2 million victims of male violence just aren't enough for toxic influencers

Newpapers were full of headlines from the National Police Chiefs’ Council last week reporting that violence against women and girls (VAWG) in England and Wales has reached “epidemic levels”. The police, third sector and others must have been wondering why this was ‘new’ news.

More than a million crimes against women or girls were recorded by police between 2022 and 2023, but the National Police Chiefs' Council and the College of Policing report estimated that at least one in every 12 women – more than two million – will be a victim of VAWG crimes every year. Behind doors (and often in public), many women and girls, old and young, rich and poor, urban and rural, are living lives where encountering violence is a normal, common occurrence.

Despite the efforts of so many dedicated campaigners, taskforces and others in Scotland, the situation is still dire. Of the domestic abuse incidents recorded by Police Scotland in the most recent statistics, four in five involved a male perpetrator and a female victim and more than one in six women has experienced online violence. There were 13 women killed – with a former or current partner responsible for six of those. Women and girls terrorised, families irrevocably changed and lives cut short by violence.

These statistics only show a fraction of the picture – much more is unreported, un-investigated and unknown. The mood music has changed, and the rising tide of misogyny is so omnipresent that I sometimes skim past it, so frequently do I meet it on social media, radio and TV. 

Preening peacocks

Over the past few years, a malevolent voice has grown on social media, spouting hatred, coercion and discontent about how ‘they’ are treated by, and what they think they deserve from, women. You’ll have seen them in the press – the hypermasculine, the preening peacocks of social media with millions of followers in thrall to their particular version of ‘how to be a man’.

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It's easy to dismiss these modern-day internet ‘messiahs’, to rubbish their particular brand of evangelism, but that would be a mistake, they are creating the next generation of abusers. They speak to many of our young (and old) men, engaging and converting them, creating millions of acolytes parroting their poisonous, insidious message.

We need to ask ourselves what gap are they filling? What about the communicator is so compelling that a ‘new old’ belief system has been able to take root?

Sinister whispers

Of course, there’s good work ongoing in Scottish schools, workplaces and elsewhere to address toxic attitudes and behaviours, but, after last week’s headlines, it can feel like a drop in the ocean of what’s required.

Prevention is key. Where that’s not possible, intervention programmes that hold people accountable whilst helping them change behaviour have their place. These need to be intense and of enough duration to change the attitudes and behaviours that underpin abuse, which takes time, and a skilled workforce. 

To tackle this tidal wave of misogyny will take more of us and much longer. We will need to be vigilant to changing patterns and new modes of whispering in people’s ears. But that is only an argument for why it must begin in earnest across society now.

Karyn McCluskey is chief executive of Community Justice Scotland