The government has a duty to protect women, but they're only letting us down

This past week, the combination of Sarah Everard’s tragic death and the release of figures detailing the extreme levels of sexual harassment and assault, strikes up an urgently needed conversation about the traumatic experiences UK young women are dealing with.

The figures showed that 97% have been sexually harassed at some point in their lives. Yet when I read that, my immediate thought was ‘surely it must be higher?’ From being catcalled on the street, to being raped, every girl I know has a story. 

For many years, I've just accepted it as 'part of being a woman'. It starts with a twisted sexual awakening at around the age of 12, when a group of builders whistles at you whilst you're walking past. You turn around, hoping to see an adult woman behind you because surely it's someone else that they were catcalling? But no, you realise that despite being dressed in your long, pleated school skirt with a backpack practically the size of your small pubescent body, it was in fact you that they were aiming at. From there on out, it continues. A man trying to touch your thigh whilst on a bus going to school, teenage boys groping you whilst you're walking down the street, to eventually going to the club for the first time where you begin to realize that groping is inevitable. Over the years, as you become a teenager and a woman, you get used to it. You no longer go frantically to your friends "Oh my god, guess what just happened to me!", because now it's normal. It's expected.

The statistics speak for themselves; according to Plan International UK, more than 1 in 3 girls have been harassed or assaulted in public whilst wearing their school uniform, and 1 in 8 have said that they experienced unwanted sexual contact or harassment before the age of 12. 

This week, women have been speaking out about their experiences on social media and have consequently triggered an open conversation about the regular traumatic incidents women go through. The Instagram account 'everyone's invited' went viral this week after they began posting anonymous testimonies from victims of sexual harassment and assault, many taking place in schools and universities.

So, if it's such a big problem why don't we women report it? The honest answer is that it's happened so much over our lives, that if the harassment was formally illegal in the UK, we'd be each going into a police station with a page-long list of attacks that have occurred over our lifetimes. It becomes a question of where do we draw the line and report it? Is a man grabbing us in the club and trying to stick his fingers down our trousers not bad enough? It seems like it needs to be something as clear-cut as being kidnapped and raped in a dark alleyway at 2am, for it to be taken seriously.  

The option to anonymously submit your testimony to an Instagram account is simply not enough. We need support and reassurance that we can speak out publicly, showing our faces and that we won’t be humiliated and shut down for it. The government and police forces have the responsibility to stand up for us and need to take action in making our streets a safer place.

The French did exactly that. New legislation that came into effect in the summer of 2018, ruled that any sexist behaviour (includes catcalling, unwanted sexual attention, and degrading comments) could result in a fine of up to €750. As a result, nearly 450 fines were issued in the first year.

Law gives women that assurance that they will be taken seriously, that they are protected. And in turn, men will be discouraged from harassing a woman in the first place. 

However, will the UK government and police ever decide to start prioritising and protecting women? The disappointing reality is that the chair of the national police chief's council and senior police chief, Sara Thornton, said that the police should not have to log misogyny complaints and that it should not be a criminal offence to harass a woman. Instead, she wishes to focus on "core policing". I think all women would agree with me in saying that harassment is an issue that without a doubt needs to be met with "core policing".

Sara Thornton’s prevalent internalised misogyny is most likely a result of years of watching women be neglected and challenged, and their experiences being trivialised. Our patriarchal society has had such an effect on her, that despite being one of us, she too has decided to turn a blind eye to the trauma that women are facing in the UK today.

It is this exact attitude that allowed Sarah Everard's killer, Wayne Couzens, to get away with two counts of indecent exposure at McDonald's on February 28th. It raises the question of if the police had acted appropriately at the time and arrested Couzens, would Sarah still be alive today?