IT is impossible to imagine a world without violence against women. Impossible to even imagine living in a region where women might be safe. In a week where we see Natalie McNally’s murderer Stephen McCullagh convicted, and watch in despair as the details of Amy Doherty’s life and loves are shared in the wake of her murder in Derry, we must face the truth that living in the most dangerous place in Europe to be a woman has become our normal.
It has become normal for women to be degraded, sexually harassed, demeaned, beaten, dehumanised, sexually assaulted and murdered.
Strategies on both sides of the border are welcome but clearly inadequate as we live in a space where we see the generational systemic torture and enslavement of women in state institutions as something afforded impunity, and at best modestly acknowledged.
The efforts of young people’s groups to address toxic masculinities and promote young women’s participation in building community is vital, but those schemes are undermined as funding is cut and ministers from both of our island's governments fawn over a US President best known to that generation as a chief suspect in the ritual humiliation and abuse of women on an international scale.
Naming the forms of sexual violence and rape and ensuring they are written into law is critical visibility of harm, but some unionist legislators feel that this process is an opportunity to score political points and engage in overtly misogynistic tirades against women parliamentarians.
Trans citizens are singled out for hate and discrimination that can only lead to violence as they understandably disappear from the public sphere.
The unending discrimination against women who are held to different, changing and impossible standards by social and printed media creates an environment where women simply cannot win. Even with the First and Deputy First Ministers, the head of the civil service and the head of the judiciary all being women, discrimination is felt as systemic by women who will earn less in their lifetimes and hit rock-hard ceilings in their careers.
Meanwhile the behaviours of men who use violence remains constant. What contributes to that behaviour? Leave aside “Not all men” because right now the fragile “feelings” of defensive men also need to be challenged. There needs to be discomfort with common anti-women behaviours. Shared messages and “jokes” which clearly demean women cannot be called “only a bit of fun” any more. There are too many dead women. Disgusting imagery of women shared casually in all male WhatsApp groups needs to be called out as diminishing women, their agency, their value and their lives. Social media, where pornography is rampant even on sites which were previously used mainly for news, need to be deleted. There are too many women whose lives as girls are being destroyed by billionaires.
A zero tolerance of the hatred of women needs to become the first, last and middle way to protect our women and girls. And that will not be easy. And there will be some men who think it’s a bit “too far” and definitely feel put out. So what? Discomfort and anger needs to create change.
The war against women on this island needs to be challenged with the same ferocity of purpose brought to ending our conflict.
Or have we just accepted that women are expendable?
