I fear for my daughters. All parents worry about their children from time to time. I remember when I first became a mum, I would occasionally be hit by waves of panic – what would I do if anything happened to this tiny human that I loved more than anything else in the world? But this feels different.
We are fortunate to live in a country where mass murder is rare, especially those involving the young. But in the past month three children have been killed while they enjoyed a dance class, and an 11-year-old was stabbed eight times by a stranger in broad daylight in central London. All the victims were girls, while both alleged perpetrators were men. I fear for my daughters because they are female.
Yet it feels like this aspect of the attacks in Southport and Leicester Square has barely been discussed. We have had experts, politicians and the public pontificate on immigration and mental health as potential motives for violence, but few have asked why anyone would wish to target young females. In Southport, the Taylor Swift-themed children’s dance class targeted was, naturally, populated by little girls. Likewise, when Salman Abedi targeted an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena in 2017, 17 of the 22 people who died were female, and some were children. During the official inquiry into the bombing, witnesses described how Abedi was a misogynist who had a “very bad” and “disrespectful” attitude towards women.
The suspects in these recent atrocities have been charged, and so there is little we can say about what may have influenced their actions. But this summer alone has provided more than enough headlines to show that violence against women and girls (VAWG) is a serious problem in the UK.
In July, the National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC) released its National Policing Statement, which confirmed that more than a million violent crimes against females were recorded in the 12 months to March 2023. Around 3,000 VAWG-related crimes were recorded daily – almost a fifth of all crime recorded by police that year. One in six murders in 2022-23 were related to domestic abuse. The NPCC said that not only had VAWG-related crime risen by 37 per cent between 2018-23, but the police were also seeing “ever more complicated types of offending which causes significant harm to victims and society as a whole”.
Last week, official figures published by the British Transport Police Authority revealed that the number of recorded violent crimes against women and girls on the transport network had increased by 20 per cent in the past 12 months, with more than 11,000 complaints made. There is something very wrong when women can’t feel safe when using public transport. This rise may be down to increased reporting, but it still paints a bleak picture. “In this day and age, no woman should have to plan her journeys by public transport based on where and when she will feel safe,” Jess Phillips, the minister for safeguarding and violence against women and girls, said. “Getting on a night bus or a near empty train to go home should not feel like taking your life in your hands… the level of violence, harassment and sexual offences that women and girls are facing when using the transport network is completely unacceptable, and cannot be allowed to go unchallenged,” she added.
The Labour Party has pledged to halve VAWG within the next decade. This kind of crime was classed as a national threat by the previous Conservative administration in February 2023, putting it on a par with terrorism, child sexual abuse, public disorder and civil emergencies. During the general election campaign, Labour, the Lib Dems, the Greens and the SNP all said they would make misogyny a hate crime – despite the Law Commission judging in 2021 that such a move might be “more harmful than helpful”. (If applied in the context of rape or domestic abuse, for example, it could make it more difficult to secure prosecutions as the underlying crime – rape – would need to be proved as well as the element of hatred – misogyny.)
It now seems that Labour is considering viewing extreme misogyny in the same way as Islamist or far-right extremism. The Home Secretary Yvette Cooper has ordered a review (one of several that Labour has commissioned since coming to power) of the UK’s counter-extremism strategy to determine how best to tackle threats posed by harmful ideologies and online radicalisation. It’s noteworthy that in the third volume of the “Report of the Public Inquiry into the Attack on Manchester Arena”, published last year, the inquiry chair John Saunders said that, in his view, “misogynistic violence should be recognised as a potential indicator of radicalisation”. He recommended that the Department for Education has schools record instances of violence against girls “so that it is not overlooked should other signs emerge”.
While this seems sensible, tackling violence against women and girls is not a responsibility that can lie only with schools. Equally, a change in law or tougher penalties for vile misogynists is not where the solution lies. What we need is for boys not to develop such views in the first place, and if they do, they have to be challenged robustly but sensitively at the first sign. Boys need positive male role models who respect women, and who can provide an alternative to the toxic masculinity that seems so widespread. Otherwise, further generations of girls will grow up to be in danger. That is a thought I struggle to bear.
[See also: The parallels between riots in the UK and Ireland are alarming]
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This article appears in the 21 Aug 2024 issue of the New Statesman, The Christian Comeback