What needs to happen practically so women can be free?

[Babyboomtastic]

Obviously we should be angry.
Obviously the problem lies with the men, and it should be for them to solve, and not us. By it they haven't.
Obviously we shouldn't have to feel that we are under any curfew in life to be safe.

And ultimately the solution is that men need to stop killing and raping women.

But practically speaking, how do we get there? Our anger won't solve it, and obviously it's not going to be solved as easily as telling men to not commit these offences, as that doesn't work.

I'd like us to reclaim the streets (and also have safety in the home, which is an even bigger threat to women) so what can we do about it?

And if we need a cultural shift (which ultimately I think we do) how do we initiate that?

Police need an enquiry into the misogyny in their system - this killer, the policemen who took selfies by the bodies of bibaa Henry and Nicole small man, the way rape cases are handled - and then actually change things based on the report
Men need to tell their friends that the banter isn't funny
We report street harassers to their employers wherever possible and they lose their jobs.

What about something like this. 'She is not your rehab'/ counselling. www.theguardian.com/world/2019/nov/28/everyone-just-wants-to-be-loved-the-new-zealand-barber-helping-cut-domestic-violence

Right now I'm angry and the spray paint his van style branding is pretty attractive but actually I think we need to find out how violent men change, and how some men grow up with violence and addiction etc but are not violent themselves

@Mintjulia
Every mum parent has to teach her their sons to respect women.
Every mum parent has to walk away from abusive relationships so their children don't learn to accept or expect the same.

Why are you only holding the mothers responsible?

Maybe the social credit system in China could actually do some good..?

Make porn accessible only via ID. Porn that shows violence and attempted murder (yes, all that choking) should lead to prosecutions.

Emotional education for men. They need to understand that if women say no, if life doesn't go their way, violence is not the way. They are not entitled to sex. If your girlfriend dumps you it's not the end of your life, or hers.

Include sex as one of the categories of hate crime.

Change the language used to reporting violence against women. It's not tip-toeing "the police are not looking for anyone else" - it's a hate crime. It's not "he was a good man", "he wouldn't hurt a fly", "he just snapped" when men kill women and children. No, he's a murderer.

There is probably more but I can't think right now.

@AtLeastThreeDrinks 'boys taught to call out misogyny' - yes totally agree.

Teach children about relationships and the red flags to look out for in schools.

Ban soaps until they can show people solving arguments in a sensible way without resorting to shouting and violence/threats of violence (as for some people this is the only way they learn about relationships).

Stop gender stereotyping everything. Why should football be a boys game? Why shouldn't boys like sparkly unicorns?

Combat toxic masculinity and allow men to express how they feel verbally without it being unmanly.

Stop people thinking that if you report that someone is abusing someone else, it is not snitching, but safeguarding the general public and the abuser should not be being protected.

Stop men thinking they can get every woman in town pregnant without having any consequences for the man in regards to raising the children.

Make childcare affordable so that men can see that women are intelligent, can earn their own money and be valued

I think we definitely need a cultural shift similar to that of drink driving, when it comes to the behaviour of guys when out, for a start, so that when one guy starts showing oppressive behaviour to a woman, his mates don't look the other way, as is often the case now.

I think we have more chance of getting guys who aren't predatory themselves, but don't call out predatory behaviour to start changing, than the predators themselves, in the short term anyway.

We also need a lot more education on where the boundaries of consent are when alcohol is involved, and education that coercive behaviour that falls short if rape is still abusive and wrong.

All the above

I would also take all the serial murder of women shows off the telly. Look on Netflix listings and there are dozens of them. Stop making dramas that relish the rape and murder of women, those where the camera lingers on naked female bodies on mortuary slabs.

I wholeheartedly agree that change is necessary. That women need to lead on this, but that without endorsement by men nothing will change.
Because the thing is, some (many? most?) men really don't see women as their equals and therefore worthy of the same level of respect afforded to other men.
What incentive do they have as a class for things to change?
As a default, ingrained over millenia, women are there to serve and service men, to support them in their efforts, to defer to them, to be tolerated, humoured and mansplained to.
By treating us as equals and not as inferiors or objects, they are losing out.
I honestly believe that most if not all of the men in my life believe this deep down, even if they talk the talk.

