The Sarah Everard case highlights the inadequacy of the response to violence against women, which shifts responsibility from perpetrators to the victim. We spoke with people who work with men to prevent the problem.
The United Kingdom, and beyond, was shaken by the murder of Sarah Everard, a young woman of 33 who was abducted and killed as she walked home on the evening of 3 March in south London. Police investigations confirmed that Sarah had taken many of the additional precautions that women, unlike men, feel compelled to adopt to ensure their safety on the streets.
For example, having left her friend's house at 9pm, Sarah Everard had chosen a route along well-lit streets and spoken on the phone with her boyfriend, keeping him updated on her movements. This was not enough to deter her alleged killer, Wayne Couzens, a Metropolitan Police officer and, at the time, the sole suspect charged with her abduction and murder.
In the following weeks, hundreds of people gathered at vigils across the country in memory of Everard, particularly at Clapham Common, where on 13 March police intervened to break up the demonstration. Adding to the tension was the Metropolitan Police's guidance to women living in the area of the abduction not to go out alone in the evening, sparking immediate protests in various parts of the United Kingdom. In a country where the number of femicides and episodes of violence against women has grown at an alarming rate, there is profound indignation at the inadequate response of the authorities.
Once again, there is a failure to take adequate measures, shifting the responsibility for solving the problem onto women who, in order to stay safe, should limit their own freedom of movement, rather than focusing on controlling men, the principal perpetrators of these crimes.
In support of the protests, Baroness Jenny Jones of Moulescoomb, a member of the House of Lords and affiliated with the British Green Party, suggested introducing a 6pm curfew for men. Objections to the alleged absurdity of such a proposal were not long in coming, forcing the Baroness to clarify the provocative nature of her intervention, aimed at highlighting how asking women to restrict their rights is considered normal, whereas asking the same of men makes the proposal seem unworkable.
LifeGate spoke with Jackson Katz, PhD, American educator, filmmaker and author, internationally renowned for his activism on issues of gender, race and violence. He has long been a leading figure and thought leader in the growing global movement of men working to prevent gender-based violence and to achieve full equality between men and women.
Katz argues that violence against women is a male problem, caused and perpetrated by men, and that for this reason actions to reduce the endemic scale of this phenomenon must focus on them.
Men continue to engage in predatory and violent behaviour towards women in societies around the world. And yet why does no one feel they are part of the problem?
A first step is to reflect on how we talk about this problem, because it is a fundamental indicator of the root of the phenomenon. By continuing to frame gender-based violence as "a women's problem," we perpetuate the notion that women alone are responsible for resolving it.
We can try to imagine what would happen if women regularly raped men, accounting for the vast majority of individuals committing this crime. Would we talk about rape as a "women's problem"? Certainly not — we would define it as a men's problem and we would work on them.
The men who should be on the front line fighting this problem are the first to trivialise it
Jackson Katz
In my experience, the men who should be on the front line fighting this problem are the first to trivialise it. When presented with the list of precautions that women routinely take before leaving the house to avoid potential violence, they argue that women's response is exaggerated relative to the actual risk they face. Paradoxically, when women do become victims of violence, it is their behaviour that is scrutinised, and they are blamed. Whether or not they took measures for their safety, somehow it is always their fault — what they were wearing, what time they came home, where they were found… they are paranoid or unprepared, but in any case the responsibility is theirs.
We cannot know what drove Sarah Everard's killer to take her life, but it would be intellectually dishonest to separate extreme violent acts such as this from the sexism and harassment that women experience every day at the hands of men. These forms of violence are not equivalent, but they are part of the same cultural system that regards women as inferior, without autonomy in relation to men's needs and desires. It is this patriarchal culture that creates the conditions for violence against women to manifest itself daily in many different forms, without responsibility for resolving it being placed on its perpetrators — men.
It is far simpler to treat the alleged killer as a "monster," because it allows other men to distance themselves from the problem
Jackson Kats
It is far simpler to treat Sarah's alleged killer as a "monster," because it allows other men to distance themselves from the problem. They think that terrible acts such as murder or rape are a problem, but that it does not concern them because they do not kill or rape and are not responsible for the crimes of others. What they fail to recognise is the responsibility they bear when they laugh at a sexist joke, say nothing in response to derogatory comments implying that a victim of violence "asked for it," or fail to intervene when they witness harassment. The silence and inaction of these men is a form of consent and complicity in the perpetration of these crimes and abuses in societies around the world.
In your view, why is the response of the authorities to cases of gender-based violence such as Sarah's too often one of limiting women's freedoms rather than men's?
Patriarchal culture has deep historical and cultural roots, closely tied to the systems of power present in our societies. To resolve complex problems such as gender-based violence, this culture would need to be dismantled at every level, but doing so requires time and profound, structural change. This is why in the majority of cases like Sarah's, the simplest response from the authorities is to ask women to do the work needed to protect themselves, because it is the most immediate, least complex and apparently effective solution. In reality, by continuing to shift the responsibility for solving the problem onto women, the focus remains solely on risk and harm reduction, but not on prevention — that is, working on the source of the problem: men, and the culture that is part of the discriminatory system that privileges them.
By continuing to shift the responsibility for solving the problem onto women, the focus remains solely on risk and harm reduction, but not on prevention
Jackson Katz
I want to make clear that this does not mean that the authorities and law enforcement do not have a fundamental role to play in helping victims of gender-based violence. There are support programmes for survivors and a great many people have been saved by the police in dangerous situations, but reaching the point of requiring their intervention represents a failure from the outset, because it means that another act of violence has not been prevented. Everyone has the right to live free from the fear of being attacked — how can we accept that women all over the world live every day with the by now automatic thought that they could be attacked by a man? None of this is right, and it should not be considered normal.
You founded and run the Mentors in violence prevention programme, bringing men and women together to work towards preventing gender-based violence and achieving full equality. From your experience, what do you think the solutions to the problem might be?
We need to focus on prevention, and to do that we must work with men so that they can overcome the fear of social policing by their peers (policing mechanisms in male peer culture) that keeps the non-violent majority — those individuals who do not share the values and principles of patriarchal culture — silent. The voices of men who are uncomfortable with the abuse perpetrated by other men are suppressed through challenges to the masculinity of those "males" who would dare to take the "woman's side" in the supposed "battle of the sexes".
What men fear is not physical violence, but the social exclusion that could result from not staying silent in the face of sexist practices they disapprove of. To avoid feeling at fault, they construct personal narratives to justify their inaction (it wouldn't change anything, I'd create tension, it's not worth it, better to say nothing…), unwittingly making themselves complicit in the behaviour of that harmful minority with which they would never want to be associated.
We need to focus on prevention, and to do that we must work with men
Jackson Katz
We can say that the problem of the ongoing perpetuation of gender-based violence is a male problem — one that concerns men and the need to set an example and provide guidance for their peers by raising their own voices and establishing a healthy model of behaviour towards women. By framing the problem in a positive way, we dramatically increase the likelihood that men will listen and feel like an active part of the solution. This is what we aim for with the Mentors in violence prevention educational programme: to turn men into mentors for their peers, at every level and according to their means.
We want them to feel the urgency of having these conversations and not waiting for other men, boys and children to ask them what it means to be a man and how to relate to women. The greater a man's level of exposure, power and influence, the greater his responsibility to set an example for others and together make an impact on society as allies of women. If all of this were normalised through education programmes and concrete policies to remove the barriers preventing the full participation of women in social life, we would see a drastic reduction in gender-based violence.