Not an isolated incident
Another week of girls and women being murdered, and the authorities and media are still calling these crimes isolated incidents
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Content warnings: murder, rape and violence
I recently wrote about a growing epidemic of femicide across the Arab world, but the truth is the murder of girls and women is not just an epidemic, it is a worldwide pandemic. In England and Scotland, this past week has been a horrific tidal wave of news of girls and women who have been tortured and killed.
First there was the conviction of Andrew Innes in Scotland, who lured mother and toddler, Bennylyn and Jellica Burke, to Dundee before murdering them and burying their bodies in his kitchen floor. A former Metropolitan police officer, David Carrick, was then sentenced to life in prison for the repeated rape, violence and false imprisonment of a number of women over a period of 17 years. Then the husband of Epsom College headteacher Emma Pattinson, George Pattinson, shot her and their seven-year-old daughter Lettie dead last week before turning the rifle on himself.
What has been particularly disturbing is how the police described George Pattinson’s crime as “an isolated incident,” and how tabloid newspapers (i.e. the Daily Mail) have framed him as a man we should feel sorry for, referring to him as a man who “was desperate to do something more with his days” and who had a failing wine business, as if these are excuses which justify choosing to end the lives of his wife and daughter. Their worst headline yet was, “Did living in the shadow of his high achieving wife lead to unthinkable tragedy?”
What these headlines imply is that when a man’s ego is fractured by his female partner that this leads to them committing murder. And indeed in the patriarchal F-ed up world that we live in, we know that rejection and a fractured ego do lead to men killing women, but it is not and never will be a justification for it, nor a tragedy on the man’s part. There is an element of victim blaming (as usual) in such headlines - she was high achieving and bruised her husband’s ego and ability to perform the patriarchal notion of husband and provider, that’s why he snapped and killed her. As a society when a man - especially a cis white heterosexual man - kills, we blame their psychological state, but we don’t do the same for women nor for men from other ethnicities.
The murder of girls and women are not isolated incidents, not when women are killed in their homes twice a week. We are only in early February and already 8 girls and women have been killed by men in the UK, and the total number was 108 over 2022. According to this Guardian piece, 98% of serious sexual assaults and 94 % of murders are committed by men.
In this op-ed in The Herald, Catriona Stewart argues that we cannot define a person by their crime. She argues against the use of hyperbolic language such as calling men who murder “monsters,” and says this adds to the notion that femicide and violence against women are anomalies when in fact they’re society-wide issues.
I can see what she is getting at - when we call a man a “monster” it is as if we are saying he cannot possibly be a human to have committed such a heinous act. But, as Stewart says in her piece, the horrible truth is that many of these male murderers and perpetrators of violence are ordinary humans living ordinary human lives. Again, these are not isolated incidents.
Columnist Amanda Platell in the Daily Mail criticised Cheryl Giovannoni, Emma Pattinson’s former colleague, friend and chief executive of a leading group of girls’ schools, for telling the BBC, “It doesn’t matter how successful or accomplished or brilliant you are, you are only as safe as your male partner allows you to be.” Platell argued that it tells girls that they have no power or agency over their relationships, and that girls should be credited with “having enough intelligence to choose partners wisely and take responsibility for their own safety.”
I disagree. The overwhelming number of cases of domestic violence and femicide worldwide suggests otherwise. In addition, any woman can find themselves a victim of domestic violence. It’s not as simple as being “smart enough” or “strong enough” to leave an abusive partner. And how many of us have chosen a lover or partner, lured in by their charm, generosity and niceness, only to find, once we move in with them, that they are a completely different person? An abusive, violent or controlling and coercive person?
This calls into question who we consider a victim.
For the 6% or so of murders in the UK that are committed by women, a large proportion of them are women who kill their male abusers or kill male partners out of self defence. Countless articles and reports prove that these women are given harsher and longer prison sentences. In America, women who are charged with killing their partners in self-defence serve on average 15 years in prison, while men serve only 2-6 years for the same crime.
Image from Netflix
I recently watched Killer Sally on Netflix. The three-part true crime documentary looked at the case of American female bodybuilder Sally McNeil, who fatally shot her bodybuilding husband Ray McNeil in self-defence in 1995. She was sentenced to 19 years in prison. The jury failed to see her as a “battered woman” purely because of the fact that she was a bodybuilder and had been making videos of herself wrestling men, despite the fact that her husband Ray was physically bigger and stronger than her, and had a history of beating and choking her.
The jury decided that she could not be a victim of domestic violence because she was physically strong. It brought into question the idea of a “perfect victim,” again dispelling the myth that as a woman you are not at threat of being subjected to domestic violence if you are smart, successful, wealthy or physically strong. The truth is any woman can be a victim of domestic violence, and hence columnist Amanda Platell’s theory that if you are intelligent or wise enough you won’t choose or stay with a violent partner is sadly just theory.
As I reflect on this past week’s news, I ask myself again, just as I did in a previous edition of ‘Eyb, as girls and women, are our lives worth nothing?
Keeping a close eye on developments in the aftermath of the devastating earthquakes in Turkey and North Syria, those on the ground in Turkey are saying they have had an overwhelming amount of clothing donations and they are now in need of other types of aid such as medical and sanitary supplies. Also, there’s the fact that because of sanctions, getting aid to North Syria is logistically very difficult. The USA has said it is easing its sanctions for 180 days to aid the earthquake relief effort, but Assad’s regime is still handling all shipments and vans that are passing through.
If you would like to help, donating online to trustworthy charities is a great way to help those affected.
Islamic Relief: https://www.islamic-relief.org.uk/giving/appeals/turkiye-syria-earthquake-appeal/
Turkish Red Crescent: https://www.kizilay.org.tr/Bagis/BagisYap/404/pazarcik-depremi-bagisi
Human Relief: https://www.hrf.org.uk/emergency-appeals/turkey-earthquake/
Save the Children: https://www.savethechildren.org.uk/how-you-can-help/emergencies/turkey-syria-earthquake
The Zahra Trust: https://zahratrust.com/united-in-humanity/
Penny Appeal: https://pennyappeal.org/appeal/turkey-and-syria-earthquake-emergency
ilmfeed: https://www.launchgood.com/earthquake2023
Humanitarian Relief Foundation (IHH): https://ihh.org.tr/en/stand-with-turkey
Finally, if you enjoy my work and want to support me, consider buying a copy of my semi-autobiographical novel, Hijab and Red Lipstick, published by Hashtag Press.
Longlisted for The Diverse Book Awards 2021, Hijab and Red Lipstick is a rare insight into what life is like as a young Arab woman growing up in the Arab Gulf. Find it on Amazon, Waterstones, Blackwells, and worldwide on the Book Depository.