How far have we come?
In the early 80s, women were told not to go out in Leeds for fear of the Yorkshire Ripper. 25 years later, the headline on the BBC News at Ten on BBC1? “Women in Ipswich were tonight warned to be on their guard, or better still, to stay at home”.
and?
I’m not really sure about the point you’re trying to make…
It’s a feminist point, friends - you know, thinking that the police should catch the scum rather than women observe a curfew.
I’ve always believed that prostitution should be fully legalised, sex workers properly represented in trade unions, proper enterprises formed like well run brothels, the proceeds taxed, the industry properly regulated.
I think the BBC are on a mission to wind you up, personally.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/tyne/6171297.stm
There was an unrelated murder and three stabbings in a nightclub in Ipswich the other day, so maybe everyone should stay at home.
I appreciate that you give a lot more thought, day to day, to these issues than I do. What with
1. Being a woman.
2. Working in the field of women’s welfare.
But I’m really not sure I see the point here. Surely the idea is to give sensible advice in this instance i.e. ‘There’s some killer on the loose, probably best not to go out alone at night’ whilst simultaneously trying to catch the relevant serial killer (or even better, all of them).
Surely doing both is the only course really open to people running this investigation?
I’m sure you’ll have an angle on this I haven’t seen as to why this warning is the wrong thing to do in the circumstances - but at the moment I don’t get it.
Enlighten me please.
Dunno Pickles. I’m undecided on exactly how you should handle this, but what would you say if there were a mad racist killer going out and about in Brixton.
“Police advise black people to stay at home”
might not go down so well.
Clearly, but “Don’t go out alone, and be vigilant” would hardly be some kind of attack on the black community would it?
“Don’t go out alone” might be, might it not? I don’t know about you but I’d have to stay in an awful lot if I couldn’t go out alone; my own fault, arguably, for not having a geographically focused social life.
That’s the conflict though, going out alone is clearly a rather unwise thing to do at the moment. You would think people have worked that out for themselves though…
I think Antonia’s point is that the police warning (addressed to women only) is not going to change behaviour but it does reinforce the perception that women are responsible for getting attacked. It’s a small step from there to claim women who get raped whilst wearing revealing clothing are “less at fault” than women wearing baggy jumpers. That view too seems logical and sensible to many people but it’s obviously deeply sexist.
It’s also based on the sterotype that women are vulnerable whereas men can look after themselves - you wouldn’t get the same warning to men if it was male prostitutes who had been found. If you got any kind of warning at all it would be to all people including women.
And what’s the logical extension of the warning, anyway? That ALL women should stay at home because one nutjob is out there? If half the female population of Ipswich stayed at home he’d still have plenty of people to attack.
I really don’t think either of this addresses the point.
The police have a choice, either say nothing about whether people should be concerned that this killer is on the loose or to say something.
In so far as they chose to say something I don’t see much wrong with what they’ve said, as it stands.
The fact is that there are loads of ways in which you can get yourself killed going about the place. Some of them authorities see fit to warn about, some not. For example nobody says “Don’t cross the road” but they do say “Stop look and listen”. It’s about reasonable risks.
Another example, police don’t warn regularly about getting cabs on your own - they recognise that not doing so would be a massive inconvenience out of proportion to the risks. But they do warn about unlicensed minicabs. And they target their adverts at women, again because, as a rule it’s women who are targetted by people offering unlicensed lifts.
Same as they don’t warn against going out at night as a rule, only when there’s a serial killer on the loose.
You may say that singling out women for this is the problem, not the warning. But equally, why not say it’s a problem that they’ve said don’t go out alone at night in Ipswich. Why not Didcot? What about people’s house prices in Ipswich, going round telling everyone there’s a crime problem is really messing things up for them. But that misses the point that the serial killer is blatantly targetting women, in Ipswich.
If someone were to say “Don’t go out anywhere if you’re a woman, as you are a member of the weaker sex and you need a chaperone with you to make sure you don’t tempt anyone to sin or generally do something woman-like”. I’d agree with you that this would be a bad thing to say.
