‘If as many people died every week at a sporting event or because they had a specific job, there would be national outcry’
Yesterday marked International Women’s Day, with high profile figures and companies across the world taking the moment to stand with and support women, calling for gender equality in all its forms.
Labour MP Jess Phillips was no exception, sticking to her annual tradition of reading out a list of all the women killed by male violence since the last International Women's Day to the House of Commons.
‘I rise today to keep my promise to every year remember the women killed by male violence since last International Women’s Day,’ Jess Phillips MP for Birmingham Yardley announced to the room, crediting Karen Ingala and the Counting Dead Women project for the research.
‘Women like Karen receive backlash for undertaking such research and after today I will be told that I don’t care about the men who died which is obviously ridiculous and is never said to those who stand up and honour the men of this country,’ she stated. ‘I am grateful that Karen Ingala Smith ignores this and remains on the side of the women who died, not the forces who ignore it.’
She continued: ‘All of these stories are in the public domain. As always, the women are all ages and were killed in violent episodes at the hands of men. Violence against women and girls is an epidemic - if as many people died every week at a sporting event or because they had a specific job, there would be national outcry. These women deserve the same. We must all do better to hear their stories and to end the culture of male violence that killed them.’
After listing the women who had been killed by male violence this year, Jess went on to include the names of all the women who had been murdered at the hands of terrorism in the UK.
‘It may seem to some that this pattern of violence is different to violence against women and girls,’ she explained to the room. ‘However we in this place must recognise that the patterns of violent behaviour and the perpetration of violence against women and girls has been seen in the past history of many of those who go on to commit terrorist atrocities.
‘All of these women mattered.’
