Dear Mrs. May,
It was with horror that I head yesterday that you a looking to scrap a power which would allow police to remove and ban perpetrators of domestic violence from their homes for two weeks, giving their victims a chance to seek help and escape their abusers.
The quote from your spokeswoman in the Independent was particularly chilling: while tackling violence against women was a priority for this government, she said, “in tough economic times, we are now considering our options for delivering improved protection and value for money.”
Yet this is a false economy. Let me take you on a tour of the cost of violence against women. Let’s get one thing straight right from the start: Violence against women is absolutely endemic in our society. I’m talking about rape (over 200 women get raped every day in the UK), domestic violence (1 in 4 women will suffer this in the course of their lives), sexual abuse (32% of children are abused – mostly girls). 45% of women in the UK have at some point in their lives been victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse or stalking. A quarter of girls aged 13 to 17 have experienced physical violence from a boyfriend and a third have been pressured into sexual acts. It is difficult to get a precise picture of the numbers – violence against women is under-reported, consistent statistics not available; but just looking at the above data, a conservative estimate would have well over half the women in this country as victims of major violent incidents just because they are women. We should not forget to add to that the endless list of small insidious incidents that violate women’s minds or bodies – verbal harassment, threats, and a range of physical incidents from groping to flashing.
Just like it is difficult to get precise numbers for the extent of the issue, it is difficult to estimate the overall cost of it to our society. It is not a lump sum, easily visible and identified. Instead, it is spread over a variety of areas it impacts. Some of this cost, for instance, is born by the NHS – in the form of anything from immediate aftercare of rape victims to long-term therapy. A portion – not nearly enough – is born by the criminal justice system in the form of investigations, (often failed) prosecutions, and prison costs. A less obvious part of the cost hits social services when families break down either as a direct result of domestic abuse or as victims find it hard to sustain subsequent relationships. Employers, too, have to bear some of the cost: in the form of employees not performing to their full potential as their self-confidence is damaged by their experience of violence, as well as long-term absence and disability for those victims who suffer from debilitating depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, panic and anxiety attacks.
Ultimately, however, the vast majority of the cost of violence against women is born by women ourselves. Instead of confronting our attackers, seeking help, or seeking justice, the vast majority of us still walk away. We hide what happened to us, we don’t talk about it, we learn to live with it. There is a physical, emotional and financial cost of violence against women which is completely hidden from society because most women choose to bear it themselves. Why do we choose to do so?
There are many factors which influence women’s decisions on how to handle the violent incidents we experience: personal and family relationships, fear of future violence, social attitudes. (Did you know that over 1 in 4 people believe a woman is responsible for being raped if she is wearing revealing clothing; over 1 in 5 believe she is responsible for being raped if she has had many sexual partners? Nick Clegg has had 30 sexual partners. Is he asking for it?) One of the key factors, however, is the message we receive from the government – and especially from this government – loud and clear: An issue which affects at the very least a quarter of all people in the UK is not something this government is prepared to tackle; the suffering of millions of women is not important enough to make a priority and spend money on “in tough economic times”; and lest we forget, the minority of men falsely accused of rape are of greater concern to this government than the 200 women who get raped every single day. This government, in a very short time, has sent a very clear message that violence against women is something it is prepared to tolerate. And thus we remain silent, and bear the vast majority of the cost ourselves.
I conducted a little thought experiment a while ago. I started by asking myself what the socially acceptable and correct response to a minor incident of sexual assault (let’s say being groped) would be. Returning violence with violence is more than likely to end with me being charged with assault – at least in my particular circumstances as I am a trained kickboxer. Drawing the attention of others to the incident could be helpful in that it is likely to discourage the perpetrator from going further on this occasion but hardly stops them from attacking other women. I did consider the option of reporting the incident to the police, at which point the realisation dawned on me that our criminal justice system is simply not equipped to handle the sheer volume of incidents of violence against women: If every rape, every incident of child abuse, stalking or domestic violence, and every single minor incident were reported, the justice system would grind to a halt. Not only that – our society would grind to a halt too: With up to one in 16 men being a rapist, the prison population would soar to nearly two million. This is the scale of the problem that we are talking about, and it’s a problem which is hidden by victims because we have no confidence that our suffering will in any way be taken seriously, that anything will be done about it.
Perhaps if women stopped bearing all of this ourselves, if we stopped hiding the cost, if we really and truly made an effort to expose this as the huge festering social problem that it is, this government would notice. If every single one of us stood her ground, stood up and spoke out, and instead of internalising her experience made it society’s problem, demanded of government and society to address the issues, made the cost obvious, maybe then this government would re-asses its “options for delivering improved protection and value for money”.
Dear Mrs. May, if you truly believe that tackling violence against women is a priority for you and for this government, I strongly urge you to put your money where your mouth is. Start by re-instating the “go-orders” scheme, but don’t stop there. Send a loud and clear message that violence against women is not something this government is prepared to tolerate, that it should not be something we as a society are prepared to tolerate. Start working with your ministerial colleagues across departments to build a programme which will make violence against women history. This is not an issue which can be tackled solely by the Home Office: You will need to get – at the very least – Health, Education, the MoJ, the DWP, Communities and Local Government, the Treasury, as well as the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister on board to truly make a difference. It is not an easy task, there are no easy answers, and few quick wins. You were, however, not elected as an MP and not put in charge of the Home Office to solve small and easy problems. The least I expect of my government is to tackle the really tough issues, and they rarely come tougher, or with a wider-ranging impact, than violence against women. Make this your legacy.
Sincerely yours,
Milena Popova
ETA: I had a request in the comments to share the postal address for contacting Theresa May to make it easier for other people to contact her. Her website lists the following contact details:
Home Office:
Rt Hon Theresa May MP
Home Secretary
2 Marsham Street
London
SW1P 4DF
House of Commons:
Rt Hon Theresa May MP
House of Commons
London
SW1A 0AA
Tel: 020 7219 5206
Fax: 020 7219 1145
mayt@parliament.uk
Constituency Office:
Maidenhead Conservative Association
2 Castle End Farm
Ruscombe
Berkshire
RG10 9XQ
Tel: 0118 934 5433 or 01628 604 961
Fax: 0118 934 5288