We need men to take accountability
Last week was a difficult week for women. We started by celebrating International Women’s Day on Monday.
The celebrations were cut swiftly short by a well-known, male TV presenter vilifying a young, prominent woman who was brave enough to share her truth regarding her mental health.
The next day a serving officer in the Metropolitan police was arrested on suspicion of the murder of Sarah Everard, a young woman who went missing in south London on her walk home from a friend’s house. Her remains were sadly identified on Friday.
Every woman has felt unsafe on a journey home. We’ve taken a longer route home that’s better lit, we’ve held keys between our fingers, we’ve crossed the road just to check if the person behind us is following, we’ve made a pretend phone call and we’ve arranged to call/text our friend when we get home.
Many people have responded to the outpouring of grief and stories being shared on social media to say, “Hey, wait! #Not all Men”. We understand that, but it is ALL women who do not feel safe, and we can’t tell which men it is.
We also learned, in a report that surprised not a single woman, that 97% of young women in the UK have been subjected to sexual harassment.
On Thursday, MP Jess Phillips read out the names of 118 women who have been killed in the UK over the last year where a man has been charged or convicted. We know these women’s names due to the work of Karen Ingala Smith who collects this data on an annual basis because there are no official statistics. Two women a week are killed in England and Wales by a current or ex-partner. This has increased to one every three days since the first lockdown.
Femicide is an epidemic yet we neither measure it nor seek to address it. It is something we have accepted as part of life. Since Sarah Everard went missing last week, six women and a little girl have been killed in the UK.
We finished the week on Mother’s Day, a subdued bookend to a horrific week. We opened the papers and checked social media on Sunday morning to be confronted with images of police manhandling women to the ground.
Women who had brought flowers and gathered outside, peacefully, in remembrance of Sarah Everard and all women who have been the victims of male violence. To those who say the gathering should not have taken place due to the pandemic, I remind you that we are also in the midst of an epidemic; an epidemic of male violence.
The response to violence against women is that women should behave differently. Women should not walk home alone, not go out after dark, be mindful of what we are wearing, we should wear headphones, we should not wear headphones, we should leave…
There is no end to the advice given to women, yet despite decades of this advice nothing changes.
Women are not the problem. It’s time to stop victim blaming and hold men accountable. According to the Office of National Statistics 93% of convicted murderers are men.
What are we doing as a society to address the direct thread linking the acceptance of sexist jokes, cat-calling, street harassment, domestic violence, all the way through to the abduction and murder of women and the murder of 118 women a year by their partners? The tolerance of misogyny in all its forms leads to a society where we are not safe on the streets, nor in our own homes.
We need men to take accountability for the solutions. We need you to speak up and challenge the acceptance of these horrific statistics. Because they are not just statistics, each one is a person’s life. Male allies need to be as appalled as women and you need to be vocal in your outrage: Speak up and speak out when you encounter sexism in all its forms, including supposedly innocent sexist banter and lewd remarks.
Talk to your sons, don’t just focus on protecting your daughters. We all stand to gain from a society in which we are safe, and we all need to take responsibility to make it safe.
Louise Timlin – Branch Leader, Women’s Equality Party, Reading and Wokingham
Vickie Robertson – CEO Kaleidoscopic UK
Cllr Sarah Kerr – Wokingham Liberal Democrats
Give them the sack
So the ‘long awaited?’ WBC recycling sacks have at last arrived, well, at least in my street. Decent size, but my worst fears have been realised. Threats that ‘Cardboard to the side will not be collected’. So, old and disabled residents, make sure your scissors are sharp to break down oversized packaging, otherwise you will be eventually smothered with the stuff.
‘But you can always take it to the recycling centre’, I hear the cry. Yes, you can if you can get there, better buy that car, that is if you have or can legitimately obtain a driving licence or hire some transport (and send WBC the bill, of course – good luck with that).
