TW: this article discusses gender-based violence and sexual assault

The tweet by Davina McCall following news of Sarah Everard’s tragic disappearance and murder caused uproar across social media – and rightly so. The TV presenter has described comments about her tweet, quoted below, as being “terrifying” misinterpretations but perhaps it is Davina who needs to reassess her terrifying misinterpretation of the violence against women and girls that occurs on a daily basis. 

Whilst a flattering writer may suggest that by digging deep, we can vaguely glimpse the point she was trying to make, surely Davina can understand how damaging this is when taken at face value? 

Branded “insensitive” and “victim-shaming”, Davina vehemently disregards the mass consensus in a follow-up comment.

However, the issue that our once-loved, tone-deaf Davina fails to comprehend is context: the timing of her initial tweet, as well-meaning as it may have been, was frighteningly off. It landed amidst a week of tragedy where women from across the country were trying to summon attention and action to an issue that has been so enthusiastically ignored for far too long. A call to action requires a clear message, unwavering in its strength and uniform in its direction, yet Davina appeared to be trying to dilute this single-handedly. Her initial tweet received just over 100,000 likes and with her follower count at 2.7 million, her posts are hardly insignificant. 

Let’s dissect her first tweet…

Firstly, her initial claim that “female abduction/murder is extremely rare” is problematic. Does Davina define “rare” differently from the rest of the English-speaking world?

A BBC report published in February 2020 found that “the number of female homicide victims in England and Wales has risen to the highest level since 2006”, with almost half of female murder victims due to “domestic homicide” and the suspect “a partner or ex-partner in 38% of cases”. In 2017, 87,000 women and girls were murdered globally, with this equating to 137 being killed intentionally by a partner or family member every day.

These figures don’t take into account all those women trapped by domestic violence, rape victims, or children experiencing sexual violence. And even then, those figures wouldn’t take into account all the survivors of sexual assault, harassment, stalking, or revenge porn. To trivialise gender-based violence by referring to murder statistics alone, as worryingly high as they are even in isolation, is both dense and degrading.

“we should all be vigilant when out alone”

Secondly, “we should all be vigilant when out alone” hints at fault being with the woman if she falls victim to violence; a lapse of “vigilance” on her part, maybe? Is this the answer to sexual assault then: female attentiveness?

The issue with a statement like this is it’s transferring the blame from attacker to victim, something that both men and women generally default to already. It’s not uncommon to hear comments like “she was so drunk” or “she was getting with everyone” or “she was dressed like a slut” as a means by which men, and even women, justify predatory actions. To bolster this point is to pull any glimmer of progression backwards: no one deserves to be a victim of gender-based violence, no matter their sobriety status, dress sense or behaviour – and this rule comes without exception. 

“men’s mental health is an issue as well”

Thirdly, “men’s mental health is an issue as well”: who suggested it wasn’t?

Women’s safety and men’s mental health are not mutually exclusive concepts. However, on throwing the conversation back to context, let’s remember that we aren’t discussing men’s mental health for the minute because a young woman has just been kidnapped and murdered when walking home. Hundreds of thousands of tweets, comments, stories, and posts emphasise that this is not for the first time and, unfortunately, won’t be the last. This is why societal attitudes ingrained throughout different generations and genders need to change: it is a matter of life and death. 

“it is a matter of life and death”

The “death” I refer to isn’t necessarily literal: being a victim of gender-based violence creates wounds that not even time will heal. A fragment of yourself, previously untouched and unharmed, dies each time, and once blissful ignorance and innocence become tarnished by those minutes, months, even years of trauma, there is no coming back. An invisible scar is carried by all those affected through the rest of their lives, 97% of 18-24-year-olds to be exact, yet for the most part, attackers walk free, oblivious to the extent of the emotional carnage they’ve caused, and potentially to attack another again. 

And sexual harassment, abuse or rape is an attack. It’s an attack on your personal space, your freedom, your dignity, and your body. Sexual assault cannot be continued to be undermined by victim-sceptics, or the “not all men” stance, both acting to undercut the horrific and heartbreaking stories being divulged by survivors. These kinds of tweets, as “rational” as they may be intended to be by their authors, only serve to uphold the system in which we live. 

Davina’s tweet functions to actively push against the strengthening voices of women who have been previously silenced by fear and guilt and shame; women who are only just beginning to be listened to. She may have thought she was acting to provide calm to a storm, but instead, Davina is only rocking the boat further and in doing so, throwing her fellow women over the side instead.

Lucy Dunn

@loociedee

Featured image courtesy of Joshua Hoehne via Unsplash. Image license can be found here. This image has in no way been altered.

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