when we try to imagine a world free from harm, this example of one woman being killed every three days by a man in the uk should make us think about what harm we center, and how intimate interpersonal violence and state violence are so connected :( https://twitter.com/Tarek_Younis_/status/1330433911059607553

if we keep thinking that policing and legislating against harm is the way to end every kind of violence, we make more of the most vulnerable people more vulnerable - for those of us whom the policy/police harm our families (most of us?!) we need to be able to be safe from BOTH

these nos DEMAND another way of imagining safety/wellbeing. what wld it mean to center undocumented womens experiences of interpersonal harm for eg? starting there in our imagining we see QUICKLY how policing cannot be the arbiter of safety - theyre more likely to incarcerate her

also remember that the majority of women IN prison in the uk have experienced domestic abuse or violence... what would it mean to actually center SURVIVORS in our imaginings? cant we see here so EASILY that policing and legislating violence doesnt make most of us safer?! :(

imagine if we were genuinely invested in the lives of vulnerable women rather than merely working to invisibilise this type of violence? what questions would we have to start asking? what would accountability look like? we need to transform our vision of justice!

the longer the state either individualises violence against women, or implies its specifically racialised, the longer women will keep dying. if the state ACTUALLY cared about women's wellbeing from interpersonal harm, surivors wouldnt be in prison, detention centers & surveilled

we need to understand multiple things to be true at the same time. gendered violence and misogyny harm women (kill women!); but so does the state, so does the hostile environment & prisons, & guess what? a tonne of women EXPERIENCE BOTH AT THE SAME TIME! imagine if they mattered!

the article actually says, "A history of abuse was evident in at least 611 cases (59%)" and "A third of the women had reported their abuse to the police. They still died."

there's only one obvious take home here... the ONE thing we're told policing does, PROTECT US, it doesnt..