Author Archives: G. Aitchison

What ministers call a “national emergency” will be tackled by the UK government by announcing their VAWG Strategy.

BBC News reported that the violence against women and girls strategy will be built around three goals:

. preventing radicalisation of young men

. stopping abusers

. supporting victims

Prevention, addressing the issue and dealing with the impact. It sounds like a thorough plan.

There has been criticism and purposeful misrepresentation of “targeting” boys and men. Simulator to the Himpathy we saw during the #MeToo movement prioritising the feelings of men over the victims voices of actual harm.

But the uncomfortable truth is this: This is a male problem.

The consistent majority of perpetrators towards men and women and boys and girls – are men. In every year since records began. In every single country in the world. It’s not an accident, it’s a choice men keep making.

That being factual makes those defensive for a reason want to deflect. Have I done that, has someone I love done that etc. But you’re missing the big picture here.

As part of the strategy, ministers will focus on prevention and tackling the root causes of radicalisation of young men in their schools, homes and online. They will work with teachers to challenge misogyny and promote healthy relationships.  Government sources say more support will be provided to parents so they can intervene early. This isn’t a punishment or a blame game. It’s about getting over the Not All Men barrier so we can stop failing our boys as well as our girls. So we can get to prevention.

Now I admit to being frustrated this isn’t already happening. I successfully campaigned for compulsory PSHE in memory of my sister. This included the harm of gender stereotypes. Something that has not been done or at times been completely hijacked and taught the opposite.

If all children had critical analysis skills around gender stereotypes as they should, Andrew Tate and pornography wouldn’t have had the impact it has. Schools have failed children in this way, especially by leadership who don’t see PSHE as a priority and want to do a couple of assemberlys and call it a day.

Despite violence against women and girls happening at younger ages. Domestic abuse most at risk age being 16 – 22 and pornography sexualising girls more than ever.
Online influencers are partly blamed for fuelling this. It’s been reported more than one in five young men hold a positive view of the self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate.

Over the last year alone, one in every eight women was a victim of domestic abuse, sexual assault or stalking, according to Home Office figures.

The statistics also show that every day about 200 rapes are recorded by the police, and many more go unreported. Hundreds of thousands of children are estimated to be sexually abused every year.

The strategy will apparently have a cross-government approach including collaboration between the Home Office, Department of Health and Social Care, Ministry of Justice, Department for Education, and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the BBC was told. And it needs it. The Home Office needs to support victims who have no access to public funds. The department of health seem to just accept women have consistently worse outcomes and don’t support carers. The Ministry of Justice is simply not accessible to women and girls especially family courts actively punishing victims due to their own misogyny culture. The BBC actively target vulnerable women themselves with their TV licence men. There’s plenty of work to do in all departments.

“There will also be a raft of new measures, so rapists and sex offenders have nowhere to hide. We will track down abusers, empower police forces with the tools they need to do so and put abusers on a course to stop their offending”, a government source said.

The government also wants to support victims who say failures by police and delays in court are worse than the offences themselves. More than half of rape and stalking cases collapse because victims drop out of the process.

Despite conviction rates being so low we still here the cry of false accusations every time a victim is naive enough to come forward. The fact is if you are a risk to the public, you shouldn’t be in the public. Yet we see violence against women and girls dismissed and enabled constantly while women are in prison for not paying a TV licence often because child support payments aren’t enforced and unpaid carers survive in poverty.

Even in the unlikely event perpetrators end up in prison, probation dismiss their lack of rehabilitation and the risk they pose to women and girls and let them out early anyway.

The justice system is consistently failing to respond to the fact that VAWG offences are serial and escalating offences. Failing victims and inevitable future victims that the men of the law simply accept as collateral damage.

Key Pillars of the Strategy:

1. Prevention & Changing Attitudes:
   • Education: Schools will teach healthy relationships and address misogyny in boys.
   • Online Focus: Tackling online abuse and radicalisation of young men.
2. Justice & Accountability:
   • Specialist Teams: Every police force will get specialist rape and sexual offences investigators.
   • New Orders: New domestic abuse orders will cover economic abuse, coercive control, and stalking, with no time limits.
   • Justice System: Aiming to improve support for victims in the justice system to prevent cases collapsing.
3. Victim Support:
   • Safe Accommodation: £19m extra for safe housing, supporting thousands of survivors.
   • NHS Support: Better specialist support within the NHS.
   • Cross-Government Working: Building relationships across departments (Health, Transport, etc.) for coordinated action. 

