When Have Women Ever Felt Safe : Thoughts Following the ROSA Rally
By Grace Harris
With a terrifying rise in women’s murder cases over the past few years in Northern Ireland, particularly in recent weeks, there has been much discussion and uproar in our local community surrounding women’s safety. More and more discussions are being had on this topic, simply because the wider community is finally realising that women are not safe. This rise in awareness is extremely important. However, for me it raises the question, when have women ever felt safe?
Many AFAB (assigned female at birth) people can remember their first time feeling unsafe in public. For me, I was around ten years old, walking across a bridge in my hometown with my mum holding my hand, while a group of drunken teenage boys shouted abuse at us for no reason. And that was just the beginning; my heart rate quickening while walking past bars with a skirt that didn’t quite reach my knees, shrinking from the piercing eyes of older men from across cafés, playing with my friend in her estate when we were twelve and instinctively knowing that if you see a strange man in a van watching you and his engine starts, you run. So, we ran. I feel like I’ve been running ever since.
I, like every other AFAB person my age, was given the standard “safety advice” to avoid assault. “Be careful what you wear, dress modestly”, yet people are raped wearing jeans, flannels and over-sized t-shirts [1]. “Don’t go out alone at night, in fact, try not to go out at night at all”, does that really matter when 18 out of the 24 women murdered in NI since 2020 were attacked or killed in their own homes [2]? “Buy a panic alarm”, let’s call it what it really is, a rape alarm. The school system and government encourage us to buy self-defence devices rather that tackling the problem head on.
Cisgender women, transgender women, transgender men, nonbinary people; we have all been exposed to this same rhetoric. I cannot speak for every person vulnerable to gender-based violence, but I do not feel very protected by this advice, do you?
Clearly there are others who share my outrage at the current state of affairs, as I attended the ROSA (Socialist Feminist Movement) rally at the gates of the Lanyon Building on Wednesday the 16th of October. This event gave platform to feminist speakers involved in different areas of activism. Ella, the president of Project Choice at Queen’s, asserted that, “Femicide is not a coincidence. It is the peak of a pyramid that is built on years of gender-based violence”.
A speaker whom I found particularly inspiring was Lucy, a student and young teacher, who discussed the misogynistic behaviour she has witnessed within the Northern Irish school system. She spoke on the role of social media in shaping the mindset of young men, horrified that, “Boys and young men go online, and they see the likes of Tate and Musk”. In relation to Andrew Tate specifically, she reports that her students respond to criticism of this man with, “You’re only saying the bad stuff. He cares about mental health”. Young boys are being taught from an early age to defend a person convicted of rape and human trafficking [3].
Additionally, Lucy reported that a member of the school’s student council stated, “All we talked about is skirt length”. It is this purity culture that is so deep rooted in Irish society, whether that be the Republic of Ireland or Northern Ireland, that creates problems early on which will lead to issues such as femicide not being addressed effectively down the line. Young AFAB people are oppressed by dress codes, the preaching of abstinence and receive blame for, “distracting the boys”, while AMAB (assigned male at birth) students are engulfed by toxic masculinity which is extremely detrimental to their mental-health and wellbeing, leaving them vulnerable to becoming perpetrators of the cycle of misogynistic behaviour around them. No young person is spared by the systems of oppression currently operating in schools.
The ROSA rally also put emphasis on gender-based violence occurring all over the world today. Just last month in Afghanistan, the Taliban banned women from using their voices in public [4]. Noel, a speaker at the rally and representative from the QUB Palestinian Assembly, emphasised the importance of fighting for the rights of women across the world in feminism, “From Belfast, to Palestine, to Congo, to Sudan. Collective liberation means liberation for all”.
Evidently, misogynistic culture exists around across the globe. Our governments have a vital role to play in protecting women, because a few small changes can have an incredible impact. Current policies are clearly not working, and until every young girl can grow up feeling safe in her skin, there is something deeply wrong with our society. Changes must be made. In the words of rally speaker and representative of the Communication and Workers Union, Lily, “You are very lucky we are seeking justice and not revenge”.
Sources:
[1] DOVE centre. 2024. “What Were You Wearing Exhibit”. https://dovecenter.org/what-were-you-wearing-exhibit/
[2] Dungan, Ita. 2024. “A picture of violence: The 24 women killed in four years”. BBC News. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cp8memlgdrgo
[3] Williamson, Lucy. Wright, George. 2023. “Andrew Tate charged with rape and human trafficking”. BBC News. https://bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-65959097
[4] Sutherland, Paige. Chakrabarti, Meghna. 2024. “Banned from speaking in public, Afghan women risk telling us their stories”. WBUR. https://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2024/09/27/afghan-women-taliban-human-rights
