Ensuring the momentum continues and things change

[Changemusthappen]

Does everyone agree that one of the key questions to come out of the current debate around the safety of women, sexual harassment etc is what happens next and what can be done in the short and long term to tackle this.

Short term - can be put in place/motion immediately:

• continued and increased awareness of the harassment and threats that women and girls receive on a daily basis. There have been many phone ins on the radio this week and newspaper articles, these need to continue/be revisited regularly
• immediate zero tolerance in schools regarding sexual harassment of girls and inclusion of this in PSHE (it may be already). Additionally the emphasis that it is 'everyone's responsibility' to call out this behaviour.
• more police presence on the streets, trains, tubes
• Immediate government action to stop self id and repeal/reform the GRA
• Protection of all women's single sex spaces including toilets, prisons, sport etc
• detailed logging and followup of every report to the police of harassment, sexual assault, threatening behaviour
• increased cctv on tubes and trains

Long term

• a complete review within the police force regarding how sexual abuse/harrasment, threats etc are logged and dealt with
• Better planning around facilities, street lighting etc to improve safety

Obviously this is just a starter but I am interested in other's views. I am planning to write to my MP about this, it is important it is kept in the public eye.

I think a good start would be to ignore anyone in this thread whose contributions to a thread consist of telling feminists that they're doing feminism wrong.

I don't think posts on MN are what's making women scared to walk the streets at night.

It is a great shame that right from the start , there has been a deliberate attempt to derail this thread away from the fight against male violence towards women.
This violence must stop and the very first step is for all males in our society to acknowledge it and ask themselves what can I do.and secondly to stop centring their feelings into the issue. Robin , I know you care deeply for your community but please this is about male violence on females and until it is permissible to centre the needs of the female sex in our society, nothing will ever change. So please stop derailing threads.

On a night where women are being called ‘transphobic’ for asking whether £350k+ of fundraising will be going to protect women, (the biological kind, the cunty kind), and then being blocked by the organiser of this fundraiser, I have one thing to say to men, however they identify

That makes me feel sick. That the death of a woman has been hijacked by TRAs and allies, taking money from the women who have donated for women, and misled as them as to where the money is going. And then calling women disgusting names because they don't want their donations to centre men. It feels like theft by deception. I am so sick of this shit. There needs to be legal consequences to this.

Returning to the substance of the thread, how to maintain the momentum will be difficult but shouldn't be impossible.
Rather than dramatic reclaiming the streets events, maybe we should be taking a more pragmatic approach and insist that all policy should centre the safety of women and children. Every planning application should be scrutinised for safety problems, every change in police deployment, every change in timetabling of events, every work shift pattern etc.etc. Maybe , this , along with the education of our boys, might bring a lasting change.

A women’s movement, for and by women. No political affiliation.

Staunch and fearless like the WSPU.

Don’t let men tell us who we are, what we need and how we should behave. Also get rid of the idea of a male feminist, fox in the henhouse.

Stop using the language that helps promote our erasure.

Don’t accept that violence is a matter of life.

Hold men accountable for their actions.

I've just started a thread on planning streets for safety with a link to a piece in the Sunday Times today if anyone wants to discuss that aspect.

Plan our streets for safety www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4191676-plan-our-streets-for-safety

Thanks for posting that link. Centring women Yeah!

The turn of events will ensure focus moves onto something else. You have trouble brewing up in the South China Sea. Increasing tension on the Irish border. Controlling the spread of Covid as lockdown is eased. Predicted surge in crime as lockdown is eased. Education catch-up. Economic recovery. Taxation. Public Sector Spending. Public Sector Pay issues. Scottish Indepedence. And of course Joe Biden has started throwing bombs around in the middle east.

Personally I think Covid and the Economy will take centre stage.

Mumsnet is the Internet too and long may she flourish!

Barracker ♥️

@334bu

Mumsnet is the Internet too and long may she flourish!

I get that I do, but Mumsnet is one of the few spaces where you can have an open discussion and debate.

But also most people don’t use Mumsnet.

I’ve had some friends in the past few weeks learn about men in women’s prisons, surprised shocked and horrified. I told them that this is the tip of the iceberg.

Barracker Every Bloody Word Of That.

OP to add to your list of change right now:

• ZERO tolerance of death threats anywhere on line, by text, at all. The same level of police action that would be happily thrown at anyone who might add to the hate incident statistics and nice diversity virtue signalling please.

• ZERO tolerance of rape threats as above

• ZERO tolerance of physical harm threats - DIAF/kerbstomping, they're seen as bloody normal behaviour ffs for a male person to express their displeasure to a female person for writing something on social media that they disagree with. It's become NORMAL . It's fucking horrific, and it's seen as NORMAL. Acceptable. You hear bloody MPs wittering about 'well they felt a bit strongly...'

