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After Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa, is it time to make misogyny a hate crime?

October 08, 2021
woman in blue jacket and blue denim jeans standing on green grass field during daytime
Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash
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Shehnaz Khan

It's been six months since 33-year-old Sarah Everard disappeared on her walk home.

Recently, Wayne Couzens, a serving police officer with the Metropolitan Police, was found guilty of her kidnap, rape and murder and sentenced to a whole life order, meaning he will never be released and will die in prison.

Sarah Everard's murder at the hands of someone who was supposed to protect her has been something I've been unable to stop thinking about. Walking her route home at 9:30PM, in bright clothes, by taking main roads and having just called her boyfriend, Sarah Everard did everything she was "meant to do" – All she was trying to do was get home safely, before she was abducted in the street under the guise of a 'false arrest'.

Sarah Everard represents that women's fears over their safety have always been legitimate and valid. We can do everything we are supposed to do and still get murdered, because the problem isn't us.

Wayne Couzens is not just "someone who slipped through the system", he knew exactly what he was doing. Three days before the murder, he was caught on CCTV flashing a drive-thru McDonalds worker. Adding to this, recent reports have also extensively detailed how Couzens was nicknamed "The Rapist" by colleagues because he made female colleagues so uncomfortable. Why did this behaviour remain unchecked? In any other scenario or establishment, if someone was nicknamed "the rapist" they'd be immediately investigated, sacked and challenged. Instead, a woman who had her whole life ahead of her, is dead.

Last week, it also emerged that no less than twenty-six of his colleagues have committed sex crimes in the past 5 years. As I write this, another serving Metropolitan Police officer has just been charged with rape, a reminder that predatory men walk amongst us, some hidden in plain sight, others masquerading as our protectors. Wayne Couzens is not "one bad apple" as people would like to think, he is the product of a rotten system that needs restructuring.

Violence against women isn't limited to this incident, it's systemic. According to Femicide Census, a woman is murdered by a man every three days across the UK.

Sabina Nessa, was a 28-year-old woman who was taking a short walk to meet friends when she was murdered in what is thought to be a 'random' attack. A 36-year-old man has since been charged with her murder. Sabina's murder is something I also struggled to absorb. As a fellow South Asian woman, was it because her graduation picture looks just like mine, hanging on the living room wall? Is it because we know as minority women, we stand a chance of not making the main headlines if we were killed? Is it because she was taking a short, five-minute-walk on a route that was familiar to her? It's because the reality is, Sabina Nessa could have been any one of us.

There are arguments for misogyny to be recognised as a hate crime in the UK. On the outset, this would be seen as a step in the right direction and would ensure the courts treat it more seriously, but extending the powers of the police really isn't the solution here. Ultimately, making misogyny a hate crime will not stop male violence against women when it's also institutional. Giving more power to an institution that arguably has a problem with misogyny and sexism isn't the answer, not unless this system is reformed first and there is a robust, criminal justice system in place, instead of one that is barely fit for purpose.

September was a heavy month for women in the UK. We are reminded that no matter what we do and no matter how many precautions we take, it still might not be enough.

We send our locations to our friends whenever we go anywhere new or go on a date.

We tell our friends "text me when you get home" and stay awake until we hear from them.

We learn self-defence and hold our keys in our fists when we walk alone.

We purposely take the main roads which are well lit and have street-lamps.

We take our headphones out to hear footsteps that are getting too close.

We lock our doors when we drive our cars alone.

We watch our drinks and never leave them unattended.

We try our best not to go out at night, unless we have to.

Every woman you know has tried their best, knowing that it still might not be enough.

For every woman you know, keeping safe is a continuous burden. The list is endless and exhausting. The problem is not our actions, it's not what we wear, how we act or what we do. It's not what we do or don't do to "keep safe'" the problem is solely male violence and until we treat this as the epidemic it is and challenge misogyny in all its forms, we will keep seeing another name in the headlines.

Yes, we know that it's "not all men" - but it's still too many. Until we have widespread education on what produces and upholds misogyny and toxic masculinity, we won't see any real change.