Equally I’d say that it’s a perfectly legitimate thing to do to warn women specifically about unlicensed minicabs.
Somewhere between the two is this example - and I don’t see why it’s not of a piece with the unlicensed minicabs example. It identifies a legitimate real risk that is clearly not small. It suggests actions to take to minimise that. If 4 to 6 women have disappeared in a week as the result of one killer’s actions then this is clearly an unusual circumstance - and the usual risks of going out are definitely heightened.
I agree with Antonia.
From the evidence public this killer is targeting a very specific, and very small, subset of women.
To get from there to telling all women they shouldn’t go to Tescos for milk if it is dark is just stupid.
BTW I expect the plod will take ages to catch him - because they are useless. There really, really, really should be national specialised units dealing with this (see Soham Unit which baffled the local plod and the which the met, literally, solved within 30 minutes of being given the case).
It’s a feminist point, friends - you know, thinking that the police should catch the scum rather than women observe a curfew.
Sorry, Antonia, I think it’s a pretty stupid point. Yes, of course the police should catch pond-slime like rapists and murderers, and ensure that they spend the rest of their lives in a very small room with a bucket in the corner, but the fact is that, so far, they haven’t caught him.
They know that there is a man actively killing prostitutes in Ipswich. It would be utterly irrepsonsible for them to say “carry on as normal, ladies - there isn’t a problem here”.
I think the police ought to catch and prosecute burglars, too, but that doesn’t mean that I get offended when they suggest that I lock my doors, not leave bags lying on the seat of my car and so on.
Women aren’t responsible for being attacked any more than I am responsible for having my house burgled. However, I can reduce the risk of suffering a burglary by purchasing an alarm system and good-quality locks for my doors and windows, having motion-sensor triggered exterior lighting and so on.
If I decide not to take those precautions, it’s still not my fault if I get burgled. Holding the moral high ground isn’t much use to a corpse, though.
“From the evidence public this killer is targeting a very specific, and very small, subset of women.”
Is an important point. If someone was going round killing welders, I wouldn’t feel unsafe because the majority of welders share the same gender as me and I might be mistaken for one. I don’t want to say that the killer won’t expand his range of targets because I don’t know what goes on in the mind of someone that fucked up. But if he does expand the range of targets, who’s to say men aren’t just as much at risk as women?
Again, my suspicion is that the police warning will have no effect on behaviour at all, because people will make their own judgements about whether going out is a reasonable risk. And even if it had some effect on behaviour, I don’t think that change would be sufficient to stop the killings - especially since the many prostitutes attacked are likely to still be on the streets out of economic necessity or other forms of coercion.
So given my suspicion that the police warning will have no effect whatsoever (except to give the impression the police are doing something), it boils down to whether or not the warning gives the impression that women are responsible for getting attacked. I think it does, other posters clearly don’t.
“the many prostitutes attacked” in 2nd para
should read “many of the prostitutes - the group this killer has attacked -”
Sorry! Edited after typing and didn’t finish the edit…
Clearly this killer is targetting prostitutes - I’m no expert but leaving aside sexual/bizarre moral motives another reason serial killers may target prostitutes is because they are an easy target.
There are actions they take which make them an easy target.
Taking similar actions (e.g. wandering about alone at night) could well make you an easy target.
It isn’t wise to do it when one knows such a killer is around.
So don’t. That’s why the police said it.
They aren’t saying “wandering around at night alone makes you a prostitute” or “wandering around alone at night makes you culpable” - they’re just saying “There’s someone who kills women - currently they’ve all been prostitutes but equally they’ve all been wandering around alone at night so that’s not something I’d do if I were you since there’s obviously a pattern here…”
The comparison that I think was drawn was that of people saying that women who dress scantily or provocatively are inciting rape.
There’s a very real difference.
One of these is saying that the intention to rape is in part created as a result of the woman’s actions. On the other nobody is saying any such thing - the intention to kill is clearly there already as this person has already done so several times.
