By Pearl Brewster

We’re told a lot of things as women. Never walk alone in the dark and let someone know when you get home. Stay in well-lit areas. Be aware of your surroundings. Check the backseat of your car; lock the doors as soon as you’re inside. Wear modest clothing. Cover up, so you don’t provoke attention. All this, so that if anything does happen, we’ll be taken seriously.

In 2018, there was outrage after a teenage girl’s underwear was displayed in court in defence of her alleged rapist, a 27-year-old council man, who went on to be cleared of all rape charges. Irish feminists took to posting pictures of their underwear on Twitter, donning the hashtag #ThisIsNotConsent.

Underwear was even laid on the steps of the Dáil (Irish parliament) and hung on clotheslines in the streets, all to protest the use of underwear as evidence in court. It was humiliating, most agreed – a violation of all rape victims (the majority of which are women) for underwear choice to be linked to consent.

Now, five years later, women’s underwear is making the news once again. This time not linked to consent, but to a story just as violating.

‘Even in death, we aren’t safe from them.’ This is a comment left on an account on TikTok titled Feminism4everyone. It didn’t take long for the ‘them’ to register as men, and although I am aware of the violence against women men can perpetuate, nothing could’ve prepared me for the story the comment was referring to. Be warned, the next paragraph is very distressing.

In a recent investigation by ITV, the Dorset and Wiltshire Fire & Rescue Service was revealed to have a history of firefighters taking photos of dead women in car accidents, to share and make derogatory comments on the corpses’ underwear.

Currents of misogyny stream through every aspect of our lives, from our family, relationships and career to our online experience. With ‘incel’ communities blossoming in online forums, the booming of a problematic porn industry, the gift of anonymity and the rise of male podcasters such as Andrew Tate, most women you speak to will have at least witnessed sexism on social media, but most likely experienced it first-hand.

Far too many of us find out what it is to be sexualised before we’re even sexually educated. From birth to school to adulthood, we live with the troubling awareness that a vast amount of the population sees us as nothing more than objects for pleasure. But despite knowing all this, we never expect it to be the ones whose sole job it is to protect us that are causing the violence.

The ITV investigation findings weighed on my mind long after I’d walked away from my phone. How could it be that it isn’t just strangers on the street we have to guard ourselves from, but those who are there to protect us in our most vulnerable moments? These men choose brutality when sensitivity was needed, and the difficult question has to be raised: who protects women, really?

Time and time again, these male-dominated institutions have demonstrated that they do not have women’s interests at heart. Fuelled by a culture of self-interest, with a ‘look the other way’ approach to abuse and malpractice, there’s no fear of consequence for these men, and for good reason.

As part of ITV’s investigation, journalist Paul Brand interviewed Tracy Lamb, an ex-firefighter, who speaks on this ‘whistle-blower’ attitude. Female firefighters, upon complaining about misconduct by their male counterparts, were ‘either told to be silent, they were being stupid, they were told that it would be dealt with informally. Or they themselves were investigated.’ This resulted in many cases going unheard due to fear of repercussions on their career. Tracy herself was forced to abandon her aspirations for this very reason. It’s not only female members of the public being marginalised by the corruption in the services, but the female workers too.

In more recent news, it’s been revealed that Sarah Everard’s murderer, policeman Wayne Cousins, shouldn’t have even been on the streets at the time of her kidnapping, sexual assault and death, but in prison for indecent exposure. The police had everything they needed to detain Cousins – his number plate, address, evidence – but failed to take action.

No wonder Cousins had such a God-like attitude, then, in these contexts where the safety of women was clearly not a priority for the police. Sarah’s death was entirely preventable. If the British police had for once made it their responsibility and not left it up to women to safeguard themselves against their biggest threat, men, then Sarah might still be with us.

My favourite poet, Warsan Shire, has a poem called In Love and In War, which reads simply: ‘To my daughter I will say/ “when the men come, set yourself on fire”.’ We are lucky enough not to be in a time of war in the UK, yet still, every day I leave my house and worry for my safety, whether it’s day or night – and this is the most universal experience among women.

Our lives are tinged with anxiety, with the awareness that on any random day we could stop being advocates on behalf of the women experiencing abuse, and become these women ourselves. And now, a new anxiety: that something so out of our control, such as death, could invite violation by the very people paid to protect and respect us.

Again and again we hear the argument, ‘without men, who will protect you?’ yet the answer is becoming abundantly clear. Without men, there would be very little to be protected from.

 Pearl (she/her) is studying Creative Writing with English Literature in the UK. A lover of reading and writing fiction and poetry, this is her first published non-fiction piece. She has a passion for using her writing to explore the queer female experience, and she looks forward to exploring this more.