Sarah Everard did everything 'right', she was just walking home. Sabina Nessa did everything 'right', she was just walking to see a friend.

Women should be able to walk anywhere they want, without the fear of being murdered - without the fear that they might not make it home.

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Can tech help female entrepreneurs break the bias?

Women founders continue to come up against common challenges and biases
Photo by Christina @ wocintechchat.com on Unsplash

Written by Kelly Devine, Division President UK & Ireland, Mastercard

Starting a business may have historically been perceived as a man’s game, but this couldn’t be further from reality. Research shows women are actually more likely than men to actively choose to start their own business – often motivated by the desire to be their own boss or to have a better work-life balance and spend more time with their family.

The recently published Mastercard Index of Women Entrepreneurship 2021 found that in the category of 'Aspiration Driven Entrepreneurship’ – capturing those who actively choose to start their own business – women in the UK surpass men: 60% vs 56%. And Mastercard research from February 2022 found 10% of female business owners started their business in the past two years compared to 6% of men – meaning women were 67% more likely to have started a business during the pandemic.

Yet, there are common challenges that women founders continue to come up against - not least the gender imbalance in the household and long-held biases which are still prevalent.

In the UK, women are almost three times more likely to be balancing care and home commitments than men, and this was exacerbated during the pandemic as the additional barriers of school closures and lockdowns meant that the care time of dependents rose significantly on a day-to-day level for women. In addition, women were less likely to have access to a home office, greatly impacting the work they were able to accomplish when working from home was the only option.

It's also widely known that female business owners are still more likely to struggle to access funding for their business ideas. According to Dealroom, all-women founding teams received just 1.4% of the €23.7bn invested into UK start-ups in 2021, while all-male leadership teams have taken almost 90% of the available capital.

Without financial support, and when juggling significant time pressures both at home and at work, how can women grow their companies and #BreaktheBias (as this year’s International Women’s Day termed it)? What tools or support can save them time and money, and give them the headspace they need to focus on building their business?

With female owned businesses collectively estimating revenue growth of £120 billion over the next five years, solving this problem is bigger than supporting women – it’s about supporting the national economy.

Using tech to level the playing field

There are clearly societal issues at play that need to be resolved. But when we look at the rise in technology businesses during the pandemic, we can plainly see an alternative source of support critical for business growth: digital tools.

A third of female business owners say new technologies will be crucial to the success of their business in the future and one in five say it is the most important thing for business growth.

With new technology comes new ways to pay, create, and work. And yet there are barriers that prevent business owners accessing this technology. Women are significantly more likely to say they want to use more digital tools but don’t know what is best for their business and also more concerned about the security of digital tools.

When technology is adopted by businesses – whether using online accounting solutions or messenger services for communicating with staff – it saves them time, allows them to maintain and grow their customer base, and ultimately increases cost savings and profit.

By drastically improving the training and support that is available to women-owned business to access and utilise technology we will allow these businesses to grow and succeed. And we know there is demand for it.

Research done by the IFC and Dalberg shows that female entrepreneurs are more likely to invest time and money in business development. This includes product development, customer base expansion, and digital tools and training and there are plenty of services available offering this type of support – many of them for free.

One such programme is Strive UK – an initiative of the Mastercard Center for Inclusive Growth – which aims to reach 650,000 micro and small business owners across the UK and empower them with the tools they need to thrive in the digital economy through free guidance, helpful tools and one-to-one mentoring.

Working together with small business experts – Enterprise Nation, Be the Business and Digital Boost – we hope to ensure hundreds of thousands of UK female business owners have the tools they need to succeed and reach their ambitious goals. Because this ambition remains strong in the UK, with female business owners largely optimistic about the future despite the multitude of challenges they are facing. Four in ten say they will grow their business in the next five years – compared to only a third of male business owners – and they’re also 35% less likely than men to say they plan to downsize or close the business.

But if we do not empower female entrepreneurs to access the tools and technology they need to grow, there is a risk this optimism could be misplaced. Support programmes that provide business owners with guidance and mentorship can help ensure this isn’t the case, allowing female entrepreneurs to not only survive but thrive in the months and years ahead.