Enough candles and petitions. What are we actually going to DO?

[getoutofmyhead]

I know there have been threads. I'm sorry to add another one. But I cannot for the life of me move past this. Three boys. Not sentenced. After repeated, evidenced rape of little girls. Walk free because their future matters more than girls? This is what this country, the world thinks girls and women are worth. I signed the petitions. But I am loosing sleep over it and wondering: is that it? Is that all we've got? All the rage, the raw emotion, surely we can use this to better ecient that a petition who will be forgotten in a few days.
I refuse and we should all refuse.

Women, our ancestors, have chained ourselves to railings, we have made noise so loud it could not be ignored. We have done it before and we can do it again, right?

Tell me what you're willing to do. Tell me what's already being organised. Because we cannot let this happen continuously. We cannot let this just pass.
What do we do? As a mother of daughters, I am dying inside and I want to take all this hate and turn it into something for our daughters and their future in this country.

Please let not be this another Sarah Everard moment. where we all light candles, cry together, and then watch it fade while nothing changes.

Please someone tell me is there hope for collective actions. We as women have been too reasonable for far too long.

I’m afraid sloppy parenting of those boys will probably have been at the root cause of the Southampton tragedy. And sadly many parents don’t want to parent properly so until that changes I can see these things happening again and again 😭

@Loulou4022 You're absolutely right that how we raise boys matters so much. We cannot control every parent but we can control what we demand from our schools, our politicians, our courts. We are not spectators unless we choose to be.

I mean, worth waiting until the Court of Appeal has reviewed the sentence, no? If the review still doesn't result in a custodial sentence for the little scrotes then yes, we should take more direct action.

Their sentences will be reviewed and they will undoubtedly get a youth custodial sentence.

There's nothing else to do right now.

Personally, I've taken from this public backlash that people DO care. DO want things to be different and ARE being listened to.

Sadly as has been proved on another emotive thread on here schools lack the support of many parents. Which then feeds into lack of respect for police, courts and general law and order 😭

We can't control, or don't want to control awful parenting.

My sister's immediate next door neighbour is a mother, her three young sons and the drug addict she lets in for drug fuelled orgies with other men. The language and fighting you hear on a daily basis is disturbing. The boys are now old enough to be swearing back.

Yes social services are aware. No nothing is being done.

Those three boys are having the absolute worst start in life and this is being replicated throughout the country.

This woman should never had had children. She doesn't deserve them.

So much this. I’m a sexual assault survivor and the other week it was wear denim to work day to show solidarity. Utterly pointless. Was so angry. Write to your MP? Jess Phillips? I don’t know what the answer is. The criminal justice system needs fundamentally changing.

I want to pay more tax to increase prison spaces to keep people like these locked up. For life if necessary. If they want to rehabilitate then fine, help them to do so and if they achieve it they can be released. What is not acceptable is the attitude that we MUST have these people in our communities and they are a victim too, and they’re just expressing their trauma etc etc.

I’d prefer to pay more tax into funding in the early years and even before that to prevent these sorts of things happening in the first place. In the short term prison is the answer however longer term things need to change much earlier on.

@AmberSpy yes of course we will be waiting we got 200 rapes every single day for those being reported) and only 2% resulting in a conviction. There is no justice there at all. Our country has made it clear that rape is basically legal in practice.

Two women killed by men every week.

Im just so done lighting candle, going home and moving on.
So yes, I will watch the Court of Appeal with hope. But I will not sit still while I watch it. And I don't think any of us should.

@SparklyHam I really want to hope you are right.

Cue the howls of " but it's her right" etc etc.

Another example of people having children when they shouldn't. You'd think that we (the UK) didn't access to various forms of contraception.

The only hope for collective action is to flood your local MPs in-box to the point where they are drowning in it.

All other collective action - riots excepted - is generally pointless.

Teach yourself the law. Read the sentencing guidelines. Learn, in detail, the legal system in this country so that you can understand the basis behind it, where the weaknesses lie and how to effect change.

Then go for it.

It is a sad state of affairs.
It is social conditioning alongside bad parenting. The boys in DS class are mean, they push, pull, are aggressive, break the rules, not all of them, a handful. DS is too frightened to break rules in school, but at the same time he needs to learn how to defend himself mentally and physically around tougher boys, it’s a land mine situation.
i broke it down in religious terms if you like, there are wolves, sheep and shepard in life, be a Shepard, DS is much bigger than his peers, he gets a bit more of a pass based on his size but other good boys who are smaller don’t. Even then DS has been jeered over looks etc.
The rotten apples have a knock on impact.

@getoutofmyhead

This.

rape is basically legal in practice

UK SOCIETY BELIEVES RAPE IS LEGAL. Yes I'm shouting.

When I was at school in the 60s, the teachers used to slap us on the hand with a ruler. The kids' behaviour was better hen.

I read this book called It's a (wo)man's world a while ago. It's written as a dystopia where women are in charge but men are really oppressed. I think it was meant to be dystopian future, but the more that this violence continues to go unabated, the more I think it should be a blueprint instead!

So riot it is then? your point actually proves mine. If the only options are "write letters" or "burn it down," we've already failed.

My parents were children during World War 2. They grew up with rationing and a lot of rules and regulation. You did what authority told you to do or else.

My generation began to rebel against discipline in the 1970s, and it has been downhill with every generation since.

You could join a protest about it, but would probably be called a bigot. Good luck.

Yep or have the blackboard rubber thrown at you. We stood up when the teacher came into the classroom. Imagine that! We called the teachers “Sir” and “Miss”. There is no discipline at school or at home nowadays. Look at the mess we’re in.

One day during the Blitz, a German bomber got lost, bombed a café, killing 41 people, and then strafed my Mum's school with its machine guns. The teacher made the kids hide under the desk. Probably saved their lives.

Yes. Absolutely yes.

And a judge who responded just told every boy watching exactly where the line is. there is none.

I think people who look back at previous generations claiming it was all better then are deluded. Violence against women has been a problem forever. We need to change that. But claiming that reintroducing beating children in school is the answer is ridiculous