The memorial to Sarah emerged spontaneously at Clapham common and belonged to no one. The hastily assembled group, Reclaim These Streets (nods to Reclaim the Night during the Yorkshire ripper’s reign of terror and Reclaim the Streets, an environmental movement of the 90’s) stepped in and tried to organise a do to commemorate Sarah, but were thwarted by the metropolitan police who’d been instructed to prevent gatherings.
Reclaim These Streets stood down after their application was refused (of course, suppressing protests is an extremely serious, worrying move – no argument from me there) and, like circling vultures, Sisters Uncut saw the opportunity to take the stage, and the headlines – their favoured tactic. Which is understandable when all you have is a delusional victim-centric, white-knuckled grip on what you feel should be yours, but can’t be arsed with difficult, complex political questions or weighing up competing needs, rights and wants. Embrace tunnel vision, demand and destroy. Go hell for leather in the gobshite stakes, kick off. All you need is rage. Welcome, Sisters Uncut! Preach your version of non-carceral, police abolitionist, intersectional feminism!
So, in they swoop, laying down the law on who was allowed to grieve, in public, at a memorial site built from instinctive and unbidden public grief. Chanting that all cops are bastards from loud speakers, someone sprayed ACAB on a police van, another smashed the wing mirrors. Men arrived and started shouting, shoving and scrapping. The atmosphere turned. Sarah’s murder was overshadowed by rallying cries about defunding and arrest the police, a lot of stuff about black trans women, ‘trans women are women’ and kill the bill (against protests). What a lovely vigil – who wouldn’t want to be remembered like this?
Highlights you’re unlikely to see in the mainstream lefty press can be seen here, as well as this thread from a reporter who was present.
SU have a long history of abusing feminists they call TERFs, as, somehow, believing biological sex is integral to feminism and women’s experience of oppression is an act of transphobic hate. Like the early stages of any psychopathic, genocidal movement, it must be nipped in the bud. Apparently, feminism based in biological reality is exactly the same.
So, naturally, harassing women at a protest against rape is their prerogative. Defending an extremely low-effort ‘trans woman’ who took the name of American feminist Cathy Brennan in deliberate harassment and attempted to punch Julie Bindel and invites attacks on feminists on social media is too. Also, it’s imperative to blockade a feminist meeting arranged to discuss the (now abandoned) gender recognition act reform. Various other links to demonstrations where women have been roughed up, ejected and had their signs / literature removed by male ‘allies’ abound.
But, Sarah Everard was a person. A woman. She had a life of experience as a woman, her own politics and values. We hear nothing about these, aside from this, written by a friend of hers, and the pleas from her family to quietly remember her, without making a scene.
Sarah was a woman who met an unspeakable end, and this was meant to be about her. She had been snatched as she walked home, by an off-duty police officer, only to be found in woodland, dead and discarded. It’s a particular kind of horror story that only happens to women and children. A particular kind of horror story that instinctively grips us all, such is the nightmare that all women fear.
When people in mental health crises disappear, it doesn’t grip our collective consciousness in the same way. There’s some perceived predictability that lowers our natural response, we think we are less vulnerable to it, even though it’s a far more common tragedy. But when a sensible, straight, sober young woman is snatched, it represents a primal threat that cannot be predicted or prevented. Particularly, the spectre of an authority figure, one we are taught from childhood to trust, making such a remorseless strike is the most visceral of nightmares. It’s a trope found throughout Hollywood, t.v. and crime stories. It’s the original bogeyman.
So, once the barest facts had emerged and others had tried and failed to manifest an active public expression of hurt, others stepped in. It wasn’t only SU, a deliberately scattered and unaccountable group, although they’re surely the main protagonists, the ones milking the press exposure and at the head of this misogynistic, reactionary front.
People from various movements emerged, and some decided it was their moment to claim authority over a memorial for a murdered woman. That meant obscuring her, under a list of demands and accusations. Who knows what Sarah’s beliefs were? Certainly, SU don’t give a fuck.
The audacity of this is staggering to me.
To lay claim to a woman’s murder, start issuing orders as to who is and is not welcome, pontificate on the systemic causes, demand abolition of the prisons, police, but still refuse to allow women to identify their most serious threat – males – and hijack a vigil is predatory, expedient narcissism of mammoth proportions.
They took Sarah’s name, her image and the manner (as far is known) of her murder, and they delighted in the profession of her alleged killer. The mountains of floral tributes became little more than a soap box for their own, highly questionable, simplistic political aim.
So, they may rant and rave now about other atrocities committed against women, but this is still the moment they chose to appropriate someone else’s tragedy.