Funding & Implementation:

• Significant Investment: Over £550m allocated across the justice system and £480m to local government, with more funding for housing.
• New Coalition: UK co-founded the ‘All In’ global coalition to tackle VAWG worldwide.
• Implementation: A dedicated VAWG team in Number 10 and an inter-ministerial group will drive cross-government efforts. 

Criticisms & Concerns:

• Delays: The strategy’s publication has been delayed, causing concern and uncertainty in the sector.
• Investment Levels: Some experts feel the funding doesn’t match the scale of the problem or the goal to halve VAWG in a decade.
• Effectiveness: Skepticism exists from survivors and campaigners about whether actions will match the stated ambitions. 

For this to work the first things that need to go are defensiveness, tokenism and prioritising men’s feelings over women’s safety. If that can be done by police, social workers, the CPS, ministers, teachers, probation and local authorities – things could change.

Let’s clear this up. No one is demonizing boys with healthy relationship lessons. We have been failing boys and girls alike with the “not all men” barrier we have refused to get over. To address the fact that it’s men doing this in the majority to other men and women and boys and girls.
In every year recorded.
In every single country.

We need to acknowledge that fact and then look at why so that we can change it.

Our boys and girls deserve better than high suicide rates, domestic abuse, sexual violence, stalking, body issues, isolation, no access to justice, pornography exposure, sexual harassment, being criminal and more (thanks to the gender stereotypes adults impose).

This is the world we have allowed and created. The world we expect these children to grow up in.

It’s not being mean. It’s not misandry. It’s not a witch hunt.

It’s giving children the tools for healthy relationships with themselves and others.

Now is the time for grown ups to step up. To make the world better for them instead of organisations online and off trying to normalise and exploit the harmful. To build the services young people need.

Can we step up and make a better world for our children? Or will it remain a man’s world? I guess time will tell….

So everyone has been a buzz with Adolescence. I’ve read lots of perspectives, some promising and some worryingly being an example of the problem. I’ve been aware that given my position that I hold a subjective view on the experience of the murder of a girl. So here’s my take…

We have loads of true crime fodder and dramas, hell even tropes in movies around violence against women and girls from the victims perspective. We have tried telling our stories to get change. It didn’t work.

It will never work because of the objectification of women and girls whereas men and boys are subjects. We have yet to be human enough for equal access to justice and citizenship. One half of the world says this happens to me too and the response is to protect our poor boys and men. In the unlikely event of a rapist getting convicted (currently 1% chance) it becomes about not ruining his whole life over one mistake. Never about the life long implications for the victim.

This is “himpathy”.

And so Adolescence being from the perspective of the boy and the impact of his family was frankly necessary for it’s impact. A good tactic to get through the defensiveness and make the majority care. And it worked.

It covered things that feminists have been ignored for saying for years. Gender stereotypes are the root of all gender based violence. They are the root cause of misogyny, of mental health and emotional regulation problems in men and boys. Including their lack of social skills creating this loneliness issue for men and boys. They are the root cause of sexual violence, pedophilia, exploitation, domestic abuse and more. They impact physical and mental health issues for everyone and yet we keep on enforcing this pink and blue crap causing nothing but harm and profit.

We see this in Adolescence in the multi generational men, in what the boys think they should be and what the girls think they should be. The incel culture they follow – reinforcing gender stereotypes is everything out of Tates mouth. How Jamie tries to use control, dominance and intimidating to get the female worker to like him. How he sexually objectifies the victim and goes to romantically advance on her when he thinks she’s weak…. And of course the victim blaming which disturbingly many adults have agreed with. We saw it in schools, the different expectations of the staff and their behaviour. Despite the harm of gender stereotypes being in the compulsory PSHE curriculum that I was responsible for, it is not done effectively.

It has started the conversation about how to address this misogyny epidemic including having a meeting with prime minister to discuss this. The epidemic that feminists including myself, have been told doesn’t exist until suddenly – not only do we acknowledge it but we’re gonna do something about it. Amazing.

But I am happy it is being taken seriously, it is progress. Media can have that impact. We’ve seen it with others such as the post office scandal too. Our media has huge impact on gender based violence.

Press reporting has big implications on victim blaming culture that later sits on our juries and enables perpetrators to minimise or justify their crimes. To escape justice in the majority of cases.

More so when crime is turned into media, when it’s for entertainment, it seems not to be upheld as a crime. We see this in pornography with incest, strangulation, in some cases sexual violence or image based abuse of women and children.

