Recently in both the UK and Australia there has been a big debate in the news about women’s safety, or as it really should be called, male violence against women.
Chris Hemmings gave an excellent interview (you can watch the 2 x clips here on Twitter) about this problematic framing of the debate, and I have seen it previously posted before in a very succinct way that I like:
“The constant framing of sexual assault as a women’s safety issue should OFFEND you as a man.
Men should be outraged when someone claims that women can prevent rape by not wearing certain things or not going certain places or not acting in a certain way.
That line of thinking assumes that you are incapable of control. That you are so base and uncivilised that it takes extraordinary effort for you to walk down the street without raping someone.
That you require a certain dress code to be maintained, that certain behaviours be deployed so that maybe, just maybe, today you won’t rape someone.
It presumes that your natural state is rapist.
Men should be outraged every time someone suggests that a woman’s body in an invitation for attack or abuse just because parts of it are visible.”
Had we but world enough and time... 