Also love the leaflet that came with the bags. I can receive a ‘Weekly rubbish and recycling newsletter’ if I sign up ‘using the QR code on the right’. What’s that, looks like something I should scan with a smartphone? (Thinks, I haven’t got a smartphone, should I get one, WBC might pay!).
Then again, there are a multitude of instructions on the sack itself. One says ‘Wash and squash tins, cartons and bottles’ (good exercise, that) and is followed on the next line by ‘We will not empty the bag if the contents are wet’ . Just a minute, something missing here.
I know, perhaps we should then dry the contents with a hairdryer or towel.
I am an 81-year-old resident, and for the benefit of younger readers, there was once a time when you put out your dustbins and people called dustmen or refuse collectors took the contents away. Simples. There were no threats of leaving stuff behind if you hadn’t prepared it properly, and the elderly and disabled were not inconvenienced if they hadn’t obeyed some diktat from on high. I
know times have changed, and we are trying to protect the planet, but I believe the earth is about half-way through its expected cycle, and we have only about four to fivebillion years left.
Lets hope all this we have to do is worth it.
Brian Morrish, Winnersh
Get a move on
More than a couple of months ago, Wokingham District Council informed us that the speed limit in a number of roads in Wokingham town centre area were to be reduced from 30mph to 20mph. Nothing seems to have happened.
I thought it to be an extremely good idea, especially around the market area and in Rose Street.
Can someone from the Council please let us know when the much needed lower speed limit will actually come into force in the roads in the town in which the restrictions were proposed?
Geoffrey Ryder, Wokingham
Stripping democracy
We must stop the surrender of our planning system to developers.
The Government’s proposed planning system reforms will remove our right to have a say in how our area is developed. The changes will, in many instances, strip our democratically elected Councillors of their powers to control potentially damaging developments.
It will often be impossible for us to object to damaging and unsuitable building in our local area.
This is being done in the name of speeding up house building, yet big housing developers have already failed to complete more than a million approved planning permissions in the last 10 years.
As we eventually recover and rebuild from the Covid-19 crisis we will need to ensure our wellbeing through access to services and green space. Recovery plans must also contribute to solving the climate and ecological emergency.
I urge our Councillors to join more than 2000 others, of all political parties, in signing a letter to the Secretary of State coordinated by CPRE and Friends of the Earth takeaction.cpre.org.uk/page/68213/petition/
John Booth, Earley
Suprrised by school news
I thought nothing Wokingham Borough does Council could surprise me any more until I read the article in last week’s paper headed ‘My daughter can’t go to the primary school 100m from my home’. How wrong I was.
Many residents bought houses in Arborfield Green’s new 2,500 houses with the promise of access to Primary and Secondary School education and medical services on the site but the Councils broken promises seems to have put paid to those promises. How many more will they break?
Out of the blue the Council is moving Farley Hill School and its 200 children to the new school being built at Arborfield Green and as a result the Council is only offering 30 places to all the new residents of Arborfield Green which has over 100 applications for places.
Many Farley Hill pupils will now come as far as Swallowfield (by car I expect) while children actually living within a 100 yards or so of the new school being forced against their will to go elsewhere but who cares? Apparently not Wokingham Borough Council.
Cllr Clark the Executive Councillor responsible for education disgracefully says that the Children on Arborfield Green can walk to the Coombes School as they are seeing the benefits of less traffic on their route following the opening of Observer Way. What an arrogance which one could not make it up unless you are Wokingham’s Conservative ruling sorry ruining group.
They also approved 140 houses on the Reading FC Training Ground at Hogwood and when challenged on the availability of school places the view expressed in public was if the schools are full they can go to Bracknell. How arrogant and certainly not very green in that.
The final insult is, I have no doubt when Farley Hill School is vacated it will become a council housing building project when it could so easily be used as a special need school so badly needed in preference to the Councils plan to build one next to the polluting M4 in Winnersh.