Not when Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman were found murdered, or when Blessing Olusegun died in dubious circumstances, or when Phoenix Netts was, like Lorraine Cox, found broken, cleaved into pieces and dumped in suitcases. So many women have been murdered under the radar, but this was still the moment they chose. They reeled off these women as long forgotten martyrs in the war of male violence, but I don’t see any of their outrage before Sarah Everard met her terrible fate.
And while Sarah Everard is their cause célèbre victim of state violence, the consistent angle to their statements, the words of their followers, gives a critique of her media presence and interest as a lucky consequence of her being an archetypal, photogenic victim that is most mourned by the press; ie blonde, white, middle class.
Now, we know that race and class factor in media interest, and all tragedies are not covered equally, but where were they when these other, less media-appealing, tragedies happened?
If I’m wrong here, tell me – I’ll correct it – but as far as I can see they didn’t hold a single vigil or demonstration over these other victims, or even mentioned their names until this opportunity arose. I scoured their timelines on Twitter, Facebook and their websites. They are diffused into multiple chapters with no clarity, a deliberate ploy to escape accountability.
What I found was a few articles about domestic violence, BLM and their support for Sista Space. They posted on the building of a new prison, but otherwise they were pretty defunct. They were ‘taking a break because of covid’. Several hadn’t been active for over a year. Nowhere can I find mention of these women prior to mid March. Nowhere do they cite the abusive, anti-traveller bill they claim to be so enraged over until after mid March.
Sisters Uncut want us to believe they’ve been railing against violence against women, and take moral authority as the spokespeople, but have done nothing.
They began out of a protest against austerity and while defunding of domestic violence makes an occasional appearance, they stood silently while domestic violence charity Rise in Brighton was deprived of an annual £5 million from Brighton council and reduced to operating from a shipping container (because they don’t cater to men – presumably a win for SU). It’s an entirely cynical, expedient, media savvy game of outrage politics and PR.
Sisters Uncut supported Peyton Rose (a livid rook with beak and feather disease) who threatened to ‘throat punch’ women who dared put stickers up defending same sex care and spaces. They rallied around violent (balding), 6 foot 2″ and 26 year male ‘Tara’ Wolf in the aftermath of his (and two unidentified male friends) attack on Maria McLaughlin, a 60 yr old feminist attacked by Wolf and others at speakers corner in Hyde park.
In the immediate fallout of the Sarah Everard vigil, SU issued a list of people they claimed were “women murdered by the state”. That, too, takes some logical acrobatics and smokescreens.
Let’s have a look at some of these victims; * Michelle Pearce, who died in hospital of cancer, while serving life for stabbing her mother to death.
* Magdalena Luczuk, who took her life after beating, starving and murdering her little boy Daniel in a campaign which lasted over a year.
* Anne-Marie Driscoll, who also died in hospital after refusing treatment for her multiple bowel problems, while serving life for the protracted torture and murder of a man she carried out with her son.
* Helen Cole committed suicide in prison while on remand for murdering her son.
* Lisa Doe was serving life for murder. She committed suicide within an hour of being released from the prison medical wing for self harm.
* Alexandra Greenaway was a transwoman arrested by the police under the mental health act, but committed suicide after release by the mental relevant health unit.
This is tragic, but is it a state murder? The police had actually tried to help.
I haven’t been through all of these names, undoubtedly more spurious accusations of state murder are in here.
More so than the various suicides or natural deaths which occurred with or without attempts by the authorities to intervene, there are the suicides of four trans identifying males / transwomen: * Jade Eatough assaulted one teen as she walked home and (with Sarah Everard parallels) then found another, 15yr old girl who he held at knifepoint, ordered into a deserted area where she was forced to strip before raping her. * Joanne Latham had shown conflicting signs of wanting to transition, had been sentenced for attempted murder before then attempting murder twice more. Latham had changed name to and fro from Eddie to Joanne in that year, and hadn’t asked for a transfer to the women’s estate.
* Jenny Swift was serving life for the ‘frenzied’ attack and murder of a purported friend.
* Nicola Cope had groomed and raped two little girls over course of 16 years, starting when they were 4 or 5.
* Vikki Thompson had been a child in care, was clearly vulnerable and became addicted to opiates. Sent down for robbing a woman and her daughter in the street. This is absolutely a tragedy, suicides in prisons and anywhere else are devastating (albeit a couple and exceptions above) and we need huge changes to improve prisoner welfare.
four trans identifying males / transwomen are vulnerable within the male estate, especially the very young like Thompson, and I’m wholeheartedly behind the introduction of specialist wings for trans prisoners, and better emotional support and access to rehabilitation for all prisoners. But what do we do with the Jade Eatoughs, the Jenny Swifts and Nicola Copes of the world if we abolish prisons? Moreso, why are they listed in memorial alongside a woman who was brutally assaulted by immigration police and restrained til she died, and what do the type of male who attack women as they walk home, who rape little children, have to do with the death of Sarah Everard? Give SU what they want, and we will only suffer more atrocities.
