A cop allegedly killed 33 year-old Sarah Everard while she was walking home in London. The incident has driven home the very real fear that women live with every day. From using our keys as weapons to making sure it’s clear we can’t hear someone or don’t want to be bothered, we’re constantly forced into a situation where we have to either hide from men or try to keep ourselves safe.
After Everard’s murder, many took to the internet to talk about how we have to stop telling our girls to protect themselves and instead start teaching men not to attack and how to be there to support women, especially in situations like this. The “#NotAllMen” hashtag trended, and it’s been a rough time of men jumping on the defensive instead of listening, and no one really knowing how to go about fixing it.
So the solution the government came up with is, among other things, putting cops in plain clothes in bars to protect women. Yes, you read that correctly. Cops.
BREAKING: Bars and clubs will be patrolled by plain-clothes police at night to protect women from sexual harassment and assault
Via @thetimes pic.twitter.com/GeEGgID8ZC
— Politics For All (@PoliticsForAlI) March 15, 2021
The Boris Johnson-led initiative is Johnson’s way of addressing the situation but … a cop is allegedly who murdered Everard, so how exactly are more cops helping anything? “We must drive out violence against women and girls and make every part of the criminal justice system work to better protect and defend them,” Johnson said, and again, I just want to reiterate: A cop is who allegedly murdered Sarah Everard.
So how can the criminal justice system work to better protect and defend women when it is what is putting us in danger? This solution feels like a bad Onion headline that Boris Johnson took seriously, and it is terrifying because that isn’t just a Great Britain issue.
Women are constantly taught how to avoid and evade men. We’re told what not to do near men to save ourselves instead of teaching men that women are not theirs to do with as they please. Sarah Everard should have felt safe walking home. She shouldn’t have been murdered, and she should still be here today.
This conversation is long overdue, but when the men in charge make terrible decisions, like putting more cops in bars as wolves in sheeps’ clothing to try to protect women? That’s when the conversation needs to switch from making women feel safe to actively taking a look at the power that men have in this world and how they’re willing to abuse it.
(image: Leon Neal/Getty Images)
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