A friend sent me this image from a Facebook group in Bridport, Dorset out of disgust.
Interestingly the comments underneath the post suggest that many still don’t get it. They don’t get the legitimation of the objectification of women as something to be used. They don’t get how young minds are corrupted in their perceptions of gender identity. They don’t get that offending others and belittling them is not nice. They find any old excuse to preserve their nasty side.
Sexism is as bad as racism. It is as bad as homophobia. It is bad.
They don’t get the rapes. The violence. The abuse. It is just a joke.
Out come the lazy bile. ‘Snowflakes’. The new term doing the rounds used by those who don’t get the power of language in collusion with praxis. The excuses by both sexes for the maintenance of abuse. This from a guy called Scott
‘I think the crown jokes might be to much for the sensitive feminist snow flake vegan vape people of 2018’.
Apparently this currently has 15 likes or laughing icons! WHY? Are these people roaming around the hills at night looking for fresh meat? Millions of years of evolution and making jokes about women and age and how men use and abuse them is all they can offer on the subject. Anyone who challenges is a ‘feminist’ or a the new one (out of nowhere) ‘Vegan’, that of not wanting to be cruel and exploitative to animals. Tells us all that we want to know about Scott and his type perhaps.
Some get it though. Both men and women. They confront it.
They remind others that words have consequences for some. This is not about political correctness or whatever phrase we are supposed to adopt. This is about decency. This is about respecting one another.
As for The Crown. What was the landlord thinking? On the wall of the gents probably above the urinals so that men can snigger to themselves or with their mates before switching faces and returning to their partners….
Hopefully he will take it down and not repeat this mistake again. This article will gladly become redundant and some small positive change will have occurred.
To those who get it. 🙂 To those who don’t. Keep working on it.
Douglas James
For those who are interested:
Rape Crisis England & Wales headline statistics 2016-17:
- Rape Crisis Centres across our network responded to their highest ever number of helpline calls during the year – 202,666 in total, or nearly 4,000 a week.
- Rape Crisis specialist services were accessed by 67,059 individuals, an increase of 16% from 2015-16.
- Rape Crisis Centres provided in excess of 450,000 sessions of specialist support, including advocacy, emotional support and counselling, an increase of 29% since 2015-16.
- Three-quarters of all adult service users contacted Rape Crisis Centres about sexual violence that took place at least 12 months earlier; 42% were adult survivors of child sexual abuse.
- The largest group that contact Rape Crisis Centres, now over half of service users (51%), is those who prefer to self-refer. This pattern has remained consistent over the past six years and continues to demonstrate the necessity for funded independent services.
- 93 per cent of service users were female.
- Where age is known, 2,651 were aged 15 or under, an increase of 55% on last year; those aged under 25 represented 36% of service users. Over 30 times more children reported multiple assaults than last year – 904 compared with 29 in 2015-16.
- Where ethnicity is known, 20% of service users identified as Black or Minority Ethnic.
- 25% of all service users identified as Disabled.
- The Rape Crisis England & Wales website received nearly 9 million hits during the year and an average of 32,765 unique visitors per month.
Here are some other key statistics about sexual violence:
- Approximately 85,000 women and 12,000 men are raped in England and Wales alone every year; that’s roughly 11 rapes (of adults alone) every hour. These figures include assaults by penetration and attempts.
- Nearly half a million adults are sexually assaulted in England and Wales each year
- 1 in 5 women aged 16 – 59 has experienced some form of sexual violence since the age of 16
- Only around 15% of those who experience sexual violence choose to report to the police
- Approximately 90% of those who are raped know the perpetrator prior to the offence
These figures come from An Overview of Sexual Offending in England and Wales, the first ever joint official statistics bulletin on sexual violence released by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), Office for National Statistics (ONS) and Home Office in January 2013.
Download the full report, a summary and/or the data tables for more information.
As well as this:
- 31% of young women aged 18-24 report having experienced sexual abuse in childhood (NSPCC, 2011)
- In 2012-13, 22,654 sexual offences against under-18s were reported to police in England and Wales with four out of five cases involving girls (NSPCC, 2014)
- Most women in the UK do not have access to a Rape Crisis Centre (Map of Gaps, 2007)
- A third of people believe women who flirt are partially responsible for being raped (Amnesty, 2005)
- Conviction rates for rape are far lower than other crimes, with only 5.7% of reported rape cases ending in a conviction for the perpetrator. (Kelly, Lovett and Regan, A gap or a chasm? Attrition in reported rape cases, 2005)
Other useful sources of statistical data relating to sexual violence and violence against women and girls include:
End Violence Against Women Coalition (EVAW)
Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU), London Metropolitan University
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
Crime Survey for England and Wales (formerly the British Crime Survey)
Office for National Statistics (ONS)