Yet nothing is done and it’s increasing violence is normalised so much that it leaks into our culture. Including to these young people with a government APPG on pornography regulation funding the average age of exposure to pornography in the UK was 7 years old in 2023, with the most at risk age range of domestic abuse being within school age and sexual violence reports in schools being at record highs.

And then we have reality TV and dating shows. Married at First Sight, Love Island etc we see televised domestic abuse and coersive control. Not only do the so called experts not hold them to account but the perpetrators are not arrested. This abuse is literally filmed – baring in mind the perpetrators behave this way when they know they are on camera. Where is the duty of care? Where is the safeguarding? Where is the police?!

Online platforms from pornography sites, social media and platforms allowing thousands of rapists to swap tips… In real life if you showed a child sexual material you would be done for child grooming. And only fans can be essentially sex traffickers including for children because it’s online so all good?

So where is the line between entertainment, crime and legislation? Where is the responsibility of the media considering the impact they have on gender based violence and are they taking it seriously? Where is the responsibility?

This is something I discussed with media psychology masters students at Salford University for International Women’s Day. And it’s a question I ask you.

Media can show us perspective, make us feel and think. It can influence us and it can change policy. It can get away with crime apparently. And so are we looking at media and media responsibility when it comes to halving VAWG in a decade?

I will leave you with these final thoughts. I think Adolescence was worth watching, was well researched and well done. It was a valuable and important perspective to be told. It made me think of things I hadn’t considered before and has started conversations. It has made me feel angry at the victim blaming I’ve seen in response by some but glad of the reactive response to those working with children and young people.

But I did not feel sorry for the family getting a phone call from their son in prison on dad’s birthday. Because if this had been taken more seriously sooner, as it should, then I would be able to have a birthday phone call from my sister on mine. But she can’t hear happy birthday or I love you or eat a cheese sandwich. She’s gone – but that didn’t seem to be important enough did it..

**I recommend watching Unbelievable, Laura Bates book on Incel culture and for work with boys in schools Men at Work CIC 12 Dialogues with Boys.

51 defendants have been found guilty in the historic Gisele Pelicot mass rape case today. Knowing I’m a proud radical feminist you may assume I would be celebrating.

I do celebrate Gisele. Her huge bravery. Her strength acts as inspiration to women around the world. Using her voice to right place the shame at the right feet. The feet of these male perpetrators and not at the feet of victims.

She is very right in this. Men are the demand. Rape, sexual exploitation and child sexual abuse are the supply.

That’s something men should be ashamed of.

But men have a history of misrepresentation of trying to control everything but their own behaviour. They label domestic abuse and sexual violence as ‘women’s issues’ despite the issue being male behaviour. They claim she has daddy issues rather than he failed to be a good father. She was asking for it, women of a certain age, what was she wearing – the list goes on.

We dismiss women with brain tumors as working themselves up to panic attacks. We claim that God will reveal the truth behind vindictive ex girlfriends lying about domestic abuse until the video is leaked.

This is the society that claims the majority of men are good, in which one man found so many men to rape his wife. Not only rape her but knowingly rape her without fear of consequences. Colliding to cover each other’s backs. After which they zip up their trousers and straightened their “good guy” badge.

The same way men say men with child brides are disgusting but search barely legal teen into porn hub and leer at Hooters GIRLS at family dinners. The average age of exposure to pornography in the UK is currently 7 years old, rapes are happening in schools, the age range most at risk of domestic abuse is now within school age.

All this in a society that claims we have equality and don’t need feminism. In a society that is today celebrating 51 convictions but not asking why over 20 rapists got away with it. Despite undeniable proof.

A man made justice system that protects rapists. Keeps them safe. Keeps them from consequences. Even though we know this is a serial and escalating offence..

Even with the world watching she does not get justice. Because women never do.

I don’t celebrate that rapists have gotten away with it. I don’t celebrate when men with littered histories of sexual offences and abuse of women get put in jail after 12 offences. I don’t celebrate when there are claims of lessons learned while women and girls known to authorities are failed and their lives are gone. Because we prioritise men’s feelings over women’s safety over and over and over again.

This is why women don’t report, not that it is represented that way. When we don’t report the police congratulate themselves that reports are down so there must be less rape. When we do report the police congratulate themselves that they’ve built trust so we report to them.

We are misrepresented consistently or deemed unreliable witnesses to our own lives.

Gisele is right, shame needs to be in the right place. This is a global issue of women mattering as much as men do.

This is a complete list of countries that have achieved equality of the sexes:

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A few details before the rest of the blog for context.

