The little boy made blaster gun noises, for no reason except that they were inside him and needed to come out. I winced, the mum winced, and the dad turned round and smiled at him. ‘What are you doing? Come here.’ He pulled the child closer and ruffled his mouse-blond hair.
Page.107, A Flat Place, Noreen Masud.
To men, a little boy holding a toy gun is just a little boy holding a toy gun, yet to women, it’s a symbol of a lifetime of fear.
This is because attitudes towards violence, whether perceived or real, differ depending on whose perspective it is being viewed from, hence why women feel the need to cross the road when they see a man walking behind them, whereas men think nothing of it, continuing on their way as if their lives aren’t at risk (because they’re not). It’s girls and women who are at risk, and the perpetrators, overwhelmingly, are men…
As safeguarding minister Jess Phillips said in a recent interview, ‘The scale of violence against women and girls in our country is intolerable.’
Toxic masculinity has created a national emergency, with the figures to back it up.
The latest statistics from the National Police Chiefs’ Council analysis (2024) reveal that two million women a year are estimated to be the victims of male violence, with one woman being killed by a man every three days on average.
The analysis goes on to report that crimes including stalking, harassment, sexual assault, and domestic violence affect one in twelve women in England and Wales, with the number of recorded offences having grown by 37% in the past five years (they now run at 3,000 offences a day, adding up to 20% of all police-recorded crimes/more than one million offences a year). And, worryingly, the perpetrators are getting younger.
Data shows the fastest-growing groups of domestic abuse offenders are teenage boys aged 16 to 19.
The question, though, is why?
There are a multitude of factors that play a role in violence against girls and women, particularly amongst a younger demographic, with issues of widespread misogyny being at the forefront.
Depictions of women in the media, for example, including porn which has very little, if any safeguarding measures in place to prevent young people from viewing its content, has put a skewed image in people’s minds regarding consent and what it means to be in a healthy relationship.
BDSM, which is a very specific sexual preference (note the word preference. It is not the norm) has been put forth as the ‘mainstream’ on sites like Pornhub. And when porn is the first experience that many people have with sex, this means that boys are growing up thinking that strangulation, for example, is a necessary element of sex that all women want.
What’s more, when girls watch porn too (yes, women do watch porn, despite the stereotypes), and they are also seeing such content that portrays what is undoubtedly abuse, if it’s not consensual, as the ‘norm’, they are at risk of putting themselves in dangerous situations, believing that this is ‘just what is expected’ of them.
So, what can we do about it?
It’s not enough to have porn sites asking people to confirm if they are 18 or above with the click of a button. We’ve all been kids once, and we all know that curiosity gets the better of us and a ‘yes or no’ isn’t going to stop children from accessing harmful material.
To protect women’s lives then, we must safeguard the minds of our children, reminding them, several times daily, that oppression towards women is never acceptable.
It’s not acceptable (ever) that women must live with snipers poised against their chests solely for being born the so-called ‘lesser’ sex.
When a national emergency requires a national effort to rectify, we need an overhaul to the system to ensure that boys are protected from having their minds corrupted, and girls and women are protected from having their bodies violated.
‘Nobody’s free until everybody’s free…’
Portfolio of Hope 