We saw it. We didn’t just hear it. It wasn’t a “domestic”; that euphemism for the way men terrorise women every day. We saw Mark Field, the MP for Cities of London and Westminster, with his red face and bulging angry eyes, push a female activist up against a wall, put his hand around the back of her neck and then manhandle her out of a posh dinner. He later said he thought she might have been armed.
There needs to be no further investigation into Field’s behaviour, according to our new prime minister. The case has been dropped. New broom and all; just don’t hit me with it. Boris Johnson, of course, had to face down his own behaviour when the police were called because of an incident between him and his girlfriend, Carrie Symonds. We don’t know what happened, except that the police did not take any action. Then, there was a picture of them sitting in a field. What more is there to say, except we also know there is a recording of Johnson conspiring with a friend to get a journalist beaten up? But what’s a few cracked ribs?
The message is frightening and clear. It is about who is in charge and about what kinds of behaviour are tolerated. Male violence, the violence that all women internalise as if by osmosis, exists to shut us up and shut us down.
Don’t fuss. Don’t call the police. It’s all in the past or a private matter.
Two women every week are killed by men who profess to love them. Sometimes, they are strangled to death in “sex games that go wrong”, the burgeoning new defence for murder.
Either violence against women is a priority or it isn’t. Is it any kind of surprise that for Johnson it isn’t?
Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist
