Another tragic story

I have been following the disappearance of Sarah Everard on the news since last week. These things rarely end well but you always hope that the person will be found safe and well. It appears that is not the case yet again. Women just aren’t safe on the streets. It shouldn’t be the case but maybe we need to be saying never walk home alone, always take a taxi if you can’t find someone to walk home with you? Something more needs to be done but what? These situations are not rare and every single one of them destroy lives and families. I have three daughters in the mid to early 20s and constantly worry about their safety. The fact that this case would appear to involve a serving police officer isn’t going to help public confidence. You shouldn’t have to assume that you are going to be abducted on your way home from a night out, but maybe we need to tell people and to ensure that they take extra measures in order to get safely from A to B?

I read an article last night that suggested that it shouldn’t be a problem for women to walk home on there own and that men need to take more responsibility to make women feel safe, but what can we do? We know that there are a small percentage of men who are capable of rape and or murder but usually these people don’t become apparent until they are arrested. There was talk of crossing the road when passing a woman on the street so that she doesn’t feel threatened but surely that isn’t the problem, the problem is stopping them from being raped and murdered.

Very sad story, obviously.

However, you can’t say that women just assume they are going to be abducted on your way home - I would say the number of times this happens as a percentage of how many women walk home is infinitesimally small.

The biggest issue is the fact that some people are fucking nutcases, and there is no way around that. They don’t care, and you will never be able to get around it.

The story is tragic.
The reaction and comments are equally tragic and in some cases wrong.
Friends posting about being followed, being abused while jogging it has happened to so many, and I dont believe we understand it.
Equally the trending #notallmen is so wrong, it ignores the fact that there is a problem in society, and from my experiences it is global this time.

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It’s another major problem in society right up there with the likes of BLM only this has been going on forever and is global as you say. Efforts have been made to address domestic violence but this goes so much wider. Men harass, rape and kill women. Where and how do you start to deal with it? A murderer or rapist is unlikely to modify his behaviour because of a few public awareness broadcasts. This is something deep in the psyche of some individuals. How do you deal with that?

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You can’t.

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So we don’t even try?

It is so ingrained. From the builders wolf-whistle to the top shelf in the Newsafent.
At least it is no longer deemed proper that Page 3 exists.
It is a problem. It wont go away. No Police Force is going to react to a complaint from a Walker that they felt scared and who these days responds to a stern talking to?

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I think we do a good job making it clear that murder and rape constitutes an unacceptable standard of behaviour

The problem is, if you have a proclivity to rape / murder then whatever we do will not stop them, unless you can in some way identify them in advance and lock them up before they act

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Well, let’s have some of your ideas then, and we’ll discuss them.

Exactly this.

These aren’t normal people - they are violent sexual offenders who you want know about until they’ve done something heinous.

Same with nonce’s.

So all we can do is to throw it back to women and say that they have to be responsible for their own safety? I don’t know what else can be done but we can we reasonably expected to do except cut out the boorish behaviour. People should be able to walk around and by building sites without the wolf whistles and comments.

You’ve been watching Minority Report, haven’t you.

Why would it need to nowadays?

Speaking of which, I’m pretty confident that the ready availability of online porn, and the nature of it (highly aggressive and often violent,) isn’t doing anything to discourage potential rapists. If some loner watches enough of that stuff it’s going to become normalised in his mind. Likewise the constant stream of gun-toting American TV series and films normalises shooting or assaulting people.

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Wolf whistles and comments aren’t the issue, rape and murder is the issue.

Just because someone wolf whistles a woman doesn’t mean they’re going to rape them.

If you have ever followed the narrative you will understand that a large part of the problem revolves around men viewing women as sexual objects for their gratification. But then I am sure you know that and are just seeking to make a petty argument.

No, I think the main issue is that some people are wrong-uns.

Outlawing wolf whistling isn’t going to stop people murdering and raping people.

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I agree. I think the normalisation of extreme and easy access porn is a massive problem. Children are growing up with a distorted view of sex and relationships. Once upon a time you would go through that 1st base, 2nd base stuff as you were growing up. Now it is full on hard core stuff from the start. The dysfunctional element was already there in a number of individuals but it makes you wonder how much that will increase as the younger generations now grow up.

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I think you have missed the point. I don’t think anyone is suggesting that a whistle is the problem, it is what is going on behind the whistle - the attitude towards women.

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OK, so what are you actually proposing here to stop the rape and murder of women - the one that I said you can’t stop?

You can stop fucking whistling at them :unamused::joy::joy::joy:

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