The horror and the fury

Male violence and female rage

Last night, just before I went to bed, I saw the news about the children who were attacked at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport. Three little girls have died, while five more children and two adults remain in critical condition in hospital. Reading accounts of mothers screaming and running out of the hall with their injured children in their arms made my heart physically ache, and tears pour down my face. Even today, every time I read about it I feel sick.

Photo by Eli Solitas on Unsplash

As every parent does when a child dies, especially in such a horrific way, it made the unthinkable cross my mind: what if that happened to my child? What if the parent who has just had their entire life ripped apart was me? The sympathy I feel for them is almost overwhelming in its sorrow, tinged with relief that my children are safe and well, and then guilt for thinking of my own loved ones above theirs, though I know it’s human nature. When something so horrific and unexpected happens, especially to innocent children, it dredges up our deepest, most primal fears. It’s not surprising that we automatically reach for comfort, holding tight to what is ours and sending thanks skyward.

After I’d processed the horror of the situation, my emotions quickly turned to fury. Fury that, once again, girls and women are amongst those paying the highest price for male violence, while the authorities stand around and do nothing but shrug, talking about mental illness and ‘bad apples’ and other such bullshit excuses for the epidemic that is occurring on their watch, often at their own hands too. With misogyny still not a hate crime, and with victims of sexual assault and domestic violence still being asked what they did to ‘provoke’ the violent men who harm them, there is no sign that anything is going to change anytime soon. As ever, the patriarchy gets its way and marches on.

As a woman, and particularly for women of colour I imagine, it’s easy to feel hopeless that things will ever change, or change significantly enough to actually bring about a reduction in harm. So far it seems like there has been a lot of surface-level talk about the issues surrounding male violence, but very little about all the insidious ways it is created and allowed to thrive. Even less than that is any meaningful action to address it.

So I’m going to do the only thing I know how to raise awareness about these issues and process my feelings around them - I’m going to write about it. New series of posts coming soon, tentatively titled ‘Altercations With Men in Public’, in which I will explore my baptism by fire into feminism, via confrontations with aggressive and sometimes violent misogynists, from my early 20s to present day.

Until then, keep roaring.