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.

The boys background and home life was a shit show if I remember correctly. It's debatable if it would have made any difference by that time

Whether making parents accountable would make them better people and parents I very much doubt it.

Absolutely Days, and I can vividly recall a particular poster on that thread scoffing at so many of us completing the form for a sentence review. It’ll make no difference if one signs or 1000 they said …

I’m also quite certain the traction this picked up on MN was a factor

Certainly in the workplace unisex can only be provided if there are also separate toilets for women as well. Not sure about current guidance on public spaces

I admit I'm a grumpy, judgmental old cow.

Several of my friends are or have been social workers and health visitors (and one of their daughters still is a SW.) So I hear a lot about how some people live, and it's very depressing. People who are helped, helped more, and then helped again, but still will not either parent in any recognisable way, take advice or pick up and run with things when help is given.

I could not do those jobs. I haven't the patience or the non-judgmentalism.

But I think the cult of non-judgmentalism is damaging. No government of any colour, it seems, every dares to criticise parents. Instead they criticise teachers (who, annoyingly, usually lie down and take the blame for things they are not guilty of) and other hard-working people and agencies. We need to start being frank about what is and isn't OK. Societies express their values and boundaries through judgement and once we lose that, we sort of lose our way and our confidence as a society.

Personally (so shoot me) I see a lot of problems with Traveller culture. I've had bad personal experience of it in a number of ways, and I know ex-Travellers who've told me their experiences and who have been ostracised for marrying out or wanting to continue with their education etc etc. I suspect that the law deals very leniently with this sector of society because the government is afraid of accusations of racism (as if they're an ethnic group!) and I think it's a mistake.