MNHQ here: Femicide Census - want to know what you could do to help?

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Lots of you have been discussing the Femicide Census this week - the data for 2018 has just been released and has been getting some coverage in the media.

We asked Nia, the charity that supports the Femicide Census, what MNHQ could do to help support their work - and they sent us this email. Of course we at MNHQ will be happy to do what we can, so expect to see more about this from us, but for now it felt as though the most useful thing we could do would be to pass this on directly to you - so here goes:

"In terms of supporting our work – it is often just really helpful to have people talking about the issue, referring to the femicide census, retweeting etc – it’s about keeping the issue at the forefront of people’s minds and in particular using language that situates the blame clearly with the perpetrators and recognises it as part of the wider pattern of sex based inequality and discrimination.

As we said in our press release endless excuses and rationales are afforded to perpetrators – he had mental health issues, he was depressed, he was upset at the relationship ending, he had lost his job, he had been declared bankrupt, he was being investigated by the police, he couldn’t cope any more, he found it too distressing to see his wife/mother/child suffer yet all too often if you question it you find he had a history of controlling or abusive behaviour .

All these conditions apply to the millions of women who do not control, abuse, belittle or kill people. Even where the man kills his child somehow it’s her fault. We always scrutinise women’s behaviour and their conformity to some stereotyped, fossilised code of behaviour expected of women and benefitting men and blame her if she is not conforming to that fantasy. So anything your users can do to challenge such misrepresentations or misplaced emphasis or unreasonable rationales would be very helpful.

We also sometimes support relevant strategic litigation and in partnership with other women’s organisations we may attend Court hearings or raise a demo outside the court or similar. We know this makes a difference to the woman whose case it is – it shows her solidarity and we think it may also help build gravitas and credibility for the media and the judiciary so we sometimes tweet demos and welcome women coming along to that. We also undertake other activism – so we are usually present at Million Women Rise March or Reclaim the Night March and again we encourage such visible activism as part of a wider women’s movement.

Of course the other thing is that we always need donations so if women want to do fundraising activities, runs, swims, silences, cakebakes or whatever and raise money for us – we are delighted. We are not big enough to have a dedicated fundraiser role or a team supporting people in the way we would like but we can always provide information, logos, leaflets, links to relevant information about us or about the issue and we’ll support as much as we can – we retweet fundraisers who are doing activities for us and encourage it as much as possible.

Also women’s various workplaces or communities sometimes are looking for a charity to support or their workplace may match funds raised or encourage staff to do fundraising activities so it may be that there are other ways to multiply fundraising reach. Similarly if women are involved in organising or attending conferences and events where there may be demand for a speaker – within limited capacity and with enough notice - we may be able to come out and talk about our work or the femicide census or violence against women. The place to contact us for these sorts of things is [email protected] and we of course on Twitter - @nia_endingvawg

Thank you for all your support"

[scotchling]

The femicide census is a really important but horrifying catalogue of men's violence. The fact that such a high proportion of women are killed by husbands, sons, brothers, uncles and son-in-laws - imagine the terror of living with such an individual. And that so many are killed in their own homes - whether shared or not - we are never safe even or especially from our nearest and dearest and in our own homes.

[Lollygaggles]

Very pertinent item to highlight. I've been reading lots about this lately and it's absolutely right that violence against women and children should be centred and that the male offenders be held fully accountable.

[WomanDaresTo]

This is such a critically important piece of work.

Everyone should read it - clicky femicidescensus.org/

[Catting]

So, the people who are behind the femicide census say how inportmant language is, but mumsnet still ban people who clearly state a persons sex when discussing crimes!? How can we talk about men's violence to women, if we can't talk about certain violent men without telling lies?

[BigChocFrenzy]

Shocking statistics in that femicide report:

149 women & girls aged from 14 to 100, murdered by men in 2018

In more than half the cases, they suffered previous violence or abuse

[Languishingfemale]

So pleased to see Mumsnet highlighting this and the work of Nia. The statistics in the femicide report are shocking. I'm committing to do a local fundraising event for Nia next month.

[usernameishistory]

I have suffered and nearly lost my family and life to this.

What do they do about sexing men as men, even when they claim to be actual women? NIA?

MN, women need to be able to speak.

They find it hard enough...
...and sometimes it's too late....
...and they never did....

RIP Caroline.

[usernameishistory]

There will be no statistics without truth.

[Catting]

I'm never going to stop posting about this issue @MNHQ. Every sponsored sticky thread posted that uses the word woman, man, female etc, I will be there asking you to change the rules and allow women to speak truthfully, and freely.

[chomalungma]

I hope the Government does put the resources into the funding for refuges that has gone down under austerity. Many women still can't get a place at a refuge.

