Globally, one in three women have experienced some sort of harassment, whether it be from an intimate partner or otherwise. These statistics begin from ages as low as 11 and extend to women who are well in their 60s.
Being members of a patriarchal society, violence against women is not a new concept to many of us. In relationships, we are told that ‘he’s just angry, he loves you really,’ and in the outside world we are asked ‘what were you wearing?’ or ‘why didn’t you just say yes?’ Repeatedly women are shown that they have no autonomy over their choices and their bodies; and to survive in the world, they need to succumb to the irrational desires and actions of their male counterparts.
You would think – it is 2023, surely women can say no without fear of being attacked, right? The feminist movement has been about for decades, and women are taking up more space than they have ever been able to. However, society has consistently shown us that we have a long way to go before the scales are even slightly balanced.
The rise in incel culture and the manosphere – a collection of sites, blogs, and forums like 4chan and Reddit that actively advocate for and promote misogyny and traditional masculinity while actively opposing feminism – has seen the prominence of personalities like Andrew Tate, Kevin Samuels and Sneako. They all recite the same harmful misogynistic rhetoric and their followers mainly consist of teenage boys.
Many groups reduce violence against women and femicide as issues reserved for less developed countries, where tradition and culture are at the forefront of the way they maneuver in life, and assume that in the West we have progressed past such heinous behaviors. But this could not be more wrong.
In early September, Roda Osman, Somali-American Ph.D. student and single mother was attacked with a brick on a night-out after rejecting the advances of a man. This attack sparked a lot of discourse on Twitter, as one of Osman’s points was that there were men standing by and doing nothing while this happened. People took to her social media and found videos of her proclaiming her feminism and the fact that she is an ‘independent woman’ to justify men not coming to her rescue and watching idly while she was assaulted. The fact that people can openly create reasoning as to why it is okay for anyone – let alone men – to be casual witnesses to harassment and assault, because she believes in the uplifting of women shows the abhorrent world that we are a part of today. Women are forced into submission and silence if they would like to be protected in public. No action comes without conditions, and if you do not yield, then whatever happens to you is simply free game.
Across the pond in London, only a month later, 15-year-old Elianne Andam was fatally stabbed on her way to school after defending her friend from an ex-boyfriend who was trying to win her back. The murderer, a 17-year-old who is unable to be named under UK law due to being underage, plunged the blade into Andam’s neck on the bus at 8:30 a.m. after she prevented him from giving a bouquet of flowers to his uninterested ex-girlfriend. London has a knife-crime issue, but this incident is categorized as femicide – the intentional killing of women – because he had intentions of harming his girlfriend if she rejected him. Elianne just happened to be collateral damage. With men like Andrew Tate making outrageous statements like “It’s bang out the machete, boom in her face and grip her by the neck. Shut up bitch,” when explaining what he would do if he caught his partner cheating, there is often a direct correlation between the comments of these men and the actions of young impressionable boys.
This can also be seen with internet personality Sneako, who also went viral in September at an event where his young fans were filmed making derogatory comments towards women and queer people, with the clear intentions of getting the approval of the person they learnt this manner of speaking from. Comments from children not older than 13 exclaiming “f*ck the women, f*ck the women’, and “all gays should d*e”, and additional transphobic comments just show that internet personalities have more influence over young children than their own parents. Sneako himself looks bewildered at the words of his young fans, exclaiming “What?? No, no, no, wait, wait, we love women, we love women!” His shock at this just shows that these personalities do not realize just how much these young children absorb their diction, and how they relay this in their real lives with the treatment of marginalized groups.
It is sad we must assimilate to survive, but there is a google app – ‘Burner: Second Phone Number’, that generates a number that is connected to your phone that you can give to men, whilst retaining your private number. Not an ideal situation, but just one option available that can keep us a little bit safer on the streets.