage, the UK government and the mayors of London and Manchester have launched a communications campaign focusing on stopping perpetrators of sexual harassment and violence.
The government, the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing have agreed to implement all the recommendations made by a damning inspection by the policing watchdog, leading to Blyth’s appointment and the upgrading of VAWG to the same strategic footing as terrorism.
The challenge now will be keeping the issue in the spotlight as the horror at what happened to Everard – exposed in the trial of her killer Wayne Couzens – moves further into the past.
More than a 125 women have died since International Women’s Day last year, according to the Femicide Census, which notes that a woman is killed by a man every three days.
The work of ending men’s violence towards women and girls will be arduous and painstaking. It is – as many who have worked in the sector for decades can attest – the work of a lifetime.
But, for now at least, the wail of anger and anguish that crescendoed after the murder of Everard continues to echo through society. Women have found their voice, and they are determined to be heard.
