Are we at breaking point when it comes to tackling misogyny?
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By Rebecca McQuillan
Every so often, I find myself comparing notes with other women about sexual abuse. I often wonder how many have experienced it.
Among those I’ve spoken to, the tally is 100 per cent.
The abuse they describe ranges from unpleasant comments, up to and including rape; usually, people relate multiple incidents. Crude comments, groping, men exposing themselves, men threatening them, being followed in the street: these things are, or have been, part of the tableau of their lives.
The implicit threat of abuse or violence creates cordons round women’s lives. It’s second nature to women to be vigilant. Out for a walk up a hill with my husband at night recently, we were struck by the number of men we passed, the dark evenings no impediment to them getting some exercise.
We passed no women. No evening run for them. Perhaps it seems obvious to point this out, but it’s the very ordinariness of women’s fear that is so shocking.
Attitudes were more openly sexist in the 1990s ...
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