Having worked with survivors of domestic abuse for many years, I am still shocked at the way in which society continues to blame women for the violence and abuse they suffer at the hands of men. This tendency to minimise or justify male violence by attempting to place the blame on the victim is particularly…
Category: VAWG
An Open Letter to My Father
You don’t know this but I still have nightmares about you. Whisked back unwillingly to a time when I was small and you were big and strong and powerful. I wake up bathed in a cold sweat, relieved at finding myself in my own bed in my own house. The man who changed everything lying by…
Living with the fear
A couple of weeks ago I went running with a male friend of mine. We ran through my local park that features regularly in my running life, but this time it was different. It was dark. I’m no stranger to running at night but I tend to stick to well lit roads and my winter routes…
The right to say no – a short story about consent.
There’s been a lot of talk about consent lately. If anything positive comes out of the Ched Evans case, then it’s a greater awareness of the law around sexual assault, in particular, the seemingly revolutionary idea that if someone is too drunk to consent then it’s rape. I must confess that this case has increased…
The Ghost of Christmas Past: Spare a Thought for Survivors Everywhere
I have been thinking about writing a Christmas blog post for a while – something festive and lighthearted to warm your cockles. The problem is that Christmas is a complicated time for families scarred by domestic abuse and it is inevitably difficult to navigate. My parents split up 10 years ago so I no longer…
The Problem with Porn
I sometimes struggle remembering what I did yesterday but the details of the first porn film I ever watched have stayed with me. I knew my brother had somehow managed to procure a dirty video and I also knew that if I was careful I could watch it quietly in the living room when nobody…
Another day, another rape apologist
It’s been a good month for feminism – rapey ‘comedian’ Dapper Laughs imploded under the weight of his own misogyny, notorious pick up artist Julien Blanc has been refused entry to the UK, and now Sheffield United have finally come to their senses and sent Ched Evans off to enjoy the rest of his sentence. It…
Daddy’s girl
I was about 10 when I first realised that the beatings weren’t reserved for me and my two siblings. The knowledge that my Dad hit my Mum too was like walking through a portal into an alien landscape and the world was never the same again. Everyone I knew got hit by their parents occasionally,…
Is Sex Work?
Last year a friend of mine suggested that prostitution was analogous to the domestic service industry, arguing that poor pay and conditions and trafficking can be an issue in both sectors and as such, feminists should be campaigning to decriminalise prostitution and improve conditions for sex workers. I had recently attended the first Women’s Conference…
Woman As Subject 