White Ribbon Day?

So the 25th November starts of the 16 days of activism against gender violence. The United Nations General Assembly has designated November 25th as the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. And in a year of a historical low in rape conviction rates and historical high in domestic homicide it is clear that this issue is still a big one.

And yet…

Local authorities and institutions across the UK have decided that it’s appropriate to call it White Ribbon Day. White Ribbon being the only male run charity involved in eliminating male violence against women and girls.

Now to be clear, I am glad there is a male organisation that takes accountability for male violence against women and girls as male accountability instead of victim blaming is the only way to solve the issue. However, calling it White Ribbon Day, making it about a male run organisation rather than the dead women and girls and raising the profile of the only male run charity and donations to it, ignoring the thousands of female run ones – is an example of the problem.

It is not white ribbon day. But it is typical that men talking about this get listened to instead of silenced, gas lit and ignored.

Violence against women and girls is a direct result of the sexual objectification of women and girls. That we are seen as objects not subjects and therefore less important than men. Less important in our experiences, what we have to say and everything else.

So renaming a day about the violence against women and girls after a male run organisation that our local authorities are more willing to listen to – is part of the problem.

These women and girls lives mattered, the experiences of our girls matter, the Ofsted findings on sexual harassment in schools matter, that rape isn’t convicted matters, that we can’t walk home safely matters, that we can’t trust police or family courts matters, that FGM goes unconvinced matters, that we have honour based violence matters, that Irish women have to leave the country for safe abortion matters, that Afgan girls can no longer get an education matters, that Britain is the third largest consumer of child abuse pornography matters, that cats get more funding than female victim services matters but only once men say it does…apparently.