Permission to deny access

Victory lap for Kath Viner and Guardian's emphatic judgement against Noel Clarke, but offers little relief in a deluge of violence against women at the hands of men.

Trigger warning: sexual violence and abuse with quite a bit of angry despair

Does Noel Clarke actually just believe he is a run of the mill flirt that grew up on Loaded, Nuts and Zoo and that you can't blame a guy for trying? Does Gregg Wallace actually think that because at one point he was a local grocer, it would be funny for him to shove his meat and veg in a bag? Do their rose coloured glasses make them believe that they exist on a Brazzers porn set world where women are all secretly flattered by sexual abuse?

Are these specifically gross rose coloured glasses being mass produced and handed out to boys in schools, churches and at sports clubs and changing the fundamental rules of acceptable behaviour?

Have we gotten to the new low that boys and men's collective moral compass is broken to the point that it now justifies and excuses behaviour that women immediately recognise as scary and threatening but now have grown to expect as commonplace and begrudgingly accept as the cost of being a woman?

Take dick pics. For Emily Atack’s BBC documentary Asking for It? we were discussing the volume of unsolicited dick pics we receive and I joked about what it would take for her or I to send a stranger from the telly intimate pictures of ourselves. We got the giggles and laughed for ten minutes it is so beyond the realm of conceivable behaviour yet we are telling 11 and 12 year old girls that a normal part of becoming a teenager is that you will receive pictures of penises from boys in school and men on public transport.

In the doc, two officers attended Emily’s home for the worst of the offenders that sent her daily threats and pornographic pictures. The Met’s policy is that to report and get a crime reference number officers need to attend your home and they readily admit that there is no chance that they will track and prosecute someone for something as innocuous as a dick pic. Volume wise, Emily has received thousands of dick pics. I have received hundreds and generally get 15 dicks every time I am on the news campaigning for women’s safety.

They are accepted and shrugged off. That experience has conditioned me to expect and dismiss those acts as a tax of being a woman nominally in the public eye.

Has male entitlement to shoot their shot and have their views heard (and dicks seen) reached that point that men actually don't know or believe that they are crossing women’s boundaries, scaring women and that their actions and behaviour is perceived as violent and predatory?

Criminalising acts-- like staring on the tube are signposting and not enforced, but have we reached the stage that boys and men genuinely have lost perspective on what civil and respectful conduct is and what they should and should not be doing?

Very intentionally this is generalised and incendiary, but just today I have given interviews about violent crimes against women on trains increasing by 5% and the number of sexual offenses increasing by 10% above last year to March 31 and a 17 year old Lisa who was killed riding her bike home in the Netherlands after calling the police for help. The only help she was given was that her body was located almost immediately.

I know all men are not rapists. I know all men don’t send dick pics. But I know very reasonable good men that think feminism has gone too far and that women are overstating our experiences with sexual violence and male violence and threats against us.

For the last four years, I have regularly been quoted saying the only time we actually care about justice for women is once they are already dead, and to be clear, I very specifically am referring to male perpetrated violence against women.

Has society been so severely impacted by the backlash against feminism that the social contract of appropriate behaviour to other humans has been depleted?

This is not in any way give a free pass to the likes of Noel Clarke and Gregg Wallace but how do we press reset on the most basic level to teach boys and men how to act and observe women’s boundaries and consent?

How do we reestablish civility and social norms that allow women to exist without a constant low level pervasive acceptance of ourselves as potential targets to male violence. Data for misogynists acts is not collected or classified as hate crimes because as Boris Johnson declared, it would overwhelm the police.

Let me spell out the difference between a misogynist crime and a crime without gendered intention. If someone steals my purse in a pub- that is not a misogynistic crime just because women are more likely to carry purses. If the person stealing my purse or mugging me sexualises the crime, gropes me, threatens to rape me or sexually assaults me, that is a crime with my being a woman as a determining factor. They acted in a specific way because of my being female.

Women have become complicit in the understanding that our lives are only unscathed because men choose not to violate our space, bodies and lives. We are conditioned to be grateful to men that treat us humanely, like a dog grateful not to be kicked. After a boring but uneventful date, women are relieved when sharing that there was no connection, but at least we were not assaulted, spiked or verbally abused.

Women have been conditioned to expect casual violence and abuse as the normal tax of being female. It is daily. It is just normal.

Only with male permission do women have the right to exist and reproduce and women are humoured with the fallacy and propaganda that we have achieved a measure of parity. We’ve never gotten anywhere close to actual equality, yet now we are ricocheting to a place that makes Gilead look like a breeze.

The repeal of women’s rights and protections is loud and clear. Men gave us too much rope and they are taking it back and hanging us with it.

Make no mistake:

Men have chosen to allow us to work. Men have chosen to allow us to vote. Men have allowed us to wear trousers. Men have allowed us to cosplay equality and division of labour and power on paper while reminding us that they can take it all away if they decide to. Men allow us to nominally achieve court rulings and practices that indicate that we have autonomy over our bodies and experiences; but in practice, what actual human rights do I have that they cannot remove?

Where am I completely safe? When do I believe that I am invincible and that if given the opportunity, with no threat of punishment or being ever found out do I believe that men would not act on whatever urge they have, just because their desires or experience is more valid and outranks mine.

Never was this clearer than in the horrific Giselè Pelicot case, men from every age and walk of life, men with children, men with wives, men with a wide of range of roles in society were happy to, even eager to rape an unconscious woman in her seventies.

Currently we still have the semblance of social guidelines and order that dictate that it is not considered humane or acceptable to physically or mentally torture or sexually abuse another human or animal for amusement; unless your country doesn't acknowledge that their country's people are in fact human. But they are crumbling.

It took 26 women to stand up to Noel Clarke, and he still had the audacity to claim that women were conspiring against him rather than acknowledge that he was a continual sex pest.

45 claims against Gregg Wallace were held up, he’s hiding behind an autism diagnosis for not hiding his penis behind clothing.

I want to hear the stories of the men holding up their hands and describing past behaviour that they have reflected on and recognise as rapey and intimidating.

I want to believe that if I was unconscious that not only would men finding me in that state not capitalise on my vulnerability but also collectively assist me. Especially men in uniform or on duty, but time and time again we read about Fire Services taking pictures of injured women in various states of undress. Last week we saw video of a police officer stealing a woman’s knickers while apprehending her. And I despair.

I am allowed to jog because it has been decided that I should believe that I have earned that space, that safety and that right; not because I actually possess agency and control over my body. Am I ever unaware that that freedom, that confidence, that shall I say assumption of humanity is conditional and can be violently taken from me at any time?

If a man wants to hurt me, they and I have been taught a million ways that they can commit monstrosities against my person and it can end up on a true crime podcast. Am I ever unaware of the risk I face of just existing as a woman? Are there times where I have felt completely safe and secure and untouchable, rarely but I have always been put back in my box or reminded that my sense of control, power and ability to dictate my experience can be removed in an instant by a predator with intent.

Was the Noel Clarke ruling a victory, absolutely. Is it an indication of where we are heading, not remotely.