Over the last week, I've seen a lot of stuff about Trans Day of Remembrance to honour and remember murdered transpeople. And I think it's a really good way to create awareness of male violence.
It's an absolute tragedy that 6 trans people have been murdered here in the UK since 2010 with the latest murder being just this year. (Thanks to a thread here on Mumsnet for those statistics.)
I work that out as being 1 person honoured every 4 hours over the 24 hour period of TDOR.
It inspired me to look at copying that format and applying it to murdered women, excuse my maths, I hope I worked it out right.
I spent some time googling the number of women murdered in the UK by men since 2010, as a side by side comparison to the whole day which was set aside for counting and mourning dead trans people.
The total number of murdered women due to male violence since 2010 so far is 1,098.
You can see a list of their names here: www.womensaid.org.uk/…/fem…/the-women-killed-by-men/ and it makes for chilling and sobering reading.
If we use the same format and dedicate four hours of remembrance for each of these women, then I count that as 4,392 hours. Which is 183 solid days of remembrance to honour our dead and say their names. It's a very sobering thought and I had to turn off the internet for the rest of the day, just to try and process it.
There is a dead women march in Manchester coming up soon, which is one event over just a few hours. Looking for ideas to lobby various orgs. Like The Women's Equality Party, or here on Mumsnet to create better awareness. However, I saw every single organisation from Comic Relief to the Labour Party, taking time out to share awareness of this of TDOR, with some having activities planned up and down the country, like candlelit vigils to read out names.
It's my feeling that the murder of women and girls is so commonplace, that it's become normalised. Another day, another murder. I want to change that.
I know it seems like a ridiculous length of time to try to take time for, but these women are our sisters and I believe they deserve the same time and attention given to the trans community for their dead.
It's such an enormous task. It's a lot of women and a lot of days. In the journey towards equality, I thought about posting it on Facebook, but think Mumsnet is an amazing resource of ideas, better than anywhere else I've been.