I also hope that the Government look at the funding for the criminal justice system and addresses the very low level of rape prosecutions.

There should also be a massive focus on relationship education in schools and trying to get away from 'toxic masculinity'

[Hoik]

To add to what chomalungma has said, they should remove Legal Aid means testing in cases of domestic abuse. The current income limit is laughably low and even for those earning above it, it doesn't mean they have money to spare particularly if they're having to completely start over with all the associated costs of setting up a new house/household. It also seems incredibly unfair to make victims of abuse essentially pay for their freedom.

[Coolcucumber2020]

It’s very shocking isn’t it. I’m glad that this organization has highlighted this issue. I’ve seen families extremely distressed that the media has softened the reporting to diminish responsibility.

Would we say someone had mental health problems / depression / under strain if they’d abused a child? Not so likely now. We don’t excuse that, and we should not this.

I think we need the same level of awareness that this is often not a flash in the pan aberration of Behaviour, and that list of how femicides occur from an escalation of controlling behaviour is very important. We should educate children in schools to be aware of what red flags are.

[chomalungma]

We should educate children in schools to be aware of what red flags are

You've got to wonder how many children can see it in their house with their Dads.

[HandsOffMyRights]

Shocking and terrifying.

But we have to be able to freely state what a woman is and what a man is. We have to be able to talk about male violence against females.

Yet you police us MN. Threads are deleted for merely mentioning bioloical sex. You are complicit at many times - you let the abusers dictate what women can say.

You silence us while the gaslighters go to work, saying it's fine for men to access women's refuges, prisons, changing spaces and other safe spaces if they feel lik a woman.

[Manchestermanchester]

I was at the airport and patted down by a female worker. Can you imagine if a man said “I’m a female and I want a female to pat me down”. Where is the protection?

[Michelleoftheresistance]

I have shared these statistics as widely as I can. They are shocking. They should be widely known, discussed and acted on.

But to do so will involve protecting women's single sex spaces, including refuges. And being clear on what a woman is, and that there are needs specific to women, and this is ok . Women talking about women is not intrinsically wronging males. We can't even talk about femicide, never mind address it when female has become a contentious and dirty word nice people don't say.

[Thelnebriati]

Just a reminder that if you sell on Ebay, you can make a percentage of your sale as a donation to Nia.

[SleightOfMind]

Such good work being done by Nia, Women’s’ Place, We Can’t Consent to This and more.
The least we can all do is support however we can and share widely.
Misogyny should be classed as a hate crime.

[Igmum]

Have tweeted this. And yes @MNHQ please could you take the first step to supporting this by allowing proper discussion on this forum?

[ahumanfemale]

As someone who suffered at the hands (literally) of a man, I wonder whether MN is going to support women in this, or going to still seek to appease those who insist that women shouldn't be free to speak because it hurts (or might hurt) feelings.

Because it's impossible to do both. I'm normally all for the nuances, but in this situation, you either believe and support women, or you don't. Is it more important to support the most vulnerable women, whose lives are under actual threat, or others, usually men, who claim that women's voices are "literal violence"?

[Binterested]

Chastening to read this from NIA. And yes we need to be able to say who men are and who women are.

[Frothybothie]

Yes, some children will see it with a/the male in the house. BUT if taught appropriately in schools it will promote the message that this is wrong - it's not just what happens.

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Thanks for your thoughts - we know Nia will be really happy to have your support on this. Anyone who's doing any fundraising for them and would like us to boost it from our Twitter account, feel free to email us on [email protected] - we can keep your MN name out of it in any public social posts.

We wanted to address the comments about our mod policy - but we're pretty desperate for this thread to NOT turn into another long debate about our moderation, or indeed about the debate around sex, gender and self-ID, because we think that would be a significant injustice to the topic of the OP.

As you'll (hopefully) know our aim in moderating this incredibly fraught area is to encourage civility, particularly when individual people are being discussed, which is why we're minded to ask MNers to use preferred pronouns particularly for individuals (and also why we're minded to delete 'cis' when the women concerned object to it, a decision for which we have taken an enormous amount of criticism and heat).

That said, if someone has been convicted of violent/sexual offences then our first priority will always be to stand with the victims and - where relevant - the use of pronouns would take a back seat to that so far as our mod team is concerned.

It's definitely not our intention to stop MNers talking about the reality of male violence against women and the differences in biology, physical strength, power and socialisation that can contribute to it.

As we said above we really really don't want this thread of all threads to lose the focus on the OP - if you'd like to discuss moderating issues further we'd really appreciate it if you could start a separate thread in Site Stuff and we will be happy to talk to you about it there.

Thanks
MNHQ

[Tellingitlikeitisnt]

Good reply- thanks @RowanMumsnet