October 2023

 Hello and thank you all for coming to join us this evening.

 

I started writing this planning to talk about two events at different ends of a scale of misogyny outrages, but the more I thought about it the more I realised there wasn’t a linear scale, I think it’s a 3D jigsaw puzzle… I think…

 

Last Tuesday Laurence Fox appeared on the Dan Wootton show in GB News and said some stuff about Ava Evans – a political journalist – which got him and Dan Wooton suspended from GB News.

 

I can’t bring myself to watch the whole interview, but I understand he said she was ‘unshaggable’.

 

So, obviously, first up, Fox’s language and point was horrible and a misogynistic attack on Ms Evans. And irrelevant to the discussion taking place.

 

But ‘Yay!’ – GB News took action, which wasn’t inevitable given their style and track record.

 

But…

I was sad to read though to read some of Ava Evans comments afterwards – a female political journalist with an unexpected nationwide platform…

 

She said “It would have been horrible for a woman to hear she was being discussed in those terms in the pub. I’m not naive. I know that men talk like that about women. But this was on national TV. It was demeaning. It was dehumanising.”

Yes, it was all of that, and your point is a fair one – but please don’t be so accepting of the fact that ‘men talk like that about women’. Call them out. Tell them that it’s wrong anywhere – not just on the telly!!
So yay! He got suspended as well but big Boo! That he wanted to join the boys club where verbal violence against women is allowed and encouraged.

I’m worried that Laurence Fox has two young sons who I hope that have been brought up to respect and admire their Dad. I can only hope that their Mum has explained that sometimes they shouldn’t respect and admire everything he does and says. Please let’s stop creating another generation of men who don’t respect women.

 

And then another GB News presenter, Calvin Robinson, who presents a religious current affairs programme was also suspended after he expressed his support for Wootton.

And then on Thursday we heard the sad news about 15-year-old Elainne Andam being murdered on her way to school.

A 17-year-old boy has been charged with her murder. And despite her young age this is still a murder of a woman by a man. And it’s so much more as well.

It is understood the boy tried to give a bouquet of flowers to his former girlfriend and she rejected them and him. And he got uspset.

Elianne was said to have intervened, leading the boy to reportedly pull out the foot-long, serrated zombie knife before stabbing her in the neck and chest.

So why did this tragedy happen?

Why did this young man over-react so badly to rejection?

Where were his role models who should have been showing him a better way of behaving?

And – obviously – why was he carrying a foot-long knife out and about on a school bus?

 

17-years-old – not an adult himself.

Your default could be to just say Boo! Another toxic male who feels he has power and a right to make a woman behave the way he wants her to behave.

 

But I spoke about this with a young man on the White Ribbon walk on Saturday and while he didn’t make excuses for the guy, he did show me that there could be ways for his behaviour to have been tempered by a better set of circumstances and influences.

And maybe if all young men had a better understanding of how to treat women with respect and as equals, none of the following would have gone on to kill women.

 

So can we take a moment to remember the following, whose killings have been reported since we last met:

29 July 2023:

Amy Rose Wilson, 27, died in a car crash in Falkirk. Andrew Gregoire, 27 and Anthony Davidson, 30, have been charged with murder.

 

1 August 2023:

Liwam Bereket, 26, was found stabbed in woodland in Birmingham. Filmon Andmichaen, 30, has been charged with murder.

 

23 August 2023:

Claire Knights, 54, was last seen alive in Canterbury. She was found dead two days later. Harrison Lawrence-van Poss, 20, has been charged with murder.

 

He is also charged with voyeurism following a separate investigation on 22 August.

 

29 August 2023:

Chintzia McIntyre, 48, was found dead outside her home in Warrington. A 17 year-old boy has been charged with murder.

 

18 September 2023:

Sussanne Galvin, 55, was found unconscious at a home in Bury on 16 September. She died in hospital two days later. Stephen Ball, 31, has been charged with murder.

 

23 September 2023:

Carrie Slater, 37, died in hospital of a gunshot wound. She was found with life-threatening injuries at a property near Melton Mowbray, Leicestershire on 21 September 2023. Richard Basson, 44, has been charged with murder.

 

24 September 2023:

Helen Clarke, 77, died in hospital after emergency services were called to a car fire in Swansea on 22 September 23. Her husband, David Clarke, 80, has been charged with murder.

 

25 September 2023:

Ruth Hufton, 46, was found dead at her home in Beeston. Anthony Green, 50, has been charged with murder.

 

27 September 2023:

Elianne Andam, 15, was stabbed to death at a bus stop in Croydon. A 17-year-old boy has been charged with murder.

 

30 September 2023:

Charlene Mills, 43, died following an incident at a property in Gorton, Manchester. Peter Pitt, 52, has been charged with murder.

 

 

Thank you for your time this evening and I hope you will join us again on Monday November 6th.