Davina McCall wouldn't walk home alone in the dark

Floisme, with respect, I don’t think an all female jujitsu class compares with krav maga. DD learned it in a mixed group and was able to deal with 16 stone men. It was pretty hard core - they had to be able to deal with attackers armed with knives, attackers grabbing their throat from behind, etc.
DD now volunteers to help with security at feminist meetings and marches.

Good post cat. Really good.

Looking at the replies she's dismissive, condescending and clueless.
I wouldn't be surprised if this tweet ends her career. I'm pretty sure the shows she presents have a large female audience.

This.

Also ... there's a point to be made about how we are still devaluing/rendering invisible women's work.

Thinking that DM should have arrived at a perfectly-formed, feminist point of view by osmosis, 'naturally', is simply failing to see the - frankly gruelling - Labour many, many women have done, over many, many years.

For example, I'm seeing a lot off posters ask why there is this response to this murder.

I'm seeing a lot of daft answers.

The daft answers focus on the particularity of this case ('she was young, pretty and white'; 'she was snatched from a busy street', etc).

No.

All these answers fail to look at changes in our attitudes brought about by the bloody hard work of many women.

We now see SE's abduction and murder as part of a wider context.

We now join together the murders of women, rather than see each one as a particular, with a particular, individualised, context.

Women worked for many years to get that into the mainstream.

And we managed to get to the point where a female MP, Jess Phillips, reads out a yearly list of murders women in Parliament.

Drawing in the intense, focussed work of another woman, Karen Ingala-Smith.

That is a massively important legitimisation of a feminist argument about the nature of femicide.

It didn't come out of nowhere. To get to that point we needed: to get women's education; to get women into power in places of education; to get women's arguments legitimated as relevant objects of study; to get women accepted as MPs, to get all-women shortlists so we had a number of women MPs ... and so on.

Women's work.

And we also needed power on a widely-distributed basis.

I think it's no accident that this is getting taken more seriously now, when it is normal for women to be part of the workforce, when we are able to argue that we carry enormous multiple-demands and execute them successfully, and it is anachronistic that the law does not fully-recognise our rights - to walk and live free of the threat of male violence.

Women's work, all of it: from women doing small acts of empowerment, to the big collective demands, to the boundary-pushing work of the likes of K I-S and J P.

So, all that work.

Cultural shifts don't happen by osmosis.

They're not 'natural'.

I really think that expecting every woman to come out with fully-formed ideas about male violence does serve to underplay the work of many, many women to push feminist analysis towards the mainstream.

And stops us recognising our real successes, too.

And if you don't acknowledge the success of your work, it can serve to stop you acknowledging that you have the power to demand and achieve more.

An extremely unhelpful and victim blaming remark from Davina - regardless of who her fucking friends are!!

The fact is many of us don't have a choice, shift workers relying on buses etc. Or what if there are no buses near their homes?
The point is we should be able to walk where we want and when we want without being in fear of our safety and our lives. And to point out that men can be a fucking danger without people saying, not all men are a danger.
It's not complicated!!

Multi-millionaress can afford never to walk the streets after dark.

Multi-millionaress is on record to victim blame her close friends if they are mugged/attacked if they walk home. Just that. Walk home.

Multi-millionaress thinks it's all 'japes'.

Thing is this whole debate has women check mated. It’s a choice between raising a very real issue, but in so doing spreading a lot of fear that will result in people living in that fear. Robbing them of the liberty to fully take part and engage in society. On the other hand you try to minimise the perceived threat and you’re leaving women vulnerable.

This is an excellent point, and could be countered with the proposed curfew for men.

Any man who complains - I don't want my freedom to do whatever I want curtailed! - well, women don't either. Suck it up.

The problems are big though. One, we are all just coming out of an enormous curfew anyway, and two, who would effectively police such a curfew given that the alledged perpetrator in the current news story is a serving police officer.

Handsoff if you know davina in rl ask her what my dd should do when her supermarket shift finishes after dark or in winter starts so early it's dark, in order to get to the bus stop that is a, ten minute walk through her estate? I'm dying to know how she avoids walking alone in the dark. While you're at it, tell her she's a fucking idiot, from me.