I live in Bolton, was born here and am one of the working class, including homelessness as a teenage girl. I am a survivor of child sexual abuse and exploitation and male violence as an adult. I founded an organisation that helps children and young people who are victims of sexual abuse and exploitation, shaped policy to prevent more victims and currently work in helping children and young people who are victims of domestic abuse. Finally I am the sister of a murdered girl.

I give this context because of all the self righteous exploitation of these things being used and people questioning being told if it happened to them they would change their mind. It has happened to me and so I will speak.

Those poor girls murdered in Southport were killed by male violence. Their families are in a hell I know all too well and do not need their beautiful babies being used like they have been.

They were killed by male violence and are being exploited to justify more male violence.

“Tommy Robinson” has convictions himself for being a perpetrator of male violence. For years he has claimed to care about child sexual abuse and exploitation but in over a decade of work in the area I have yet to see him doing anything to help victims or prevent more. He pops up when the perpetrator is not white.

“Tommy Robinson” isn’t campaigning against the convicted pedophile at the Olympics or Prince Andrew. It’s only when it serves his purpose. Like Farage, Trump and Tate his plan is a simple one. Exploit the disenfranchised men in a way that means giving money and power to them is the solution. He uses victims to do it.

So women and girls affected by male violence and killed by male violence…have a perpetrator of male violence exploiting them to justify…more male violence.

I’m not saying working class people don’t have a right to be angry. I’m saying they are falling for a con. The reason they don’t have doctors appointments, that pedophiles go free, there’s no services or help is not immigration. It’s because the government the media groomed them into voting for with the Level Up bullshit believes in rolling back the state. Neo liberalism and classic liberalism is the Tory ideology and that means taking away all state run services apart from law that protects property.

We have less public services because you voted for the party who believes there should be no public services.

It’s classic divide and conquer instead of looking up. The rich are raising the cost of living and taking the piss out of us all. And they are laughing at us having civil war instead of a revolution.

I’m a feminist so I’m not going to advocate for Muslims or Christians. But I will say this..

The men involved in the Southport murders weren’t Muslims. The overwhelming majority of perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation are white men. Infact the majority of perpetrators of violent crime towards men…and women….and children….in every country of the world…in all religions….and in every single year since records began….are consistently men.

It’s men who I see in the streets justifying their violence. It’s men I see claiming to care about child brides while consuming barely legal rape pornography. It’s men who are the demand that victims of child sexual abuse and exploitation are the supply for. It’s men failing our boys.

What a piss poor example you are all setting. Violence against women and girls at epidemic levels. Footballers, influencers and Olympians all perpetrator role models. And we claim to be shocked when this keeps happening…what a joke.

I don’t care about your religion or the colour of your skin but I do care about you using women and girls who have been victims. You don’t care about them.

If you gave a shit about victims you wouldn’t be trying to control everything but your own behaviour. You would be trying to create change. Changes that made a safer world – less victims.

Why don’t you look at abolishing gender stereotypes so men have a lower suicide rate and commit less violent crime? So they have better futures and healthier relationships with themselves and others?

No you wouldn’t do that would you. Not when you can have fun justifying violence while claiming to be against perpetrators of violence.

Well don’t worry lads the feminists are trying to make things better for our kids. The kids left damaged by your mess over and over again.

We will all have heard of the recent conviction of security guard Gavin Plumb who has been given a life sentence for the plot to abduct, rape and murder television presenter Holly Willoughby.

This will have had a huge impact on Holly Willoughby and Plumb has been jailed for life with a minimum of 16 years.

However did you also know about his two previous convictions for attempted kidnap of women on trains in 2006. And after they failed – he escalated.

In 2008, he terrified two 16-year-old girls when he tied their wrists and forced them into the store room of a shop.

Plumb said both offences were a “cry for help” as he “needed to get out” of a toxic relationship. I don’t see all the women suffering from domestic abuse and stalking following suit….

Given he has multiple victims we have to ask if his latest victims wasn’t a household name would he still be out today? Would those resources have been allocated for a case of a random woman? Would we be shown the criminal justice system is in fact capable and has resources to prevent? Would he be imprisoned for the threats?

Or would the police have said there’s nothing we can do, it’s all online, he hasn’t actually harmed you. To be encouraged to take responsibility for her own safety and buy security cameras. Would Plumb be walking around free today?

Yes. Because he’s a member of the boys club. And the boys club runs our justice system.

Plumb, Cousins, Clifford, Monahan, Minto…. and too many other perps to name  all had multiple offences before something was done.

