The recent murder of Ashling Murphy has catapulted the issue of femicide and male violence against women to the forefront of the political and social spectrum.
It is reminiscent of how Savita Halappanavar's death was a watershed moment that led to repeal of the 8th amendment, and Insider cannot help but feel a similar sense that Ashling’s murder has unleashed a potentially groundbreaking sentiment for change when it comes to the issues of sexism, misogyny, and femicide.
Insider should highlight from the beginning that he is writing this from a male perspective in an attempt to try to come to terms with what it is, on a social level, and within the predominantly male psyche, that perpetuates these kind of atrocities, so if at any stage it appears as if he is coming across as mansplaining, or that he considers himself as some kind of authority on the subject, that is not his intention.
Insider would hope this article acts to open some lines of debate and social discussion, and even introspection, and helps, in some small way, to perpetuate the kind of change that is needed on a societal level to ensure incidents such as this are eradicated into the future.
‘Not one more’
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There has been a lot of discussion by various figures across the political spectrum as to what sort of change is needed if we are really going to make inroads to stop incidents like this happening again, and to ensure the the slogan “not one more” is more than just a slogan that gets repeated every time another woman is killed at the hands of a man, which statistically is likely to happen at least eight more times this year in Ireland alone.
This is based on the fact that over the past 25 years, 244 women have been killed by male violence in Ireland, which on average means between nine and 10 women a year have been murdered at the hands of men.
Some of you reading this are instinctively saying that it is “not all men” who behave in this manner, so why is Insider bringing gender into the debate? Of course it is not all men, but it is disproportionately men who kill women, and not the other way around. If we are going to really address the root causes of this phenomenon then we do need to understand all of the key factors that perpetuate this cycle. It is only by doing this that we will truly be able to understand where this emanates from.
The problem with the law
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We have heard many politicians over the course of the past few weeks come out making statements in an attempt to try and address this matter, and we have heard many positive practical pledges aimed at trying to address some of the immediate shortfalls on behalf of the State, such as the chronic under funding to domestic violence refuges, rape crisis centres, mental health facilities, and so on.
Obviously it is a shame it takes something so horrific and tragic to happen before the political establishment will think about funding these vital services, and in reality it was more to do with the public reaction rather than the incident itself that has sprung the politicians into action, it remains to be seen if they follow through.
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While some of these pronouncements are welcome, ultimately these kinds of measures are aimed at addressing the symptoms of the problem rather than the cause. Similarly we have heard some of the more madcap suggestions, such as legalising mace, or stun-guns, or the usual right wing go to of more gardaí on the street.
It is worth highlighting that the death of Sarah Everard in London last March was at the hands of a police officer, and our own An Garda Siochana reportedly cancelled or ignored more than 3,000 domestic violence calls during the height of the pandemic. Ultimately the law and order approach is at best insufficient to fundamentally resolve this crisis, and at worst it is actually part of the problem.
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Repeatedly court rooms have been the staging post for some of the worst examples of victim blaming and injustice in terms of light sentences for rape and sexual assault convictions, which are themselves extremely low. Women have had their underwear held up in court and used as evidence of consent, while others regularly face character assassinations in an attempt to attribute blame on them for the actions of the rapist. Is it any wonder only about 14 per cent of rape cases actually get reported to gardai (according to the Dublin Rape Crisis centre )?
While yes, it would be better to see sentences for rape and sexual assault, etc, increased to fit the deplorable nature of the crimes, and while it is very positive to finally hear that some increased funding will go to domestic violence services, the real roots of the problem runs much deeper and is actually fused into the social, philosophical, political, and economic make up of class based capitalist society.
Equality
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If we are serious about the slogan that has rung out following Ashling Murphy’s murder of “not one more” than we need to address these underlying factors that feed into this behaviour. We need to understand the historic conditions that have led to inequality between the sexes and understand that despite some great advances made by feminists and the women's movements over the past century that there are still some way to go in achieving equality.
This may seem obvious to some, but anecdotally I have heard people argue that it is simply a matter of achieving equality in the eyes of the law or within business or State institutions, etc, and that this will somehow balance the equation. Unfortunately having more women CEOs or political leaders, while symbolic, actually does nothing to address the more deep rooted social divisions. Insider is not saying that more women in these arenas is not positive, of course it is, but it is not the fix all some seem to think it is.
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A big part of the problem is how we men perceive ourselves and how capitalist society, with its winner take all and only the strong survive mentality, helps to perpetuate this antiquated notion of the man as hunter or leader of the family, etc. There is a tendency to see this as somehow rooted in nature. However this general argument is simplistic and does not really hold water. Human beings have long since moved beyond being controlled by our base instincts. We have evolved to be able to impose reason on ourselves, and this was a very necessary and beneficial attribute given the social condition of our species.
Historically speaking, for the majority of human existence we lived in communal hunter gatherer societies were the hierarchy between men and women was much less pronounced, the role of women was actually much more highly valued due to the ability to reproduce, whereas in a contemporary setting this is viewed negatively by capitalism, it is even used as a reason to pay women less than their male counterparts, and where home making and child rearing is presented as a personal choice instead of a social necessity.
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Unfortunately Insider does not have the time or space to develop these points here, but raises them more so for the purpose highlighting the need to reassess the means by which we rationalise our current social conditions and our roles therein.
Tough questions
As Insider writes this article, the news has just broke that a footballer has been arrested for rape and assault on a young woman. Unfortunately incidents such as these are all too common, not just within a sporting context (though there seems to be a particular pattern there ), but across society as a whole. Domestic violence and sexual assault rose dramatically over the course of the pandemic/lock-downs and statistically speaking it is much more common for these acts to be carried out by people close to the overwhelmingly female victims.
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Insider has heard male friends of (spurred on by mainly right-wing conservative YouTube personalities ) downplaying the impact of things like locker room talk, wolf whistling, or the general objectification of women in a sexual context, as harmless banter, but in essence this ties very much into a general social attitude that excuses such behaviour and downplays the impact and significance that it has in perpetuating a negative cycle.
While obviously this does not constitute a breach of individual rights in the same way that violent action does, we would have to be completely ignorant not to see how this pattern of behaviour feeds into other more grievous behaviours on a societal level.
As men, we should ask ourselves where does the acceptance of this stem from? As a society we have a long way to go before we resolve these issues, but if we are serious then we need to look deeper and do more than just put in place supports for dealing with the aftermath.
