Sarah Everard’s case and women’s body control – Arwa Mahdawi

Should men be allowed to go out after six in the afternoon? Probably not, said a British Green party MP. Introducing a curfew for men “women would be much safer,” Jenny Jones told the British House of Lords on March 10, following the murder of Sarah Everard, the 33-year-old woman who disappeared on the evening of March 3 in London. while walking home and whose body was found on 12 March. A policeman was arrested for the murder.

As you can imagine, many men (and a number of women) have had a nervous breakdown at the very thought. Former right-wing politician Nigel Farage tweeted that Jones’s proposal was an example of a “crazy” left. Mark Drakeford, the Welsh Prime Minister, called the idea “a sad distraction, while what is needed is a serious discussion on the safety of women and why every three days in the UK a woman is killed by a man”.

Guys, please calm down – there’s no need to get hysterical. Nobody really thinks that imposing a curfew on men is a good idea. If only because at least one in three women in the country suffers domestic abuse in her lifetime, and her partner is more likely to kill a woman than a stranger. Therefore, keeping men at home after six does not make women safer. What Jones was doing was pointing the finger at yet another example of two weights and two measures: as he later made clear (and sadly he had to), his was not a political proposition. It was a response to the fact that, after Everard’s disappearance, London police warned women that it was best to “not go out alone”, a warning that no one “batted an eye” at.

We are used to the fact that women’s freedoms and bodies are subject to debate. We are used to being told that we need to change our behavior in response to male violence. Women don’t have to abide by a formal curfew, but the disgusting victim blaming that took place in Sarah Everard’s case is enough to understand that, at least informally, that’s the way it is. Why was Everard still around at 9.30pm? Why did he go on foot instead of taking a taxi? What did she think was going to happen to her?

The freedom of movement of us women when it gets dark may not be limited by law, but we often don’t have the freedom to relax completely. We adapt our behavior automatically: we hold the keys in our hands, we are always on the alert, we spend money on a taxi because we are afraid to walk back. Street harassment is so common that we often dismiss it as “nonsense” ourselves. Also because we can’t do much about it. As two Guardian readers wrote, “in the UK you can be fined for throwing paper on the ground, but not for molesting a girl or woman in public”.

Hypothetical limitations
Women’s bodies are seen as a public thing, which is not the case for men’s bodies. Women’s rights are a matter of debate, men’s rights are not. Arkansas banned virtually every possibility of abortion in the United States this week, with no exceptions for cases of rape or incest. Probably many people in favor of the government being able to force a woman to carry her rapist’s child within her for nine months would oppose the idea of ​​forcing a man not to go out at night.

Formal and informal control of female bodies is accepted to the point that, as Jones pointed out, we often do not “blink”. Unless those limitations apply to men. Jones is not the first MP to point this out: in 2018 in the United States a representative from Georgia responded to the umpteenth limitation of abortion rights by promoting a “charter of the rights of the testicles” which proposed, among other things, that men asked their partners for permission before taking erectile dysfunction medications. In 2012, also in the United States, the lawmakers of six states had presented bills to regulate the activities of men related to reproduction. For example, “any action in which a man ejaculates or otherwise deposits semen anywhere other than a woman’s vagina should be interpreted and defined as an action against an unborn child.”

I don’t think the idea of ​​a male curfew is a “distraction”. I rather think that men who feel so offended should stop and think about how offensive the policies of controlling women’s bodies are. Those who come up with the idea of ​​a male curfew should perhaps ask themselves, with a bit of a critical mind, why they don’t get equally angry when women are told to adapt their behavior in response to male violence.

(Translation by Giusy Muzzopappa)

March 3, 2021 At around 9.30pm, after an evening spent at a friend’s house in London’s Clapham Common neighborhood, 33-year-old woman Sarah Everard disappears on her way to her home in Brixton Hill.
March 4 Everard’s partner reports the woman’s disappearance.
March 9 Wayne Couzens, a metropolitan police officer, is arrested in Kent on suspicion of being Everard’s kidnapper. Along with him, a woman accused of being his accomplice is stopped, but she is released a few days later. More in-depth research is being conducted in the area.
March 10 In the evening Commissioner Cressida Dick, head of Scotland Yard, the London Metropolitan Police, announces the discovery of human remains in a wood in Kent.
March 12 The body found is identified as Sarah Everard’s. Couzens is accused of kidnapping and murder.
March 13 At Clapham Common, a vigil for Everard gathers hundreds of attendees. At 6 pm four people are arrested for crimes of public order and for having violated the restrictions for covid-19. Police violently disperse the crowd, making arrests and destroying the memorial. London Mayor Sadiq Khan calls the police response “inappropriate and disproportionate”, while Ed Davey, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, calls for the resignation of Cressida Dick, who rejects the idea.
March 14 A procession of more than a thousand people marches in protest from New Scotland Yard to Parliament Square. In this case the police reaction is “noticeably different” from the day before.Bbc