Patsy Stevenson, the woman who so beautifully managed to look the press in the eye as she was arrested, wide-eyed and with a clear expression of un-contorted shock, said she had never been so terrified.
If this is the case, she made a startlingly good recovery. I don’t see a shaken, disturbed woman here, or here, I see someone who is lapping up the attention and adrenaline. She appears every inch the jubilant winner, and I can’t see any hint of someone who actually cares.
Now, I’ve been roughed up by police at protests.
I was once strip searched after it had already been established that the woman the police were after was not me, and she’d was also nicked. I was tearful, shakey, distressed and so, so angry. It took me months to get over the injustice of it, partly due to the fact i knew they knew there was no excuse, and after explaining to them I’d only just seen conviction of the man who attempted to rape me, I was feeling especially vulnerable. They knew it. They still humiliated me with a strip search in hope they could get me for possession of something.
As ever, thenpolice closed ranks. They gave me illegible de-arrest papers on purpose. I woke up in states of fury and panic at the violation of it.
I got very drunk later that evening. I was loud, I’m sure I never looked like the ‘perfect’ victim. I know that we respond in hugely varied ways. Still, I see nothing but a calm performer in Patsy, who reactivated her Twitter account the same evening, railed about the dangers faced by “all women, including trans and non-binary” and laughs on the video.
Intersectional feminism was an analytical tool first created to examine the specific combination of oppression faced by black women. It was not about placing biological males alongside women within feminism, although it’s become so. Whether you believe in preformed souls, where ‘transwomen’ are born as women in a male-looking body, whether they transition simply as a means to deal with a crushing dysphoria, or through progressive porn-induced delusion – for whatever reason trans people are trans and what that means – the universal quality of being a woman is inherently tied to our bodies and society’s beliefs about what that means.
We may share many goals, enemies, heroes and struggles, but there is but one path to womanhood’ All you need is to survive girlhood.
The murder of Sarah Everard was a specific type of crime almost never committed against trans identifying males / transwomen.
Given that trans identifying males / transwomen are more than twice as likely to be convicted of murder than be a victim; that there are hundreds of cases of women being assaulted by transwomen, both in the U.K. and abroad, but no sign of it happening the other way round; that women face oppression based on our real and perceived physical and social vulnerability – I call bullshit.
As others have said, if the man accused of Sarah Everard’s murder claimed to be trans, SU would be rallying around him, demanding his right to be in a woman’s prison.
They don’t hate male violence, it’s their secondary tool after the threat of it. They hate the state apparatus that can be mobilised against them, that could force them to take responsibility. They want the power to dictate, to abuse and oppress others, especially women, and still remain the vaunted underdogs and righteous victims with easy, edgy politics. They are drenched in male violence and embrace misogyny.
Don’t fall for it.
2 thoughts on “Hijacking Sarah”
Excellent piece. I went to the vigil, I was going to go anyway, I live less than a mile away. I went to remember Sarah, I went for every woman I’ve known who has been subjected to male violence including my mom, my sisters, my self, my 9 year old niece, for the 2 year old girl I worked with who had cigarettes stubbed out on her…for every single one. As I got closer to the common I could here a man on a loudspeaker, and then I saw man after man all dressed in black, carrying their beers around as you very rightly describe. I took my dog because I don’t feel safe on my own and having my dog with me is the only way I can suppress my PTSD enough to be out on my own. I also noticed the very light touch of police and that male officers couldn’t even look at you. I stayed on the periphery cos I’m vulnerable to covid and had my dog. I found myself near the press and listening to them talk about anything but the vigil of Sarah, one of them was going to ‘shift off soon’ as ‘there was nothing to see’ the chanting being directed by a man was growing louder and all I could see were compliant women being directed by a man. The chanting got more and more aggressive and being an old hand at protests and demonstrations I saw the police slowly moving in and that I’m afraid was the signal for me to leave. I hadn’t managed to light a candle or put some flowers down but knew what was coming and I wasnt there for that and certainly not at the behest of a load of men and their enablers. So I left and cried silently all the way home, years of rage and sadness that this shit will never end and it certainly never will when the likes of Sisters Uncut hijack violence against women for their own political agenda and aims. It was sad spectacle and my thoughts and sympathies go with Sarah’s family and friends and I’m sorry for their loss and the disgraceful way her death has been used by people who care for nothing but themselves.
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