No. Women manage to get furiously angry without threatening sexual or physical violence to anyone, or accidentally losing it and strangling someone, it is not normal human behaviour. It is wrong human behaviour and the law recognises it as such, so use the bloody law equally and impartially.

And absolutely a resounding yes to the sex discrimination. Anyone who feels that women having sex based rights is a threat to their own freedoms instead of something that can freely happen alongside their own rights is not willing to see women as equal humans to themselves.

This farce is going to end. I'm never going to stop until it does. And I'm only one of many, many women. And if I don't get to see the conclusion, my daughter will grow up, take up the banner and she will carry it forward. The monstrous injustice done to women by granting men the right to have our sex as their identity is going to be torn down piece by piece by female hands until it's rubble and dust.

Fantastic!

Female is not your identity, woman is not your identity, we are not a feeling, a status, an idea.
We are the female people they will never be, the female sex they will never know, the female bodies they will never have. We are female. We will not be owned, we will not be their costume, we will not be their human shield and we will not be a tool of their validation. Men planted a flag in female and claimed ownership of it as if it was inert ground in the Wild West there for the taking by any claimant who fancied it. But female isn't earth to be claimed. No certificate grants you ownership of what isn't yours and what cannot be owned. We are people, and we're rejecting your claims. You can't have us and you can't be us. Female IS us.

Beautifully said.

ZERO tolerance of death threats anywhere on line, by text, at all. The same level of police action that would be happily thrown at anyone who might add to the hate incident statistics and nice diversity virtue signalling please.

• ZERO tolerance of rape threats as above

• ZERO tolerance of physical harm threats - DIAF/kerbstomping, they're seen as bloody normal behaviour ffs for a male person to express their displeasure to a female person for writing something on social media that they disagree with. It's become NORMAL . It's fucking horrific, and it's seen as NORMAL. Acceptable. You hear bloody MPs wittering about 'well they felt a bit strongly...'

Yes, definitely. Threatening violence to anyone is already a crime. No need to change the law and the platforms can be held responsible as well.

"Policing tweets is so much easier than policing the streets"

My feminism is for ALL women.

Yes - feminism is what it says - for females. All females. Feminism is trans inclusive - of the female kind.

Amazing how certain individuals - a nod to a certain contributor to this thread - that only certain types of transpeople count and whereas others are to be excluded

I wonder how this person works out the difference between the two?

@334bu

It is a great shame that right from the start , there has been a deliberate attempt to derail this thread away from the fight against male violence towards women. This violence must stop and the very first step is for all males in our society to acknowledge it and ask themselves what can I do.and secondly to stop centring their feelings into the issue. Robin , I know you care deeply for your community but please this is about male violence on females and until it is permissible to centre the needs of the female sex in our society, nothing will ever change. So please stop derailing threads.

When you misinterpret the motives of allies as you have done here, you will continue to alienate yourselves from and turn away those who support the rights of all. Over 25 years in the law and in my 5 years in industry before that I have helped with advances for all nine protected characteristics and will continue to do so. I will continue working with intersectional feminists like myself. We are the future.

The naming of male violence is crucial, not gender violence or women do it too, women only groups being able to meet and speak without any man ( however he identifies) inserting himself to centre his own needs. We need to keep funding facilities and organisations which are for women only and for the increasingly necessary court cases. Repeal the GRA . Report every single instance of harassment , abuse , publicise when possible. Thanks for brilliant posts here which keep us going.

@highame

"Policing tweets is so much easier than policing the streets"

But policing tweets would be a start. Threats of violence should be immediately removed when reported from twitter from BTL on news sites from FB from here

The narrative has to change.

When you misinterpret the motives of allies as you have done here, you will continue to alienate yourselves from and turn away those who support the rights of all

Right now, I'm more interested in supporting the rights and safety of women. From the violence of males. I'm not remotely bothered about alienating myself from MRAs, TRAs and their allies. People who centre males in their activism are not allies of women.

I saw this from yesterday. I wonder if the creator is even aware of the irony that Sarah Everard isn't actually represented on that flag.

But then I guess that will be because of her 'cis privilege'

@persistentwoman

Hibari I can see that the 2nd poster on the thread raised the issue of trans women and has subsequently been quoted. The rest of us have remained totally focused on women's experiences.

The op raised the issue of trans people by calling for the removal of existing trans right.

Immediate government action to stop self id and repeal/reform the GRA

I do not give a toss what people identify as

VIOLENCE and threats against women
have become normalised
that MUST be reversed