To imply that a rapist isn’t entirely to blame because the intention was in part caused by the woman’s clothing is repugnant and simply untrue. To say that it is easier for a serial killer to carry out their intentions if you wander about alone is just a bald fact, unfortunate though it is.
Unless you’re saying that what people mean when they blame women who are raped for dressing a particular way what they mean is that it is *easier* to rape them there just really isn’t a comparison here. And I doubt that’s what you’re implying they mean.
Wow - it’s really interesting that a) some people didn’t understand the point you were making and b) there’s been such strong hostility to it. I thought what you were saying was just leftist common sense - perhaps I’m too influenced by the 80’s though. Huh.
Anyway, I hadn’t heard the phrase “reclaim the night” used for some time but people in Ipswich and Cambridge (where I live, and where there have been a series of rather horrible attacks recently - although not murders) are now talking about doing just that.
Antonia’s comments just go to show what a silly cul de sac feminism has come to.
The police were clearly giving sensible advice to the women of Ipswich, NOT casting aspersions on their lifestyles.
I don’t think there’s been any “hostility” to what Antonia said - I’ve certainly only asked her to clarify/expand on it as I’m interested.
I don’t think Tim or JDC’s responses have adequately explained it and I’ve made clear why.
I’ve got a lot of faith in Antonia to be able to articulate it more clearly and have an open mind as to whether she’s got a point or not.
I’ve mainly been responding to other people’s less adequate (in my view) responses in the meantime since I originally asked the question, since Antonia, who works full time and is a councillor (and so has probably got better things to do) hasn’t come back to the issue yet.
Yeah, I’m waiting for Antonia to come and say it all better than me, but in the meantime…
I think the general argument is getting sucked into the bizarre. I mean, my argument is based on the suggestion that as 5 prostitutes have been killed so far, the guy is almost certainly targeting prostitutes. Yours seems to be based on the idea he’s attacking easy targets, and prostitutes are easy targets because they wander around at night on their own. I think there are probably other easy targets too (children, pensioners) yet all those attacked have been prostitutes. Also, from the news coverage I’ve seen at least one of the prostitutes hung around in a group for safety, which suggests this guy isn’t just lifting people from the street. But I don’t want to go too far down this route for obvious reasons - it’s completely speculative and not very nice.
And again, do you really think the police advice will have any effect, especially on the most at-risk group of people?
ps I’m cringeingly aware that both of us are men and posting the most on this, so I’m going to shut up now and just wait for Antonia to pitch in.
“Clearly this killer is targetting prostitutes”
That’s not clear at all. I think it is more likely that he or she is targetting women, and it just so happens that prostitutes are the most vulnerable women to attack. Do you really imaging that this killer would not abduct and murder a woman out alone at night if he or she thought that th victim was a lawyer or a greengrocer?
Telling women to stay at home/not go out alone is idiotic and unhelpful. As someone already pointed out, for those of us who live alone and might not have a lot of local friends, not going out alone would effectively mean being prisoners in our own homes.
Also in my experience most women are very cautious about being out alone at night anyway, so are probably taking suitable precautions already. And women are adults with the ability to reason, aren’t we? Can’t we just be given the facts about the situation and decide for ourselves how we want to modify our behaviour, if at all?
Most women are already over-cautious if anything - I’ve been amazed to find that most of my female friends are reluctant to walk to the local shop (down a busy, well-lit road) after dark, and are unhappy and frightened when they have to come home from work/college alone at 5pm in the winter. I just can’t imagine thinking like that.
Not to mention that (as far as I know) men are actually more likely to be the victims of stranger violence, but are rarely told that they should be afraid to go out alone. Perhaps men should be more cautious, and women should be a little more bold.
And it’s a bit of a feminist cliche, of course, but it’s true that women are more at risk from their male partners and friends than from strangers. So much more so that even this ‘blip’ in the statistics doesn’t change it. So staying home or being escorted everywhere by men is probably not making women any safer overall.
How far have we come from the days of Jack the Stripper(London 1960s)Yorkshire Ripper(1970s)?
Widespread drug use that forces these women onto the streets.