Meeting of the Parliament 05 December 2024
I absolutely agree with the member. I have been looking at that issue for a long time. Before coming to Parliament, I led work in the East Ayrshire violence against women partnership to look at the pervasiveness and horribleness of pornography and what it is doing to our young people and our population as a whole.
When talking about these issues, we cannot shy away from the fact that so many of our young men feel ostracised and left behind. That feeling is nurtured and exploited by incels and those on the far right. We need to unpack that reality and address it urgently. We owe it to those boys and to their life chances. Why are we failing them as well?
We must also confront the fact that increasing numbers of young women do not feel able to participate fully in their own lives. Twice as many young women as a decade ago feel scared to travel on public transportation, to walk the school or college corridors, to speak out in class and to venture to the local shops. Young Scots are crying out for a different world, and we have a responsibility to help them to create it.
We know that extreme misogyny is a symptom of the wider patriarchal attitudes and rigid gender norms that still permeate our society. To eradicate misogyny and men’s violence against women, we must tackle the gender inequality that is at their core. We can do that through effective primary prevention and the equally safe strategy, focusing on structural, cultural, attitudinal and behavioural change. That long-term holistic strategy has the aim of ensuring that all women and girls, but especially marginalised women, share equal power with men and boys. We must look forensically at all the parts of the system and root out those parts that work against the aims of our equally safe strategy. We must address them urgently. We must also make the misogyny bill a reality.
Finally, as a former Women’s Aid worker who has seen first hand the harrowing reality of how court-mandated forced and unsafe contact perpetuates the abuse of child survivors of domestic abuse, I say loudly that we cannot ignore their voices—voices that have now been amplified by their rights under the UNCRC. Our court system must pay due regard to their right to feel safe and free from further abuse by an abuser who will all too often use the system as a form of lawfare and coercive control.
I urge all members to participate in the social media vigil #ForThemAll, this Friday at 7pm, to remember the far too many women and children who have been murdered by their abusers.
16:27