@BabyboomtasticBabyboomtastic sorry I couldn’t give a more pragmatic solution. I’m just so angry today 😟

The police need to start centreing (sp?) women at all levels and in all their decision making (which crimes to investigate/pursue, police presence on streets, how they treat women who make complaints about harassment/small issues, how they record crimes (even very small ones) against women, how they follow up reports of crimes against women etc etc). Until women know that if they report "small" matters like harassment and have the report taken seriously and until every man who harasses a woman knows he will receive a visit at home from the police we will get nowhere. Rape prosecutions need to be pursued. Police need to stop harassing women for rubbish that isn't illegal like questioning self-id. There need to be women at every table where a decision is taken in the police force (either women police officers or women reps from the general public). I could go on but it all comes down to a shift from policing that starts from a male perspective and moves to always considering women as the ones who need protection from men and who should be front and centre of decision making.

Downloading, possession, sale and manufacture of violent porn should be a severely imprisonable offence which also prevents working with vulnerable persons, or even working in any job which may reasonably require you to be alone with a woman or child e.g. uber driver, late shift at an office, hospital porter.

Women's safety should come before any man's want to get off to the destruction of women. And if he wants to do that still? He can lose his job, live in a tent in the forest and eat charity beans from a tin - I care not for his plight.

Only when violent porn is all but eliminated will we get things back on the somewhat uneven keel we started with, because right now? We're drowning.

@Noshowlomo

I understand. And I'm angry too.

It also shouldn't be up to us to solve the problem. We aren't the problem here. But men aren't solving the problem, and the body count gets ever higher :-(

Could we put employers under a legal obligation to arrange and pay for taxis home for their staff when they finish in the dark* **

• Male and female staff. Partly as men can also be victims and also to reduce the risk that the employer would stop employing women if they had to pay for them to get home.

** This would practically mean keeping BST all year round so it doesn't get dark at 4pm, and might mean that high street shops close early in winter.

None of these brilliant suggestions will be implemented until we get more women into positions of power. That needs to be an overarching goal.

I'm cynical, I don't think we can educate the problem away. We need zero tolerance across all walks of life for sexual harassment, abuse and assault. And that means women in authority to make that happen.

A streamlined specialist police service for the prompt reporting investigation and prosecution of rape and sexual assault.

Patriarchy needs to end. Capitalism needs to end.

These things will never happen.

Women will never be free, unless men are strictly contained and disempowered.

That is so fucking depressing, @SenecaTrewe, but you are right.

Even @dreamingbohemian's call for more women in power wouldn't be sufficient.

I swear I'm going to run away and join a women's commune one day...

Dreaming bohemian
We need zero tolerance across all walks of life for sexual harassment, abuse and assault.

Exactly this, this changes the culture.

@Babyboomtastic

Things like the vigil are good ways to express our anger, and grieve in solidarity, but I can't imagine there's a single man who would decide not to abuse or kill us because we went on a march (though raising awareness is in itself a good thing). The same for telling them not to rape us or to blow a whistle if they are about to rape. It's a nice reversal of the burden, to the correct place (ie the men) but it's not going to actually have a practical effect is it?

These things are borne out of our frustration, but if we actually want things to change, we need to work as a society that finding practical ways to bring that change about.

It's clearly going to have quite a lot of different parts to it, no one tactic will be a silver bullet.

Agree that a vigil won't stop a man who's that way minded doing it, however the vigil could be a start, a start of women not shutting up about this, not going away, not letting up.

Change starts with raising awareness, with emotions running high at the moment, strike while the irons hot so to speak. Turn this anger, frustration and fear we feel as a collective into something positive, across all levels. Some of the solutions here are suggesting starting with younger generations, and changing policies around how crimes towards women are handled, talking to our 'good' men, making them aware.
And yes, what has happened is awful, that poor woman died because of a man's want, I can't change that, no one can, but it would be a bit of comfort to know she wasn't just another statistic to be forgotten when the next news story breaks, that from this tragedy, Change started, however small to begin with.

Like others I'm just so angry and emotional about this.

Could we make using the phrase "boys will be boys" punishable by death? Well maybe not death, but it should be utterly unacceptable.

No boys will not be boys. Boys will be responsible and civilised members of society.

We need to combat toxic masculinity, and we need all the decent men to be onside, because this will benefit them too. The trade off is that they need to be prepared to band together and stand up against the violent and aggressive minority. They may be scared to stand up to a violent man alone but if whole groups shame the behaviour it will change.

I mean I don't think it's any great mystery, things that could be done.

The real problem is that no one in power cares

So to me that's the real question. How do we make the existing government care, or replace them with people who do?

Are we trying too hard to make childhood equal without considering biological differences?

Teaching boys awareness of testosterone changes and how to articulate anger could increase their ability to empathise and consider their behaviours. We need strong visible male role models to show appropriate behaviour, but I think it's lacking in the media and in many homes.

Make porn much harder to access. Neolib choice feminism isn't helping women.

Boys need to be taught to challenge the behaviour of their peers from an early age. Dads need to model this too