So true Sash.

Imagine a world where all the sex based drama plots were turned on their heads.

Really good post TheCatFromJapan

It’s not just the rare stranger abduction that adds to women’s fears (which it does). It’s every drama on TV, so many films, documentaries on Netflix etc. So many have female victims, young women mostly. All for our entertainment even if true stories. An example recently is the drama on bbc2 on the gruesome death of journalist Kim Wall. She was murdered in a horrifying way 3 (yes 3!) years ago and yet here we are enjoying a drama ( not a documentary) about her death.
Girls grow up watching that on the TV, it’s everywhere and very depressing.

I think DM is just on the road to articulating the point that male violence is the problem.

Lots of stops on the journey - NAMALT is one of them: the insight that it's not all men, some can be victims too.

A point radicalised by some men to try and act as a 'gotcha' - but which fails because it still leaves the point that male violence is the problem.

The feminist insights and analyses around male violence are the result of over 50 years of hard, hard work by women.

We have yet to get those insights recognised by legal and social systems that still operate to ignore those insights - and thus implicitly facilitate male violence.

For example, taking seriously 'minor crimes', and reports of offences by women.

So in SE's case, it looks very much as though the Met learned nothing from the case of John Warboys.

And so it's not surprising DM might write something that isn't fully informed by feminist analyses of male violence.

She'll probably get there.

Male violence is the problem.

Today is the anniversary of the Dunblane massacre.

What links the two events? Male violence.

That's why 'solutions' that essentially 'privatise' the issue - turn it into a question of educating individual men, teaching girls about boundaries - aren't really going to do very much.

We need a systemic shift in how male violence - and its effects - is understood.

We need a systemic shift in power relations.

So, I'm not overly vexed that DM hasn't articulated that point of view in a tweet.

I am a bit vexed that the DM tweet is getting so much traction in a misogynistic world - a world where social media is vile to women and often acts as a meta-scold's bridle: pretending to give women a space to speak but ruthlessly punishing them for speaking.

So DM hasn't enunciated a fully-formed feminist opinion? Well, that's unfortunate. But why is the attention going to that, rather than the many other struggles we have?

Another feminist point: much of social media is deeply, deeply misogynistic. Any analysis we do if women's speech within that milieu has to take the deep misogyny into account.

Sometimes, that may look like 'holding women to a different standard.'

Well, that's fine by me - because women aren't playing in a level playing field on social media. Women are treated differently on social media.

I'm reminded of Mary Beard's experience after tweeting about aid workers in Haiti. The response was disproportionately aggressive, however half-formed her vocalisation was.

Personally, I think we also need to deepen our insight of how social media works for women, and refine our responses to that.

And, of course, remember that the big problem is male violence/power. Keep putting that front and forwards.

No one seems yet to have commented on Davina's follow up tweet: when asked WHY she doesn’t walk in the dark, she replied “it gives me the willies”. Whichever poster up thread who knows her in real life might want to encourage her to read the room when presenting her trademark ‘cheeky charm’.

I don't have a problem with Davina's comments. She makes a valid point. One of the things I really dislike as a woman who has suffered abuse, is rhetoric that serves to increase my already ingrained hyper-vigilance and confirmation bias. I don't need to have my fears taken advantage of by the media and so called allies and advocates. Really don't. I find the same thing happens being black. I already have hyper-vigilance around racism and cognitive bias where I'm questioning daily if the mean white woman or man is just pissed off today or is singling me out because she doesn't like my skin tone. I don't need woke celebrities screaming racism every 5 minutes to feel even more fearful. I like and prefer to go through life having a positive view of white people AND men by default. And yes all this nonsense about male curfews etc and the surrounding language is demoralising for decent men, many of whom are disgusted, angry and offended by what's happened, and I have been spending plenty of time outlining how women ARE already hyper-vigilant to the men in my life and many have been even more receptive to learning about how I and other women in their lives feel because of the high profile nature of this.

