Victoria Smith writes:

Self-styled good men are very good at feeling sad about women that bad men have killed. They are not so good at thinking these bad men might have anything to do with them, let alone that the “epidemic” of male violence against women and girls might be the responsibility of male people as a sex class.

It’s unbearable see, day after day; we men refusing to accept responsibility for the violence of our own sex. But why should we? Why is sex relevant, when it’s only those other – bad – men who do the violence?

Victoria explains:

Women aren’t just afraid because of the truly bad men. It’s because there are so few truly good ones. Our lives are littered with the stories we couldn’t tell, the accusations we couldn’t make, because we know the good men will close ranks and we don’t want to see it.

We’re complicit.

Wayne Couzens, who raped and murdered Sarah Everard, was nicknamed “The Rapist” by fellow officers because of his creepy, threatening behaviour. They didn’t take that behaviour seriously; they treated it as a joke. Several gave character references supportive of Couzens. Five officers shared “grossly offensive material” with him.

Several female officers told the press that they were concerned about the behaviour of their male colleagues but didn’t think they could report it. They knew they wouldn’t be taken seriously and that there’d likely be repercussions.

The most relevant thing those colleagues have in common is not that they are police officers, it is that they are men. Whenever we ignore concerning behaviour in men; when we close ranks to protect men; and when we don’t listen to women, we are absolutely complicit in the type of violence that Couzens did to Sarah Everard.