Sometimes Its Hard To Be A Woman

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman ...

Its Hard To Be A Woman

... or so the song says.

And there is no denying that taking a look around the world, it's hard not to conclude that being a woman is a harder existence than being a man.

Western women (North America, Western Europe, Australia and New Zealand), who are the most equal legally in the world, still suffer the low level femicide and sexual assaults that certain types of men commit on them each year.

Victims Of The Recently Arrested
Long Island Serial Killer??

If you doubt this, just ask yourself who the vast majority of the victims of male serial killers and rapists are. In the UK (pop. 67.33 million) in 2020, 110 women were killed by men, and in cases where a murder suspect was identified, 89% of female murder victims were killed by a man, with 60% of the women killed in England or Wales knowing their suspected killer. In 2020, 52% of murdered women were killed by current or former partners, while 13% were killed by their son, and only 8% were killed by a stranger. 70% of the murders of women took place in a home (that of the victim and perpetrator, that of the victim or that of the perpetrator).

In the UK in 2020, 38% of the women murdered were killed by men using a knife or sharp instrument, 22% involved strangulation or asphyxiation. 15% involved a blunt instrument, and 13% involved hitting, kicking or stamping .... with 45% being described as overkill (defined as the use of excessive, gratuitous violence beyond that necessary to cause the victim’s death).

For comparison in the USA (pop. 331.9 million) in 2021, the FBI *estimated that there were 4,970 female victims of murder and non-negligent manslaughter (based on data received from about 11,790 of the 18,800 law enforcement agencies in the United States). Of those female victims, 34% were killed by an intimate partner with overall, 76% of female murders were perpetrated by someone known to the victim. *The figures are collated slightly differently than those for the UK.

Whilst once you leave the Western world, things turn even darker and uglier:

• In Eastern Europe and heading into Russia, whilst there might be the fig leaf of legal equality, misogynistic male attitudes often prevail, with paternalistic societal views the strongest.
• In the Arab world, women's rights are curtailed (even when the constitution states otherwise) .... the Saudis have only just allowed some women to drive but persecute other women. Whilst in Iran, women are targeted by the religious police for breaching dress codes, or dancing etc. As for Afghanistan, well, there is no hope for the benighted women of that land ... the Taliban are the veritable poster boys for misogynists worldwide.
• Black Africa is more of a mixed picture with many powerful women leaders and politicians, but often with very high rape and murder rates, e.g. South Africa and Lesotho.
• Central and South America is also a mixed picture. Mexico is largely a narco-state in many areas, with women often amongst the gangs frequent victims. Whilst Guatemala and Honduras are wholly narco-states .... drug gang violence is so entrenched, that women's (and many men's) rights are meaningless concepts. Further South, countries such as Chile, and Argentina have women's rights, but legal enforcement is patchy, with high crime areas such as the favelas of Brazil often run by criminal gangs, so again, women's rights are just a theoretical concept.
• South Asia (which includes the aforementioned Afghanistan) holds a quarter of the worlds population within the borders of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh .... In India alone, it's been well documented that rape is used as both a threat and weapon against women. Women's rights are patchy at best, with for example, less well defined or protected rights in Pakistan, than say, in India.
• Finally, if we look to the Oriental Far East, dominated as it is by China, then despite some such as Japan and South Korea, being liberal democracies, misogynistic views often still prevail. Japan, for example, has had a very high bar for a rape charge to be successful, and is only just amending them. It also had a female age of consent at just 13 (one of the lowest in the world and the lowest in the G20), which is only now being amended to 16. In China, the Chinese Communist Party is a male run affair, and as mentioned in other posts, China discriminates against women in employment practises such as forced retirement at just age 50.

All in all, it is a rather depressing picture, especially if you are a woman. We like to think that women's rights and position in society have improved in the last 60 years, but I fear with the attempts to insert male presences in to female safe spaces, or stopping abortions, we are even going backwards, certainly we still have a long way yet to go.

Or, put another way, as another song says, it's still 'A Man's World' ... even if it would be nothing, nothing without a woman or a girl.