Russell Brand’s not alone. Male violence against women in Scotland is now worse than 1970s – Susan Dalgety
With 16,430 sexual crimes reported in Scotland in 2025-26, the highest number since 1971, we’re facing a ‘national emergency’
Pranaya, 53, could have been describing the most mundane incident: “I was on the bus to work. It was the morning and there were other people. Afterwards, I became anxious about travelling and scared during long journeys,” she wrote on a card pinned to a blue-green sari.
But hers was no confrontation with a drunken passenger or an argument with a bus driver. She was violently sexually assaulted on her way to work. On public transport.
Her testimony was just one of the many on display at a heart-breaking public exhibition of clothing items worn by survivors of rape and sexual violence that was on show in Glasgow city centre earlier this week. The exhibition was mounted by Glasgow and Clyde Rape Crisis (GRC) to show that there is no stereotypical survivor of rape and sexual assault and to remind us that perpetrators come from all backgrounds and all ages.
“It can be any woman or girl from across all cultures. It can be businesswomen, women and girls who are just going about their daily lives…” said Dione Weir, GRC’s deputy director. “It’s not about lust; it’s about the humiliation and degradation of women.”
Rape Crisis centre buckling under the pressure
The Glasgow service was the first rape crisis centre in Scotland. It was established in 1976 by three women with a telephone. Today there are 17 local centres across the country, from Shetland to Galloway. Thirteen are members of the Rape Crisis Scotland network. Glasgow, Lanarkshire, the Star centre in Ayrshire and the Western Isles formed a separate alliance in 2024 to champion a women-only service and campaign for fairer funding.
Yet, 50 years after this small group of determined second-wave feminists exposed the scale of sexual violence in Scotland, women and girls are at greater risk than ever before. There were 16,430 sexual crimes reported in 2025-26, the highest number since comparable records began in 1971. Women’s services like GRC are buckling under the pressure as funding is squeezed and demand for support rises.
READ MORE: The shocking rise of violence against women in Scotland requires a whole-society response
In an interview with the Sunday Times last weekend, Police Scotland chief Jo Farrell described the situation as a “national emergency”, echoing John Swinney’s sentiments in a speech to parliament several weeks ago. And in a video message for a conference marking GRC’s anniversary last Tuesday, the First Minister once again pledged his “personal leadership” to tackle the epidemic of male violence against women. But why, 50 years on, has society failed to end it?
There have been significant social shifts since the Glasgow centre was set up in 1976. Attitudes towards same-sex relationships are much more positive, as is support for non-traditional families. Yet, sexual crimes against women are on the increase.
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Internet fuelling ‘disgusting attitudes’ about women
Jo Farrell largely blames technology for shaping male behaviour. She said the digital space allows men to have “disgusting attitudes towards women”. This contemporary misogyny was perhaps best illustrated during the trial of Russell Brand.
In 2009, Brand anally raped a 21-year-old fan in his London home. After the assault, he told her: "Clean up the mess that you've made.” His contempt for the woman he had just violated was palpable, exposing the insidious nature of male sexual violence against women. As Dione Weir pointed out, it’s about power and control far more than it is about lust.
Isabelle Kerr, 70, who now heads up Ayrshire’s Star centre, says that when she joined GRC in 1981 she didn’t imagine she would be marking its 50th anniversary. “I might even have been idealistic enough to think that we'd have solved it all by now. But here I am, almost 71 years old and still working on the frontline and still angry about the way women are abused – from babies to septuagenarians like me.
“I am angry about a justice system that is not kind to women and I am angry when I see another man whose future or potential is deemed more important than the impact of the trauma he has inflicted on a woman, or women. And I never cease to be amazed at how creative men can be in the ways they can abuse and degrade women… but we fight on.”
Activists’ mounting despair
The fight is not an equal one. The Glasgow centre has launched ‘For Her’, a public appeal to support its specialist services. Earlier this year it had to close two of its waiting lists despite demand for its services rising by 42 per cent in 2024-25.
Scottish government funding for women’s support services has been at a standstill since 2021, meaning a real-terms shortfall running into millions of pounds, a situation described as “an absolute disgrace” that “shames Scotland” by a women's rights campaigner who attended GRC’s conference. She, like Isabelle Kerr, remembers the cautious optimism of the 1970s and 80s with mounting despair.
I have no doubt John Swinney is sincere in his condemnation of violence against women, but the government’s Budget next month will show just how sincere. And he is right to say that male attitudes and behaviour need to change.
READ MORE: SNP urged to follow Burnham and exempt rapists from early release amid fears 'public safety at risk'
Just as the judge in Russell Brand’s case was right when he said, on sentencing the rapist to ten years in prison, that “whatever women wear, wherever they go, indeed whatever they drink, they retain the right to say no and to demand justice from the criminal courts”. But it took 20 years for Brand to be brought to justice.
And 50 years on from when three women set up a lifeline for female survivors of male sexual violence with nothing but determined hope and an answering machine, women and girls are still being denied justice.
We are not safe, even on public transport. Recent history has shown how much society can change if the will is there. So why, in 2026, are women still living in fear? Only men have the answer.