Many people know the statistic: ‘two women in England and Wales a week are killed through domestic violence‘; but how many try to connect with that and to feel the impact of what it really means?
Through naming the women killed, I’m trying to made the horror and unacceptability of what is happening to women feel more real. I began, in January 2012, by recording the names of all women killed through domestic violence but as time went on, I wanted to make the connections between the different forms of fatal male violence against women. Since I started the list, I’ve counted 197 dead women. I’m not going to stop counting and naming the women until I think the government is doing the same, ‘counting dead women’ and doing all it can to make the connections, making good its commitment to end male violence against women. Please join me demanding action from the government by clicking here and signing my petition.
When I started keeping the list, I was shocked and angry about the lack of attention given to these murders, and what feels like a wilful refusal to look at the links between the forms and causes of violence against women. Male violence against women and girls is a cause and consequence of inequality between women and men, and until a government seriously approaches the issue from that perspective, women and girls will continue to be beaten, raped, assaulted, abused, controlled and killed by men.
The list below is the 78 UK women killed through suspected male violence so far in 2013. 78 women in 243 days, that’s one woman every 3.1 days.
Karen Ingala Smith 
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Karen, I suspect that male violence against women and children would be easier to understand as male supremist or male chauvinist violence. My father used such violence against my mother and I have had two former partners beat me in an effort to position themselves as supreme over me, allowing them to lie cheat and spend household money/my money without consultation as they saw themselves as superior to me. My daughter aged 6 has had to just move school due to male supremist violence which 1 in 3 girls experiences in school and 1 in 3 women experience in the home. Male supremacy needs to be understood as being as dangerous as white supremacy in the fact that the violence is a natural by product of enforcing social supremacy over another group of people’s human rights. Understood and labelled in this context, maybe it would be easier to get people to take human equality of rights more seriously than it is right now, particularly with regard to women and children.
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Karen, you are doing a fantastic job here, the government needs to pay attention.
I think the solution has to be better education in school.
One thought I have is to develop suitable internet materials that could be used in schools to teach children the basics of healthy relationships, the warning signs of unhealthy relationships and what to do about it.
You may notice an influx of foreign support for you petition today! I am doing what I can…
Thank you for your support. Much appreciated. I think you mentioned something about catching my MP earlier too. Don’t worry. she’s on my list, though have a better MP than most where commitment to ending violence against women is concerned.
That’s a great thing you are doing. Maybe at the end of the year we should get together outside parliament and read them all out loud.
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The horrible thought is that the pattern will continue, men will kill more women and if a detective were to try to solve this, the answer is simply the victims were female in a female-hating society controlled by men.
Putting names to the statistics helps the effectiveness of campaigning and also acts as a memorial to the women. Can we talk as we are at early stage of working with others on a plan for a physical memorial.
Thank you. I would love to talk to you about a physical memorial. I’ve emailed you.