We have research decades to recent telling us this. Monckton Smith has the Homicide Timeline pointing this out in simple steps and yet everyday our media is filled with the same. The same refusal to acknowledge and solve the problem. The same dismissal of male violence against women and girls. The same reports of families devastated because of what’s happened to women and girls they loved.

The safety of Holly Willoby matters. But so does the safety of Zahra, Louise, Hannah, Carol, Sasha and all women and girls. Yet time and time again our police, CPS, probation service, family courts and yes security guards dismiss MVAWG and the opportunity to PREVENT.

Evidence has shown for a long time that VAWG is a serial and escalating offence. It’s time the boys club were held to account for condoning and enabling VAWG because that’s what this is.

It’s not the 1 victim reporting that’s failed, it’s her and enviable future victims that their failing too. Infact not just failing…helping the perpetrator to ruin their lives.

There is rarely accountability for VAWG and the even less going on with rehabilitation. We refuse to acknowledge the problem with men and so that problem continues. And women and girls are sick of dealing with it.

It’s time the #notallmen crew started holding each other to account for the reputation they’ve got. Instead of trying to silence those cleaning up the mess. Because as long as this is ALLOWED to continue – they don’t deserve their good guy badges.

The barrel of apples is rotten… because it’s covered in the blood of women and girls.

Petition by Laura Richards to get VAWG offenders onto a register to prevent further offences:

https://www.change.org/p/include-serial-stalkers-on-the-same-register-as-violent-and-sexual-offenders?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3sv7p1tG8-h2t-BD-iueo5GnqUzed2upz-ohJ35ApVPD-8C3rAtFhjx0o_aem_c4s3ibx-eGXZTaKMSGp9Ig

It’s no secret that I’m a working class gal. I was one of those kids that shouldn’t have been born rather than have a dole dossing parent. An attitude that unfortunately still follows children today in Britain no matter how many times we disprove the idea we live in a meritocracy.

I have written about the impact of demonisation of the poor on children and young people in education when it comes to abuse and how it shapes our futures.

So this bank holiday in sunny Manchester with my partner and our children. We decided after the cinema to pop to a coffee shop, chat about the film we had just seen while we have a drink. We chose Costa in Manchester city centre.

We were sat at the table and my son got into the queue to order our drinks when we were approached by a security guard! He wanted to know what we were doing there and if we actually had paid for anything because if not we would be escorted out.

We explained that one of our party was in the long queue ordering for us and he backed off. As we waited we observed people being told to leave because everyone in their party didn’t purchase a drink and they couldn’t use the toilet unless that were paying customers. He patrolled around the premises continually for the duration of our visit.

What the hell are Costa doing? We can all drink coffee and tea at home. Many products are now sold in the supermarket. The point of coffee shops is a welcoming environment to relax, spend time, socialise and yes drink coffee and eat food.

I’m not saying it’s unreasonable for coffee places that are businesses to want customers to buy their products. However to watch, check, time, intimidate you into it. To get your money and then rush you out like some weird capitalist conveyor belt? To stand over elderly women in their 80s wanting to sit down before deciding what tea they want? To escort someone desperate for the loo as of it costs them money per flush.

Do we have to be paying to go anywhere and do everything now? Are we literally paying to live? Are we deemed undeserving of being shown decency, kindness or just freedom to exist.

I guess that’s what our welfare state is built upon and the media around it. That idea that certain kids shouldn’t exist if the parents don’t have an acceptable amount of wealth.

These businesses such as Costa are made up of people but ultimately those at the top often disassociate from their fellow man. I wonder if the workers in Costa could afford to be there if they weren’t working. These businesses are enjoying high profit and paying low wages. It is citizens topping up wages rather than them being held to account.

And now they do the same to their customers. They want to take as much as they can get, while giving as little as possible. Following the trend of water companies, supermarkets, council tax and more.

Have we forgotten that we all have one life and we should be making the world a better place to spend that life in? We do not live in a free market were contribution to capitalist profit is the priority.

You may think I’m being a bit bit dramatic about intimidation staff in Costa but I am tired of so many having to justify their existence and the impact that has. I’m tired of the inequality, exploitation and oppression it brings with it.

Today the government guidance on PSHE was finally released.

In 2016 I was successful in my campaign for compulsory PSHE in a cross party campaign run by the then Shadow Minister for Equality Sarah Champion.

My campaign was started for a girl. My sister Sasha Marden who was murdered and raped as she lay dying in 2013. She was 16 years old.

When that happened our family all reacted in different ways. For me it was wanting to find out why and how to stop it happening again in the future. That led me to gender stereotypes and PSHE as prevention.

