It’s usually glib clickbait to say I was left speechless at the end of this, but I was, shocked and stunned at the catharsis and anger – yet justifiably and righteously so. Blurred Lines is horribly sexist and completely unredeemable. Combining it with Nirvana’s Rape Me in a call and answer mashup just brings out the creepy side even more.
This song by Amanda Palmer and Reb Fountain is sadly very apt given the last few days – with the Metropolitan Police specifically in my home of London. On Thursday we had copper Wayne Couzens sent down for a complete life sentence for the rape and murder of Sarah Everard and the same day as Kate Wilson won a case against the Met for looking the other way while Mark Kennedy, aka Mark Stone, an undercover cop to have an illegal sexual relationship with her for years.
Then we have the Met police taking selfies with the dead bodies of two women and sharing them over WhatsApp to others.. That’s the very sad case of Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry who were just spending their birthday party in the park and were stabbed by a deranged man, although the police didn’t bother to go look for them, that was left to family.
And then we have Patsy Stevenson who has just said that after being famously arrested at the Sarah Everard vigil in Clapham Common, she was approached by about 50 policemen on Tindr and has had online death, kidnap/rape threats.
(As an aside I didn’t realise til now that Patsy is one of the people singing on Loud Women’s excellent ‘Reclaim These Streets’ from May which I played on the podcast, This song was inspired by the deaths of Blessing Olusegun and Sarah Everard. Buy it, share, it, it’s a great track).
Then we have the murder of Sabina Nessa in Kidbrook, South London and suspect was arrested just over a week ago, and there have been a vigil in Eastbourne last night where the suspected killer is from. I’m glad they didn’t react like they did Clapham Common, but I bet those who attended were scared of that.
It never ends.
And it has to stop, now.
Women shouldn’t laughably ‘flag down buses’ if they don’t trust a police officer not to rape them, or double check their warrant card to stay alive – which wouldn’t have saved Sarah since he was a genuine police officer? I say use civil disobedience, and refuse to go with a lone police officer without backup. Scream kidnap and rape. Make sure they cannot take you without people noticing. Call 999,
I doubt given this case a judge would prosecute resisting arrest on safety grounds for a woman on their own. But if not, better to be alive and fighting in court than dead or raped. But the onus shouldn’t be on women, it should be on the men to be less rapey (or worse) surely?
And Cressida Dick has to go, and the Met has to change and stop rapists, abusers and killers in their midst. It is a massive systemic problem, as the last week has proven – not that I was surprised – and not ‘one bad apple’. As I’ve said many times, it’s a fucking forest.
But in the wider world, women should not be scared to walk down the street – whatever they are doing – things like ‘she was just walking home’ again blames the victim and puts responsibility on other women. No, all women should be safe, whatever they are doing and wherever they are going. And the police should be there to help not attack them in the street or at vigils? They serve us the people, not the state.
They police by consent. Shame a few of their officers didn’t learn the meaning of consent.
(First video via ToTom)
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