How wrong for Sarah’s death to be hijacked by men-haters
APPARENTLY there’s another 30 minutes of unseen footage from the Oprah interview. Must be the bit where she asks Meghan about the bullying allegations and why she wore those tainted Saudi diamonds. maybe not. Or
AS THE mother myself of a beautiful, vibrant young girl on the cusp of womanhood, Sarah Everard’s abduction and killing cuts me to the quick. I look at photos of her big, clear eyes, see that hopeful, happy smile, and my heart breaks.
On this, Mothering Sunday, Sarah is all our daughters, and her family’s loss an agony we all share.
The fact that the person charged with her murder is a Metropolitan Police officer makes it so much more shocking. If it transpires that the people responsible for protecting the public can’t be trusted, then who can?
Understandable, then, that so many have wanted to come together, like the Duchess of Cambridge, to share their distress and remember Sarah. Also to share their own stories of late-night fear on the streets. All perfectly normal responses to a horrible tragedy.
BUT one thing I do object to – indeed, I find distasteful and disrespectful – is why some have sought to turn the tragedy to their political advantage. For them, it is part of a culture war against so-called ‘toxic masculinity’ and men in general.
Typical was Green Party peer Baroness Jones who suggested that the best way to prevent violence against women is for a 6pm curfew for men. She subsequently claimed she hadn’t been serious – but was highlighting the danger of ‘victimblaming’. But that was too late.
Not only is Parliament, where she made the comment, not a place for such loose words but in an age of social media, many are apt to jump on such a bandwagon.
Soon after, the hashtag ‘curfewformen’ began trending on Twitter, with various rival factions trading insults in the usual unedifying way. All the while 33-year-old Sarah’s body was lying undiscovered in woodland in Kent. Then, last night, there was something very wrong about male police officers manhandling distressed women at Sarah’s vigil. It can’t be the best look for the Metropolitan Police right now.
But the fact is her killing and her family’s deep personal tragedy have been turned into a public slanging match.
There is no doubt in my mind that our streets are not as safe as they should be for women
– of all ages.
Even I have felt this. Once, quite recently, a man accosted me as I was walking my dogs late at night with a variety of unseemly suggestions. As a young woman in my 20s, I was attacked at knifepoint in Herne Hill, South London. Thankfully a neighbour (a man, as it happens) intervened. On a separate occasion, a man broke into my bedroom and stood at the end of the bed. Once again, I was very lucky: my flatmate chose that exact moment to come home and the intruder bolted out the front door. My daughter tells me that not a day goes by that someone doesn’t harass her on the London Tube or on the way home from school. Every time she leaves the house,
I worry for her safety. But the notion that any one man’s despicable actions should in some way define the entire male sex is patently absurd.
It’s the same as suggesting that just because a tiny minority of Islamists hold extremist views, then all Muslims are capable of committing acts of terror.
To hold such beliefs is the height of prejudice, and calculated to incite hatred against innocent people – in this case the millions of good, kind men who would never even contemplate doing anything violent to a woman.
The truth is, the only person who matters here is Sarah Everard. A young woman who, one night, met a dreadful evil on her way home.
A woman whose life was about so much more than her death. And who deserves better than to have her memory hijacked in such a callous and opportunistic way.
LAST week I wrote about why I thought nurses deserved more than a one per cent pay rise; this week I see some GPs are earning £700,000 a year. Whatever else this pandemic has taught us about the NHS, it’s that – as an organisation – it clearly requires urgent reform.
HILLARY Clinton has a brass neck lecturing the Royal Family about ‘cruelty’. This is the woman who turned a blind eye (and that’s putting it kindly) to the character assassination of Monica Lewinsky, above. If anyone knows anything about the lengths some people will go to protect their power, it’s her.
SARAH HARDING, ex-singer with Girls Aloud, says she doesn’t expect to live to see Christmas after she put off getting her breast cancer symptoms checked because of Covid. She’s 39, beautiful and a talented young woman. An absolute tragedy.