Gender stereotypes are socially constructed ideas about what men and women should be. Not all boys like blue, not all girls like pink – it’s just an idea we have. The toys we give our boys and girls reflect these ideas, how we treat our children, how other people treat them too.

For boys and men gender stereotypes negatively impact their emotional regulation development leading to things such as high suicide rates and physical health problems. That in turn impacts their behavioural regulation development meaning boys and men are more likely to be criminalised.

For women girls it’s objectification. They are expected to be either a useful object or a sexual object. “Women’s work” contributes 160 billion a year to the UK economy and covid showed us our society depends on it – yet it is still purposefully dismissed and expected.

When it comes to sexual objectification, there’s a simple way to explain it. Google image search school boy and then Google image search school girl – there you have the clearest example. We call that the YES Matters sexual objectification task.

If women and increasingly girls are seen as objects and not subjects or people then that has a direct link to violence against them. Because it’s the first step in justification.

Throughout history before a group of people is treated badly they are first dehumanised. We already do that with women and girls.

The object is there to meet the needs of the subject. Objects are replaceable, purchasable, they are…disposable.

If you thrown a chair down the stairs. If you smash a lamp against a wall. If you set on fire a mattress – they’re just objects, they don’t matter because they are just objects. We see this reflected in violence against women and girls crimes. Despite them being serial and escalating offences they are condoned and enabled and rarely convicted…until there’s a body at the end.

And so that’s why I campaigned for compulsory PSHE and helped to shape the curriculum. Because pornography was being PSHE for young people. Because the majority of perpetrators of child sexual abuse and exploitation are family members and family friends. Because the most at risk age of domestic abuse is from 16 – 22. So home isn’t always a place to get messages about consent, healthy relationships and where gender stereotypes are often reinforced.

PSHE if done well can prevent domestic abuse, sexual violence, child sexual abuse and exploitation, body issues, mental health issues and more. Unfortunately it has not been done well. Teachers have not been given the training and have often been misguided. Especially when it comes to gender.

The harm of gender stereotypes is in the curriculum. If we tackle that then our children will have happier and healthier relationships with themselves and others. Unfortunately what has happened is gender stereotypes have infact been reinforced instead of critically analysed. They are doing the opposite of what the current PSHE curriculum tells them to do.

Teachers see the word gender and organisations such as Stonewall, The Proud Trust, Mermaids and others promoting gender identity have claimed they are covering that. Often saying that if boys like pink or princesses or dolls or are emotional that means they are infact girls. Instead of unpicking gender stereotypes they are claiming they define sex and in turn pushing them into a medical pathway we now know harms children. Especially children who later in life will be gay, lesbian or bisexual. The modern conversion therepy, which is why I find the constant push to compare this to section 28 or the gay rights movement by men like Owen Jones particularly abhorrent.

All violence against women and girls comes from gender stereotypes. It is the soil that misogyny grows in. It’s every word out of Andrew Tates mouth. Which wouldn’t be a problem if children had the critical analysis of gender stereotypes that they should have. His message would not be so effective.

The gov response states that staff will be explicitly told to avoid proactively teaching children about gender identity. If asked, they should teach “biological” facts about sex.

The guidance will also impose age limits on sex education for the first time, to address concerns that children are being exposed to sensitive material before they are ready. It will state that children should not be given any form of sex education in primary school until Year 5, when aged nine and over.

My response to the government’s guidance is that it took too long. That it was needed. The whole gender identity issue has been one that has seen those questioning it fired, threatened, abused and at times assaulted so it’s no wonder teachers – who are professionally bound to be politically neutral – needed it. They were at risk either way.

Many activists as teachers have pushed this agenda from my son’s school to the programme leader on my PGCE course at university. Media has covered this internationally. Anyone claiming children can consent should not be in the teaching profession. Intimidation, emotional manipulation and outright bullying have been allowed to flourish. As has the incel culture of Tate and misogyny in schools. It’s no coincidence it’s happened at the same time.

Teachers have been let down and need proper support and training to deliver this curriculum. Training on disclosure management, trauma informed practice and specific safeguarding for children realising in the classroom that what’s going on at home is not OK.

I wish this concern about what children were exposed to included pushing for pornography regulation and consequences of exposing children to sexualised materials in other areas of the media and advertising.

At the moment children and young people are facing far too much. SEND children and young people are being completely failed and discriminated against. Boys covered in the shame of a cost of living crisis in a society that demonises the poor are flocking to Incel influencers. The average age of exposure to increasingly violent pornography in the UK is currently 7 years old impacting the safety of girls. Our children and young people deserve better.

