Talking About We need to protect #allwomen

Sarah Everard’s killing sparked a war of the hashtags, but 80% of women experience sexual harassment. Is it time ALL MEN began listening?

The death of Sarah Everard shone a spotlight on the real danger of male violence that women face every day. Sarah, 33, a marketing executive, went missing on 3 March, around 9.30pm, walking home from a friend’s. Her body was found in Kent woodland a week later, a Metropolitan police officer charged with murder. As devastating details of Sarah’s case began to emerge, women shared their own stories of intimidation and assault, understanding each other’s fear. Claire Barnett, Executive Director of UN Women UK, called it ‘a human rights crisis’. What was clear was that almost every woman had a story of being scared by the actions of a man. Calls for change were directed at men, and with statistics showing that one in 12 women killed by men in the UK are killed by a stranger, the overriding plea was ‘help us feel safe’. Yet the conversation was soon changed with the emergence of the hashtag #Notallmen. Davina Mccall Tweeted that female abduction and murder was ‘extremely rare’, calling the reaction to Sarah’s death ‘fear-mongering’. A war of hashtags erupted, with #Notallmen countered with #Allwomen – a reference to the number of women who’ve experienced sexual harassment in public.

The message that women were trying to send by sharing their deeply personal experiences was never to accuse ‘all men’. Instead, it was to highlight just how many women were affected and to start important conversations about how things can be different. The irony is men are the ones with the power to change this. Without all men becoming our allies, how will things ever change? Woman investigates.

‘MEN HOLD THE POWER FOR CHANGE’