Let’s hope our residents can right these wrongs in May – the sooner Wokingham can get shot of this lot the better.
Cllr Gary Cowan, Independent Borough Councillor for Arborfield at Wokingham Borough Council.
Harry and Meghan
I have followed the Harry and Meghan story, with interest.
The whole issue of race is so sensitive, that, frequently, it leads to misunderstandings.
We have members who tell me that their parents would not allow them to watch the television comedy Till Death Us Do Part because it was racist. AuthorJohnny Speight was not racist.
In his comedy, it is the racist, and homophobic bigot, who is being ridiculed, and not people of colour, nor of other minorities. Looking, far back, into history, no doubt the concept of oyalty, was then, elitist, and there were also, within it, the most awful, examples of misogyny, and homophobia.
Furthermore, with the belief in blue blood, royals were believed to be superior, not just to people of colour, but to ‘common’ white people, as well.
But this is not the case in modern times. The modern function of Royalty is one of service as exemplified, perfectly, by the Queen, and also by other members of the Royal Family with all their valuable work for charity. Very early in her reign, the Queen decided, that, instead of having rich, society, beauties, presented at Court, she would have, instead, the hard-working members of The Women’s Voluntary Service – which is now, actually called, The Royal Voluntary Service.
The modern Royal Institution is greatly respected, and runs a successful heritage business, which brings in, most welcome, money, from tourism.
Pam Jenkinson, The Wokingham Crisis House.
Short and to the point
I was sad to see your article about a binman peeing discreetly in a bush at the edge of the street. It seems inappropriate to go out into the dark to take a picture of someone who got caught short doing a job most of us are grateful that he does.
These men and women don’t have toilet facilities with them on their rounds.
They have never missed collecting our rubbish during the pandemic; even putting their lives at risk.
Instead of saying thank you, you chose to condemn them.
We are all lucky to have our rubbish collected.
Perhaps Mr George should have offered the binmen the use of his toilet.
It is time we stood up for our binmen so I say THANK YOU to them all.
Christine Charman, Wokingham
Stick to two meres
I read last week’s letter by Katie James, re the lack of discipline of covid-19 spreaders in Wokingham. I totally agree with what she said.
She mentioned “monitoring and reprimands” – quite rightly, we are still waiting. We should have had thi everywhere many moons ago.
Out for a short walk this Sunday, I again witnessed the cursed runners that pass far too close, and especially young chatterboxes, who have not a clue what two metres or 6ft 6in is.
The frightening, continuing lack of discipline is likely to lead to another shut-down, Just when everyone is desperate to travel or visit other countries. (I am one of those as I wish to visit Fatima in Portugal while I am still able).
I have little time for doom-laden scientists, but the fact has to be faced that we have a continuing threat. I’d hate them to be right, given what that will mean to all of us.
The first priority of course is vaccination – that must apply to every individual in this country, by law if necessary. Refusal should mean you must not leave your residence at all.
Then comes the missing monitoring everywhere – perhaps we should use our good friends in the Military more. Let’s see millions of fines to ensure idiots do understand, and knuckle down to save our country.
Reg Clifton, Wokingham
Spring arrivals
Last Saturday I was walking on Reading Road from the Reading direction towards Wokingham Town Centre on the left-hand pavement (part of my exercise).
I walked past Holt Copse and arrived at the T junction with Holt Lane and crossed over Holt Lane using the Pedestrian Crossing which takes you to a little triangle of land, opposite St Paul’s Churchyard.
Later in the year this usually gives rise to a bold display of flowers, mostly crocuses and daffodils.
Due to the cold weather none of these plants were in flower, except a single, small, clump of purple crocuses (see picture), obviously encouraged by the intermittent sunny days between the predominantly cold days.
I had a camera with a close-up attachment on me, so choosing some still moments between the erratic gusts of wind I took a few pictures and chose the better ones where I had been more successful.
Harry Atkinson, Wokingham