Many claim that PSHE is somehow robbing children of their childhood. Unfortunately a pornography drenched society has already done that. Not giving children and young people a safe space to learn about boundaries, consent and healthy relationships (not just romantic ones) keeps them vulnerable not innocent.

Children and young people deserve a better world than us grown ups have allowed. But they need the tools for the world we have not what we wish they were growing up in. We cannot leave it in the hands of parents alone – we tried that already. And home is not always an abuse free place.

We need PSHE and we need it done right. We need to give this generation of boys and girls the tools for good emotional and mental health. To know if something happens to them that it’s not their fault and there is help. To know that they should be treated with respect and feel safe in all the relationships they will have in their lives. That they can be parents, doctors, creative, kind and leaders no matter what sex they are. This is how we give our boys and girls alike the better world for their futures. And those after them.

So today is International Women’s Day. I usually spend the day telling angry men “it’s on November 19th” and trying to celebrate and acknowledge some of the great things women have done.

Women’s rights from the suffragettes to today have been labelled extreme, hateful, divisive and more. But without the fight for women’s rights we wouldn’t have: the computer, Apollo reaching the moon, paternity leave, WiFi, science fiction, GPS, the lake district, Star Trek, safety for domestic abuse victims, child rights and many more. There is a lot to celebrate and none of the rights women and girls have were given to us because they were the right thing to do. They were fought for by the very women we still demonise today.

However I didn’t see the rhetoric around women, their place or their contributions to society being challenged today. I didn’t see the unpaid labour of women being celebrated despite our very society depending on that labour. What I did see was tokenistic nonsense:

1. Companies offering any old rubbish and they sticking #InternationalWomensDay at the end of it. Car air fresheners, vegetables, kitchen cabinets, family walks and more on offer apparently in the name of International Women’s Day. If you are going to try to use International Women’s Day to gain points or make your company look good – try to have some vague relevance guys!

2. Being part of the problem. Reinforcing gender stereotypes and detrimental sexist expectations in the name of International Women’s Day. Come have a pamper day, get your nails done, get a conditioning treatment and full body wax, cleaning products and mops sets, the pink BDSM outfit (seriously) and most importantly everything must be VERY FUCKING PINK!!! Perpetuating our sexual objectification and exploitation that is linked to violence against us is not the way to celebrate us.

3. Inspire Inclusion… So why would I be annoyed with that theme added into International Women’s Day? Because yet again, when daring to talk about women it has to automatically become about generalised equality. It implies that women are not important enough to consider. For the same reason I wouldn’t demand a child cancer conference attendees consider what victims of acid attacks are going through. Both are important causes and both victims are important enough in their own right for their issue to be considered. I am so tired of the expectation that women should have to put the needs of others first – again reinforcing sexism. Women matter. Women matter enough to have a day about them and not to be made into or about other people and other causes.

4. Celebrating men on International Women’s Day!!! Give me a break! The bar for ‘good guy’ is already below sea level as it is. Men who aren’t rapists and murders of women practically expect cookies for it – although asking them to actively commit to addressing men’s violence against women is asking too much of them. But the amount of posts I have seen celebrating ‘male allies’ on International Women’s Day is crazy. Thanks to Mike for hiring 3 women in the office and providing opportunities for women to flourish. Thanks to Amar for pitching in by being part of the Equalities team at this council meeting #OneOfTheGoodOnes. Thank you so much to David who is in change of providing investment funding for businesses this year – almost 17% of them were founded by women…. No. It’s not about you. Your day is November 19th. Your mediocrity is celebrated enough. And like the dad’s who film themselves managing to brush their daughters hair on the internet, I’m not here to applauded that shit.

So I invite companies, organisations, banks, councils and public figures to drop to tokenistic, damaging and outright pretence to give a shit for next year. Do some research into the achievements of women in your field and highlight them. Inspire girls once a year by spot lighting amazing role models for them beyond looking pretty. Undo some of the preconceptions of men that women have not contributed to society or that women fighting for rights means bad things for them. Do better or at the very least stop using women. You do enough of that already the rest of the year.

Today the report into Sarah Everards murder came out and found that damning failures by police who missed his prolific sexual offending dating back almost 20 years.

The inquiry chair said: “Even after Couzens’ arrest and a review of his vetting clearance, the Met told the inquiry in 2022 that they would still have recruited him if provided with the same information. I found this astonishing.”

Here’s what happens now.

