challenging institutional disbelief around domestic & sexual violence and abuse
There was a tremendous amount of outrage about the appalling media coverage of the murder of Clodagh Hawe and her three sons in September. Unfortunately, this level of grossly inappropriate and inaccurate representation of family annihilators is not an aberration. Mark Short Sr. murdered his wife Megan and their children — 8-year-old Lianna, 5-year-old Mark Jr., and 2-year-old Willow. He also killed the […]
The erasure of men’s violence in a victim blaming culture.
Jo Cox, the Laboour MP for Batley and Spen, is the 57th woman to be murdered in the UK in 2016 by a male perpetrator. Whilst the police have yet to confirm the name of the perpetrator, named as Thomas Mair by the media, or eyewitness accounts of Mair shouting ‘Britain First’, what we do know is […]
This article is cross-posted with permission from writer Woman as Subject. Having worked with survivors of domestic abuse for many years, I am still shocked at the way in which society continues to blame women for the violence and abuse they suffer at the hands of men. This tendency to minimise or justify male violence […]
We fully endorse this open letter to Alison Saunders of the Crown Prosecution Services. Violence against women and girls is one of the biggest human rights abuses globally. Far too often this reality is subsumed under meaningless statistics which erase the perpetrators, who are almost always male, and assume that men and women are equally […]
We are conflicted about this campaign from The Sun. Raising greater awareness of domestic violence is absolutely essential. Far too many people believe that domestic violence is something that happens to “those women” and most rarely consider who perpetrators actually are. The media rarely gives accurate coverage to the reality of domestic violence: that 1 in 4 […]
(Cross-posted with permission from Safe Lives) When I tell my friends that I work for SafeLives, their reaction is often one of surprise. They don’t go so far as to say “But you’re a man” or “Isn’t domestic violence a women’s issue?” but you can sometimes see the question in their eyes. I work for […]
‘His wife’ was called Tahira Ahmed and in a report earlier today, ITV.com (among many others) appears to imply that the genetic and disabling condition that Tahira had to contend with called Morquio’s Syndrome was a reason or excuse for the repeated violence she endured in her marriage culminating in the deliberate and brutal attack […]
Over the weekend, we had a very concerning conversation about FGM with a GP whose twitter bio is: East London GP, NIHR research fellow – medical education, ethics and professional behaviour. Patient advocate. Policy critic We’re not entirely sure how a GP who claims to be interested in medical education, ethics and professional behaviour can […]
Pistorius’ sentencing is complete. I’m outraged. I’m angry. Sian Norris wrote a piece for The Independent last week that echoed my thoughts on how society values men’s lives over women’s, which is why when I checked my Twitter feed for an update at work today those feelings were not accompanied by surprise. I knew it […]