Comment: Predatory men have always pretended to be something else to abuse women

On the eve of International Women’s Day, in the year 2022, with pestilence and war having been visited upon us, and with women, as always, disproportionately affected by both, we are bizarrely, locked in a debate about what we even mean by the word ‘woman’.

And the phrase ‘Women won’t wheesht’ is a uniquely Scottish response to attempts to put women back in their box, to tell them their concerns aren’t valid, that they are on the wrong side of history, to accuse them of being radicalized, to label them as hateful, to shoot them down as ‘bigots’, and transphobes, and yet we have fallen so far down this particular rabbit hole that it is women that are then being blamed for the divisive debate that is whirling around the reform of the Gender Recognition Act.

Women are losing their jobs, being suspended from political parties, potentially turned away from services designed to protect them, and running the risk of breaking the law, for simply daring to speak up about something that feels so fundamental to them - who they are and how they keep safe.

And the more invidious thing is the way bonds of trust have been broken. Barriers put up. Invisible, but very tangible walls, erected. And a dividing line that has separated people into being pro or anti-trans. And yet it is a false narrative that has caused so much pain.

Concerns about changes to the Gender Recognition Act in Scotland which could allow for anyone to change their legal sex without the requirement for any medical gatekeeping, self-ID, has never been about being against trans people, it has always been about ensuring the safety of women is preserved. This is about men. Abusive men.

It is International Women’s Day on Tuesday. Usually, a time to celebrate all that as women we have achieved. And last year, as sisters, we came together in raw grief to mourn the death of Sarah Everard, picked off the street, raped and murdered, because she was a woman.

She was a woman walking home at night. She did all the things we women instinctively do to keep safe. But she trusted a policeman. Because that is what we are told to do.

Wayne Couzens was a predator pretending to just be a policeman.

And that is also at the crux behind the fury and disbelief at such a tin-eared statement from the minister presenting the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill to parliament last week when, in clear response to women’s fears that by allowing anyone to self-identify as a woman, predators could use that as a gateway to vulnerable women, she said: "There is no evidence that predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour."

I know Shona Robison and I know that as a woman, she cannot truly have meant what she said. Yes, predators will always find a way to abuse. We know that they walk among us without wearing a badge. But we also know abusers become priests, teachers, football coaches, politicians, policemen, doctors and all the rest of it, and they use that cloak of pretense and assumed position of trust to gain access to women and girls.

So, I am afraid Shona Robison is wrong. Predatory and abusive men have always pretended to be something else to carry out abusive and predatory behavior. Not all men are rapists, but some are, and they pretend not to be. That is why single sex spaces exist, to protect women and girls from the exception and not the rule.

And for the Scottish Government to on one hand dismiss women’s concerns as not valid, and to then to present a bill that has already created such poison with such a damaging and false portrayal of those fears baked in, is unforgiveable and should surely give license to women who will not be told to haud their wheesht?

This article was first published in The Sunday Post on March 6^th 2022