The police will get defensive and say not all police, most police are good. There will be claims of ‘lesson’s learned’. There will be meetings with people who genuinely care about VAWG prevention with those who should care about it. And there will be public statements about how what happened was terrible was and what an important issue this is. And then NOTHING will change.

When half of the world stood up and said #MeToo the other half stood up and said not all men. This tells us the response to male violence against women and girls will always be to prioritise men’s feelings over women’s lives.

It doesn’t matter there has been over a millennia of abuse and murder, don’t talk about it because you’re upsetting men.

Every time there’s a post about any form of VAWG the comment section is filled with what about male victims (because women and girls are not important enough) and that most men are good (something I’ve seen no evidence of). The issue isn’t that VAWG happens but that you’re daring to talk about it and who is doing it.

Men have been trying to control everything but their own behaviour since the dawn of time. That includes how we react to their treatment of us. They would rather silence victims by screaming not all men than to talk to the men giving them that reputation. They would rather control the narrative and women than to say to a fellow man ‘don’t be that guy’.

We see this starkly in this particular case. Couzens’s was in multiple police forces, not just one. He wasn’t challenged by any so called good guys. Not when he was reported over and over. Not in the WhatsApp groups. He gained the nickname ‘the rapist’ amongst the self proclaimed good apples…that did nothing. He was condoned and enabled by his fellow man. So much so even after his trial he was given good character references by his ex colleagues.

The priority is always to protect the guy.

Why does this happen? It’s down to gender stereotypes again. If women and girls are sexual objects they are not subjects. They are not people as men and boys are. Objects are replaceable, disposable and do not matter. They are there to meet the needs of the subject. So if a man (subject) wants to destroy and dispose of a woman (object) it doesn’t matter. We don’t care about the feelings, experiences, safety and well being of chairs, lamps, doors or women and girls.

So when male violence against women and girls happens the response is in line with that. The conviction rates. The finding into domestic abuse services. The response to stalking. Despite evidence telling us over and over again that violence against women and girls are serial and escalating offences. It’s never just once. They will do it again and it will be worse. The women nieve enough to report are failed and dismissed until the next victim and the next.

Councils will cut domestic abuse services, 98% of rapists won’t see a court room, abusers will be given contact in family courts, pornography companies will groom children without consequence and every year that list of names of the dead will be added to.

Because they don’t matter to the male dominated justice system in a patriarchal society.

And because they don’t matter nothing will change. Because we’re not seen as subjects, as people, equal to men. And so harm against us will always bring the response to condone and enable him, to silence us. To cry not all men.

Until women’s lives are the priority over men’s feelings, nothing will change.

This week I was featured in a Channel 4 news report on the Rochdale scandal investigation findings. I wasn’t involved in that particular case but it was relevant to my life in multiple ways.

Firstly as a survivor of CSEA and a working class girl I resonated with the attitudes around that case. Also because I decided to do my first university course in youth work precisely because it was the youth workers in Rotherham (not the police, teachers, social workers, local authorities or politicians) that helped the victims. It was their work that was effective and ongoing. It was the youth workers who were there for the girls like me.

The main reason I was interviewed was my own work in the area of MVAWG. To be asked if in my opinion things had changed and improved since this investigation had began. The police, local authorities and children’s services all claimed lesson’s have been learned and things had changed. Did I agree with them?

No. I do not.

Why? Because the simple fact is that if we were making progress and/or getting better at addressing MVAWG then it would be reflected in the numbers. Violence against women and girls are serial and escalating offences. The men who murder women always have a history of violence against women and girls in their history. But it was not taken seriously so enabling him to do it again and worse, and again and worse, and again until there’s some other man in power claiming lessons have been learned.

We will never make progress in stopping violence against women and girls until the priority is no longer men’s feelings over women’s lives.

Gemma Aitchison – 2023

The patterns of perpetrators are the same and yet the practice of professionals does not change, the justice system does not reflect this, victim blaming myths are still perpetuated by the media, victim services still don’t meet needs and the number of women killed by men is not reducing.

Infact now we have online to contend with too. With the average age of exposure to pornography in the UK currently being 7 years old and that pornography increasing in violence and social media reinforcing gender stereotypes at every turn – things are worse than ever for young people.

Add into the mix a cost of living crisis in a society that equates wealth with character, cuts to mental health and public services and Ofsted finding children don’t feel safe at school – we have a lot to answer for. Children and young people don’t ask to be here. We create a world and we bring them into it. If we haven’t made that world a safe one, the least we can do is listen when things go wrong.

Unfortunately I don’t think we are listening. I think we are playing the same record over and over again and nothing is changing for the better.