Tuesday, February 17, 2015
By Lindsay Johns for the Daily Mail
Published: 10:49 GMT, 23 July 2012 | Updated: 09:46 GMT, 25 July 2012
Abuse: The number of prosecutions for violence against women has risen to 91,000 cases a year. (photograph posed by a model)Today’s announcement of the fact that domestic violence conviction rates are at their all-time highest after a four-year campaign by prosecutors to tackle violence against women and girls is undoubtedly a cause for celebration of sorts, but is also intrinsically deeply worrying.
The statistics alone make for shocking and disquieting reading, especially over the breakfast table. Director of Public Prosecution, Kier Starmer, speaking on R4’s Today programme this morning, said that the overall number of prosecutions for violence against women – which include rape, sexual assault and harassment – has risen to 91,000 cases a year. In the past year the Crown Prosecution Service has reported its highest conviction rate for domestic violence. In cases of domestic violence referred to prosecutors, the conviction rate now stands at 73%, compared to 69% in 2007-08.
What is perhaps even more unsettling is that 1 in 4 women in their lifetime experience physical violence. According to the British Crime Survey, an estimated 1.2 million women experience domestic violence each year in the UK. Yet many of these cases are not reported to the police for various reasons, including women being too frightened to come forward, thus leaving a huge number of domestic abuse cases that never reach the police and therefore the courts.
So, whilst the increased rate of prosecution is definitely heartening and to be applauded, the underlying nature and true extent of this pernicious and persistent problem is nonetheless still alarming in the extreme.
Whilst praise must certainly be given to Starmer who, as Director of Public Prosecutions, has made tackling violence against women and girls a priority, one cannot help but rue the fact that such statistics are even worthy of celebration, as their very existence is also deeply shameful. It would be infinitely preferable if men did not feel the need to hit or inflict violence upon women full stop. But how does one go about eradicating one of the oldest (and most damaging) forms of human behaviour?
Call me old-fashioned, nay positively antediluvian, but as the (physically) stronger sex, I unequivocally believe that men most definitely possess both a responsibility and a duty of care to women to not take advantage of their physical prowess and superior strength. To do so is craven, shameful and unmanly.
We must work forthwith to create a culture where all forms violence against women (be it rape, domestic violence or certain cultural practices, such as female genital mutilation) are seen as totally unacceptable and must be punished with a rigorous and unyielding alacrity. Irrespective of cultural sensitivity (for which, when it comes to violence against women, I have little or no time), we must seek to eliminate the legitimacy of any such violence from both our own psyche and the cultural and moral fabric of this once great nation.
Otherwise, if we do not, the days when to be an Englishman meant something, when to be an Englishman was code for being a gentleman, are sadly numbered. As someone who is English by accident of birth, I am proud of many of the attributes of this country’s male progenitors, especially their dignity, restraint and on one level, respect for women. That is something which has clearly been lost over the ensuing decades.
I have never hit a woman in my life, but I am certainly not proud to admit it. I say I am not proud that I have never hit a woman, as I don’t think one should be proud of not doing something which is morally unacceptable, flawed and despicable anyway. Not hitting women should be, in any properly civilized society, the normal state of affairs for men, not a departure from the norm for which one can derive elevated status or regard. One should not gain extra brownie points or kudos, so to speak, for not hitting women. That is the least they deserve normally.
So where do we go from here? In the first instance, we must strive to create a climate where women feel more confident to come forward and report domestic abuse or violence against themselves, of any degree. That strikes me as essential, as fear has unfortunately often been a major factor in prohibiting women coming forward and giving evidence against their aggressors.
Despite those cultural relativists who will doubtless seek to argue to the contrary, people of all backgrounds, irrespective of their provenance or religion, must be made to see that violence against women is wholly unacceptable and not something which will be tolerated in this country.
I for one would certainly also countenance the mentoring of young boys and teenagers, be it at schools, in youth clubs or in specially designed settings, in the ways to treat a lady, in order to teach them what behaviour is acceptable and what is not. Obviously this should be the job a parent, ideally a male one. But the crushing lack of hands on, positive male role models in young boys’ lives, together with the relentless media images they are bombarded with, be it in music or film, have chronically distorted the acceptable paradigms of masculinity into such warped and debilitating caricatures, often of violent hypermasculinity, that it leaves us no choice but to intervene in their education.
Violence: People of all backgrounds, irrespective of their provenance or religion, must be made to see that violence against women is wholly unacceptable. (photograph pose by model)As quaint and as impractical as it sounds, one could do far worse than to give teenage boys instruction in those medieval epics of courtly love, be it the Roman de la Rose or the medieval Italian Stil Novisti poets, for whom gallantry, chivalry, respect for women and gentlemanly behaviour were essential conduits to intellectual, moral and spiritual enlightenment, let alone to the successful wooing and winning of the lady. Such a culture would have balked at the merest suggestion of violence against women. Literally, death would have been infinitely preferable in the gentleman’s code of conduct to the dishonour of inflicting violence on a lady. Back then, such a transgression would have been literally unthinkable. If only it were the case nowadays!
Let us make no mistake, gentlemen of this country. Violence against women, in any form, is base, disgusting, morally reprehensible, brutal, cowardly, weak and deserving of scorn and derision, not pity and understanding, not to mention worthy of severe punishment. Domestic violence is one of the lowest forms of moral turpitude and one which, were I to re-write the Divina Commedia, I would place in the lowest circle of Hell, next to Judas Iscariot and Brutus.
No matter what the provocation (and trust me, I am unfortunately well aware how trying some of the fairer sex can be), men must never raise their hand to a woman. That men should never lay so much as a finger on the hair on a woman’s head should be one of the sine qua nons of a truly civilized society, a sine qua non of our own masculinity and a sine qua non of our own fundamental humanity.
Gentlemen, judging by these statistics, the women of this country deserve far better from us. It’s time we raise our game (as opposed to our fists) and start acting like not only civilized Englishmen, but also real men, once more. If we don’t, one can only shudder to imagine what kind of cultural and behavioural norms our daughters, when they grow up, will be forced to endure at the hands of the boys of today.
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