There is much unintentional black humour in the latest imbroglio involving the writer of Black Books. Humour yes, but oodles of hypocrisy, a great big dollop of dishonesty and sloping shoulder syndrome from the Met (not to mention the incompetence and failure to think through the consequences of their actions we have come to know and love), ambitious politicians spotting a cause (the “Jenrick Syndrome” ably deployed by Wes Streeting (I know, the surprise!) and, mirabile dictu, an answer to the question which has exercised so many so agonisingly for so long – what is a woman, the 21st century’s version of the medieval world’s debate about how many angels dance on the head of a pin.

We get once again phallic drift. A man possibly treated badly is an outrage. His agonies are all over newspaper front pages. Ministers speak. Lots of women treated badly, facing serious threats of violence over years – not just in tweets – are a non-event. Ministers are nowhere.

What should a woman do when confronted by a man in a female only space has become an issue about what a man should or should not say about it. Who cares? If men could only stop behaving like unhinged entitled apes and display a modicum of decency, civility and concern for women, there’d be no problem. Several thousand years experience suggest expecting this is a fool’s errand. So women have taken their own steps. The advice, when faced with a man who scares or bothers them – by parents, in self-defence classes and anyone with experience of this – is, first, get away as fast as possible. If not or if attacked, then aim for a man’s soft parts (fingers in eyes, heel stamped into a foot, kicking a knee or foot into the balls, squeeze hard with a hand) and scratch as hard as possible to get as much evidence under your fingernails and leave evidence behind. This is necessary self-protection not incitement. In reality, women flee because fights with men are unequal; they do not involve the police because nothing happens when they do.

This is not primarily or even necessarily a free speech issue. Incitement to violence has always been an exception to free speech, even for comedians. No-one should be inciting violence against anyone, whether they have a protected characteristic or not. But – does this point really need saying – transgender people are not the only protected ones. (Nor are they a protected group under the law used to make the arrest.) Nor are they automatically immune from being perpetrators of violence and/or incitement to it. (There is, in fact, quite a lot of evidence showing some of them to be enthusiastic proponents of it. Against women.)

Does Linehan even see the irony in a man being the centre of attention in an issue about women, their rights, their safety? Probably not. Like the politicians jumping on bandwagons (Farage in Washington, Badenoch – conveniently ignoring the 14 years when the Tories did precisely nothing about the legislation and behaviour she now decries, Starmer – responding as if the police’s priorities are somehow nothing to do with the government) his ego enjoys being the hero-martyr, fearless speaker of truth, saviour of women etc.,. Well, let me puncture that balloon. Women don’t need egomaniacs using our pain to puff themselves up or pursue some other cause. We are not useful collateral for whatever project suits a politician. We simply need men to behave like …. well, gentlemen and without expecting grateful thanks for not killing, assaulting, or insulting us, protecting us, and allowing us to take our full part in society. We wouldn’t need them to protect us if they behaved themselves.

In all the fuss about this one man, what’s forgotten – again – are the very many talented women who have been hounded, insulted, lost work, jobs, opportunities, had their books ignored etc, been defamed, attacked, or just faced threats of violence and death for speaking up. When it was happening to them over many years, politicians were silent or joined in. Perhaps they couldn’t hear women’s squeaky voices. Yes – that must be it.

This is an issue about the police’s failure to do anything at all over recent years about the very many men publicly calling for or threatening violence against women, sometimes in the most lurid, frightening ways – threats of punches, beheadings, stabbing, rape, shooting, death etc – at public demonstrations, outside Parliament, online etc.,.There are lots of tweets, lots of examples, lots of complaints. Action has been missing. Why?

Here we come to the dishonesty in Sir Mark Rowley’s statement (one which seems to think that the police are the primary victims here). He states that the triage process was not good enough. What triage process allows threats of violence against women to be ignored but a potential threat of violence against a man in a woman-only space to be treated with such overkill? The one from the box marked “making it up as we go along” maybe? He blames the laws and guidance. Well, it’s the police’s job to understand and enforce the law as it is. 

Here is the worst dishonesty of all: he pretends the police do not want to be part of “toxic culture wars debates”. But the police (Met included) long ago took one side in such a debate when they allied themselves with one lobby group, when they took legal advice from those deliberately misrepresenting the law, when they failed to take advice from those who really understood the law, when they confused their obligations to their staff with their obligation to police the public without bias or its appearance, when they created an obvious conflict of interest and the consequent suspicion they were biased against women, when they ignored or dragged their feet implementing judgments going against them and the endless reports castigating their ignorance, misconduct, lack of professionalism and bias. Rowley’s statement is dishonest because he refuses to recognise how far the police’s embrace of Stonewall guidance and its deliberately mistaken advice on the law has perverted the police’s approach, professionalism and trustworthiness. It is precisely the same fundamental error made by the RUC in Northern Ireland – being seen to act as the arm of one side of a debate. The police are part of the problem, part of the debate, not the victims of the policies of others. They are now paying the price for that stupidity. See Smith v Northumbria Police. If only they had listened to a wise woman – yes, me, in December 2022 – pointing out the dangers of conflicts of interest for proper lawful policing – https://www.legalfeminist.org.uk/2022/12/15/conflicts-of-interest/.

As for politicians moaning about the laws, well really! Who did they think brought them in? The fairies at the bottom of the garden? They could have done their job properly instead of posturing with badly drafted laws implemented with no regard for their consequences, intended or otherwise. They could now ensure the implementation of Supreme Court decisions (yes, I’m looking at you, John Swinney) instead of pretending they must wait for guidance (which is neither law nor can change it) because they’re too embarrassed to admit their errors and too petulant to correct them.

Still, it’s an ill wind. It is an ironic absurdity that a man has become the lightning rod for a discussion about women’s rights and safety, how far, if at all, the law should regulate politeness rather than crime and how the police should carry out their functions. That women who have been arguing these points for years have not been listened to but shouted down and worse or told not be triumphalist when, against the odds they win some victories, that men (including those claiming to be women) are listened to, and women are not is (yet more) proof that our society – at every level from heads of government down – knows perfectly well who are the men and who are the women and which of the two should be treated as important.

A relief to have that finally clarified, I suppose.

Cyclefree