The amount of sensationalist language around this I find distasteful. It is irresponsible. It increases anxiety and fear instead of looking at the stats realistically.

I don't know why Davina's comments are being attacked and assassination of her character (rolex watches🤨) is taking place. Can no one speak their minds anymore? And of course she's not blaming the victims, that's spinning what she said because an actual woman dared to speak against the hive atmosphere that has been built up over the past few days, where all women must speak alike.

Honestly. Put it this way if I went around saying 'but white people are the perpetrators of racism so lets scapegoat them all' (which attempts are currently being made with some success by the woke mob) that would hardly be rational. Similarly we must be careful to remember that whilst these crimes are mostly committed by men it remains the minority. One man - yorkshire ripper for eg- is all it takes to spread widespread fear and cause unbelievable devastation. One man out of millions.

It's the shittiest of shitty takes. She can name Sarah at all in any of her replies but she "not all mens" A LOT

Not just walking home in the dark either. It’s only in the last month, I walk to the tube station at about 6.30am every morning and walk from the tube station to work and it’s dark on both legs for about 6 months of the year and vice versa on the way home. It’s light now and I always feel much safer

I used to do self defence classes and moved onto Jujitsu. It was an all women's group and we learned some clever techniques that worked really well - on each other. Then I tried them on men. They made no difference whatsoever. I could barely wind them let alone break their grip.

It did make me fitter so I'd have stood a better chance running away, but even then, if a man had wanted to catch me, he would have done.

Sorry to be negative. I did get a lot out of the classes - fitness, confidence, friendships. But I also learned that the idea I could defend myself against a man who wanted to hurt me was delusional.

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/dad-who-attacked-woman-walking-23694175.amp?__twitter_impression=true

Doesn't help that when actually caught, courts hand out sentences like this.

@Babdoc

I agree that self defense is very much forgotten these days. It used to be the stable diet of feminism when it all began....practical and useful!

Somehow we’ve got to the point where women say “why should I have to protect myself, it’s men who need to change their behaviour” which is neither practical or sensible

I walk and run quite a lot in the dark. Gavin de Becker’s book on intuiting danger is ingrained in my brain. I’m checking out every man who comes into my vicinity.

I guess that’s my solution to not wanting to be restricted - there is danger but I refuse to be restricted by that and so take steps to protect myself. I don’t think we can ever eliminate male violence...it’s in the dna, and in many ways it has evolutionary function and benefit, so i want to crack on the best I can. A can of mace has always appealed though...

Due to my shop being in a pedestrianised area I HAVE to walk to my car, through cctv monitored streets to get to the service yard behind my shop. I can’t exit via the back door, it’s an alarmed fire door.
The service yard is dicey, it’s a dead end of all the back entrances of the high street shops. I’ve been followed without realising it, I remote unlocked my car as normal and then became aware of a man quickly turn around and jog away. It may have been innocent but it was quite nerve wracking and has made me hyper aware whenever I have to do that walk.

I think we need to focus on practical solutions, or at least ways to reduce the risks.
I’d like to see all girls taught a full course of krav maga in first year of high school. So they can confidently immobilise an attacker for long enough to let them run away and seek help.
It’s v empowering to know you can floor an attacker twice your size, and break any chokeholds even if grabbed from behind.
It would be a small step towards levelling the field in terms of relative strength of victim/attacker.
I also want to see all boys given compulsory education in consent, women’s rights, etc.

My great grandfather was a war hero. He was the only member of his regiment to return from the trenches and had battle scars. He was revered, almost worshipped.
On the face of it, he was a lovely old man, an adored grandfather and great grandfather.

He was also a prolific paedophile who likely abused hundreds of girls over his lifetime.

Not all men are like that, true.

My son was a scholarship boy at a boys public school. He was a quiet, amiable boy who got on with his peers.
His housemaster told us of the time, when he was 14, he stood up to the rest of his dormitory and tore strips off them for their sexual jokes and references to girls from the girls school nearby. He called them disgusting.
It shocked them and stopped them in their tracks.

Not all men are like him, either. They need to be, they really do.