By Harper Cleves
CW: femicide, violence against women, misogyny, racism, queerphobia
“Violence against women and girls is the shame of our society and we must do everything in our power to end it.” These were the words of Declan McNally outside of court after the murderer of his sister, Natalie McNally, was brought to justice.
Northern Ireland: ‘The most dangerous place to be a woman’
Natalie McNally is one of 30 women to have been murdered in Northern Ireland since 2020. Women in the North of Ireland are twice as likely to be killed by a man as their counterparts in England, Wales and Scotland. According to Women’s Aid NI, PSNI officers respond to an incident of abuse within the home or between romantic partners every 16 minutes.
Many researchers have pointed to the legacy of sectarian and state violence in the North as a distinct factor which contributes to the high rates of gender based violence. From about 1968 to 1998, armed conflict waged by paramilitaries and the British state coloured day-to-day life. Women experienced high rates of violence from this conflict, both officially ‘conflict-related’ sexual violence, as well as within their own homes and communities. Between 1991 and 1994, 25% of “ordinary” murders occurred within the home, with 20 women murdered by their partners.
While today Northern Ireland is deemed a ‘post-conflict’ society, many rightly question this label – in large part because of the ongoing outsized prevalence of violence against women. The normalisation of violence over decades, intergenerational trauma, growing economic precarity, and deficient services are all factors which tend to correlate with higher rates of gender based violence, particularly in ‘post conflict’ societies. Furthermore, the symbols of the national aspirations for both communities are linked to very macho imagery, something which would have a significant impact on the socialisation of young men.
Misogyny on the rise globally
Misogyny is not unique to the North of Ireland; it is baked into a class-based society – the modern iteration of which is capitalism. Under capitalism, workers toil to produce wealth for the billionaires at the top; an inherently exploitative and abusive construction based on coercion. The working class ‘trad wife’ then exists in an even tighter coil of coercion; her unpaid wages lining the pockets of the wealthy; her unpaid care work sustaining the household. In this fractious, uncertain and increasingly militarised and violent world, becoming an alpha male who exercises complete control over his woman partner is a false lifeline thrown to young men.
Any gender violence expert will tell you that the loss of control is a trigger for escalating violence in abusive relationships. The US Department of Justice found that “75% of homicide victims and 85% of women who experienced severe but non-fatal domestic violence had left or tried to leave their abuser within the past year.” The 30 femicides in the North, while undeniably connected to the specific dynamics of a society plagued by armed conflict, cannot be separated from this broader context of the violent and controlling misogyny.
A feminist response
And yet, even as gender violence and femicide continue to rise, with more and more men being inculcated into a harmful version of masculinity, a feminist response is also growing. After Amy Doherty was murdered, the 30th woman to be killed since 2020, a groundswell of solidarity, grief and outrage spilt onto the streets of Derry in a vigil of many thousands organised by Derry for Choice.
Organising this sentiment and turning it into a movement can bring about substantive change. Socialist feminist demands could ranging from massive investment into the construction of public housing, abortion and trans-inclusive healthcare, and social services which would enable the autonomy of women and all individuals; to the nationalisation and taking into ownership of social media companies which profit off of misogynistic content; to separating church and state in schools and introducing age appropriate LGBTQIA+ inclusive and consent based sex education throughout schooling.
A socialist feminist future would see the workers and the oppressed take the key levers of the economy into their own hands, to be run by the people, for the good of all. In committing to a struggle against the capitalist system, which relies on and fuels violent misogyny, and in doing so stole the lives of 30 women and many more besides, we honour their memories, and we say – not one more.
