International Women’s Day

Rosie Duffield Excerpts

Thursday 11th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Rosie Duffield (Canterbury) (Lab)]

Our International Women’s Day debates are usually a chance for us to celebrate our achievements, our pioneers, our trailblazers—those fearless glass ceiling smashers. We sigh and roll our eyes in frustration about how much further we still have to go. We remember that in contrast to the 5,000 or so men who have sat here, still only 520 women ever have. But then we buck ourselves up, rally other women, encourage them, ask them to stand, cheer those who persist, be positive and push ourselves even further, looking forward still to the changes that are surely only just around the next corner. But not today. Today is for Sarah. I wish we could all tell her just how angry we all feel. I wish she could see how much she has touched our lives and that we continue to keep her in our prayers.

The women here know that this is the day we hear my wonderful hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) read out that list. We bring tissues. We prepare ourselves mentally as well as we can to hear the names of all the women killed by men since she last read us that horrific list. We will ourselves not to cry in this place, but it is almost impossible not to be overcome as those names echo around the Chamber: ordinary and extraordinary women, mothers, daughters, sisters, grandmothers, aunts, cousins, colleagues, best friends, neighbours—all loved, all the centre of someone’s world.

We know the statistics all too well. We know that every single day of every single week—pandemic or not—women are murdered by men. A very quick and basic search on a phone will reveal headlines such as “Three Women a Week Killed by Domestic Violence During Lockdown,” “Domestic Abuse Killings More Than Double Amid Covid-19 Lockdown,” and “Calls to Women’s Helplines Soar During Lockdown.” It goes on and on and on.

The outpouring of collective rage over the last 24 hours shows that women are tired. We are tired of having to pre-empt possible violence. We are tired of having to risk-assess every ordinary everyday action every hour of every day of our lives. We are tired of having to explain and justify every simple choice we make, every opinion we hold, every aspect of our appearance. We are sick of our voices going unheard, our calls for action being dismissed and delayed; sick of rules being changed to exclude us even in the oldest and seemingly most noble of our long-established institutions. Sarah Everard has reignited a fire within us, much like George Floyd did. Enough is enough. We must take a long hard look at society, at social media, at misogyny, at violence, at ourselves. Let us hope that next year’s list is virtually non-existent.

It is really painful to see the revelations that brave women are making individually on platforms such as Twitter. Every woman I know will have a similar story. If a man is reading some of those stories and is moved, shocked or upset by them, I promise them that the women in their life will all have lived some of those experiences themselves. Some of those experiences just need to be listened to.