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How do we unpick the societal misogyny driving up femicide rates in Northern Ireland?
Violence against women and girls is a spectrum, spanning from catcalling to femicide. Northern Ireland is now one of the most dangerous places in Europe to be a woman — but why? And how do we go about fixing a societal misogyny problem? Aimée Walsh breaks it down.
Kat Parton. Patricia Aust. Sophie Watson. Montserrat Elias. Rachel Simpson. Mary Ward. Tavia Da Costa, who was just 23 months old. In separate incidents, these seven women and girls have been murdered in the north of Ireland this year alone. This is in addition to the recent spate of sexual violence on the streets of Derry, prompting activist group Derry For Choice to organise a rally for women’s safety in the city and across the island of Ireland.
It’s, sadly, no surprise that the north is now dubbed one of the most dangerous places in Europe to be a woman. A terrible accolade to hold. But how to solve a risk to life like misogyny? How to tackle a growing trend in a deep hatred for women?
The north of Ireland feels particular in its status as ‘post-conflict,’ but what does the end of political violence mean for the inhabitants? During the Troubles, Cathy Harkin, one of the founders of Derry Women’s Aid, described the north as the ‘armed patriarchy,’ a dreadful coming together of domestic and political violence. A United Nations report cites that gender-based violence spikes in post-conflict societies, due to, amongst other things, an availability of weapons.
After war, scars remain. The harms continue, morphed now into new forms of aggression, manifesting in an overwhelming rate of violence against women and girls (VAWG). Both with the aftermath of conflict and rising rates of VAWG, a disintegration of the social contract, that is to trust that others will not cause you harm, is hard to come back from.
The north does not exist in a vacuum. This is a global problem. While homicide cases have fallen globally, femicide has continued to rise across the world.
But how to combat the rising rates of femicide? How to fix a societal misogyny problem? Recent years have seen a stark, public rise of the far right across both the UK and Ireland, and the proliferation of misogynist influencers on social media, such as Andrew Tate. The ideologies which spring from both are to the detriment of equality for women. But misogyny exists in a matrix, with racism, homophobia, and transphobia. Where one is found there are usually other forms of hatred in co-existence.
In the context of the north, this hatred has moved from online sub-cultures to the far right marching in the streets in the wake of the Southport attacks. The north does not exist in a vacuum. This is a global problem. While homicide cases have fallen globally, femicide has continued to rise across the world.
These campaigns were never aimed at men: don’t murder a woman on the way home from the pub. Get home with hands unbloodied.
Violence against women and girls is a spectrum, spanning from catcalling to femicide. Women the world over are aware of these violences. I don’t remember ever being explicitly told as a young girl to be wary of men. It was absorbed as if by osmosis, through sitting at dinner tables with the news on. Another story of a woman murdered within her own home. Suspect known to the victim. Or the knowledge could have arrived at the numerous campaigns in bars, a poster of a woman stumbling home through the park. Get home safe, it warned, don’t take the short-cut home. These campaigns were never aimed at men: don’t murder a woman on the way home from the pub. Get home with hands unbloodied.
Instead, the focus fell on women. We’re told to ring the police, to carry a rape alarm, to not make a huge fuss when a man accosts you on a night out. He might ask you why you aren’t smiling. Why don’t you smile? You should smile. So, you smile. It might never happen. Just keep the appearance of being jovial until he walks away, if he walks away that is. Don’t bring any of this on yourself. Change your mannerisms, your behaviours. Remain vigilant. Always be aware of your surroundings, of who could, if they wanted to, hurt you, rape you, kill you.
To be a woman existing under a culture of misogyny is to remain watchful, hoping to get by unharmed.
If it’s dark out, pay for a taxi, but send your live location to your friends on the off chance. And if you’re strapped for cash, never walk home with both earbuds in, in case you’re crept up on. But what then when it’s somebody you know, a family member, a boyfriend, an ex, a friend. Women’s Aid’s Femicide Watch 2024 reported that in Ireland, 63% of femicide occurred within the woman’s own home. All these vigilances are the price paid for safety, but it comes to nothing if one man decides otherwise, where women pay with their lives. To be a woman existing under a culture of misogyny is to remain watchful, hoping to get by unharmed.
There is much work to be done, by educators and lawmakers, to tackle the tendrils of misogyny, to serve justice to the women and girls who lose their lives at the hands of, typically, men. To create a solution will require action from all sectors of society with the express aim of respect and equality for all.
Aimée Walsh is a writer from Belfast. She is the author of a novel, Exile, and Writing Resistance in Northern Ireland, an academic monograph.
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