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In the months following Queen Elizabeth the seconds funeral, many in the UK were no doubt thinking of these iconic words;
‘God save our gracious Queen. Long live our noble Queen, God save the Queen!’
I myself am not terribly patriotic but I always admire strong women – which she certainly was.
So why then do the lyrics of the British national anthem implore God to save the Queen?
Perhaps because of her gender?
I’m not sure. I hope not.
But I do know we live in a world where being a female is still fraught with serious challenges, not to mention dangers.
For example…Many of my male friends think nothing of walking home alone after dark. I could do so too and have done, but with the awareness that I may be followed or receive unwanted attention. Which has happened to me more than once. I don’t know of one male who has experienced the same. It should not be happening to any gender.
And when I’m out, like other ladies I must watch my drink. Just in case I get roofied. In the year 2020 there were 1,466 reported cases of drinks being spiked in the UK, the majority of which were women. This was double the amount from the previous year.
Presentation of self is another big issue. I mean we don’t want to be seen as ‘asking for it’ do we? And that term can cover many many things. Certain styles of clothing.
Interactions with the opposite sex. Demeanor. Where a female chooses to enjoy recreation time and where. Who her companions are even.
After the brutal gang rape of a photo journalist simply going about her work in Mumbai India, a politician of the Samajwadi Party (SP) sparked controversy by saying that women needed to pay attention to their clothes to avoid being raped and that women should not be too influenced by television. Another member of the same party said, ‘When boys and girls have differences, the girl gives a statement that ‘the boy raped me,’ and that poor boy gets a death sentence.” Referring to the Mumbai gang rape he stated, “… later they had differences, and the girl went and gave a statement that I have been raped. And then the poor fellows, three of them have been sentenced to death. Should rape cases lead to hanging? Boys are boys, they make mistakes.’
Boys will be boys? Those poor cherubs having to face the consequences of their horrific crimes! How unfair. It is weak people indeed with dark hearts that destroy the lives of others to merely sate their own selfish cravings momentarily. They share a skill possessed by many other nematodes of society both past and present – Hitler included. The ability to dehumanise a person and therefore remove all sense of accountability from themselves. It is exactly that mentality that limits my freedom. Raping a woman to death is not a mistake. Half the world is living a life of fear and repression because of this mindset. Not being able to trust the very systems put in place nor those whose duty it is to supposedly protect you is not progress.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/india-police-officer-accused-raping-alleged-child-gang-rape-victim/
Here in the UK, after the awful murder of Sarah Everard at the hands of a serving MET police officer, women were advised if approached by a lone male officer to ‘shout out to a passerby, run into a house, knock on a door, wave a bus down or if you are in the position to do so call 999’ as a last resort.’
Wow. That’s utterly horrifying that they can’t even vouch for the moral credibility of their own officers. And should we really trust the advice of an organisation that knowingly harboured a sex offender and only took the publics concerns about his behaviour seriously after an innocent young woman was murdered, raped and so badly mutilated she had to be identified by dental records? Yeah, maybe not.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-61561703
I also believe the question has to be asked;
why is it only in the instance of rape that the victim is expected to defend themselves as if they are the criminal – for example explaining their response to the act; did they orgasm, how long did it take them to report, what were they wearing?
Do we require victims of physical assault to do the same? Do we demand that victims of kidnapping speculate why they happened to come to the attention of their captors as if they are somehow to blame?
It seems clear then that victims of sexual assault and abuse are not always seen as that then – ‘victims.’. At least not purely. They must explain why someone decided to assault them and possibly enter their body without consent; how long it took to report the incident or incidents and why. They must discuss their private lives, habits and predilections. It will naturally be assumed that they wish to hide their identity from the press and to have it concealed in any court proceedings, without it even being asked in many countries.
Shame comes with the territory. Why? Because of all the ‘shoulds.’ All the expectations, social norms and cultural values imposed around sexual behaviours and individuals.
The undercurrent whispers…
something they did surely warranted this?
Take for instance what Judge Neil Rafferty KC of Northern Ireland said to a 17 year old victim of rape. He told the victim that in light of the guilty plea in relation to the four offences committed against her by the accused, that she now had ‘a gold standard of vindication.’
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-63784252
Let’s just stop and think about that for a moment there.
‘A gold standard of vindication.’
What does that term vindication even mean in a legal setting?
According to the Cambridge Dictionary, it means, ‘to prove that someone is not guilty or is free from blame.’
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/vindicated
Oh I see…so being raped is sort of a pseudo crime and you will be expected to clear yourself of any blame then? Thank you your Honor. That young school girl must be so grateful you cleared that up.
But really, having read the article and others pertaining to it, I’m at a loss as to understand how a schoolgirl whose life has been irrevocably changed and disrupted who was repeatedly assaulted by a grown man, needs to vindicate herself? In what way did a young girl who by the Judges own admission, showed extreme bravery and fortitude in bringing her assailant to justice, need to clear her name and to be freed from blame?
Can anyone explain this to me?
Men are always going to desire women. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with that. And I’m not including all. I’m speaking in general terms. And women are always going to be weaker physically for the most part (also a generalisation.) This puts us in a tenuous situation, where living freely is dangerous. Displaying that you are a woman of strong passions as I do can be dangerous. Displaying strength of mind and intelligence can be problematic. Being alone or living alone is. Working in a male dominated field. Or in the Queen’s case, possessing a position of power normally held by a male.
Stripped down to the fundamentals, we are animals still driven very much by instinct. It is very much in the interests of males to be dominant and possessive and to mate with as many women as possible. This serves the procreative drives. To spread and promulgate their genes. In order for this to be possible, there must be women favourable to such. So society unconsciously still attempts to squeeze us into that box of supine femininity – restricting us and undermining us. And sometimes we even do it to ourselves. Reducing ourselves planetwide to nothing more than long lashed, Insta bronzed pretty vessels to be looked at and fucked.
I’ve absolutely no problem with sex as you may have gathered from my other writings. Or women enjoying it. I do have a problem with objectification no matter where the source arises from. Being a vacuous trinket for men isn’t empowering. Once you make yourself an object with no persona, you make it much easier for the wrong people to do wrong things. Not just to you. You’re shaping a world view of women one by one, by one, that is harmful.
We are people, not things.
Regardless, mistreatment is never deserved. Abuse is never deserved. Misogyny is never valid.
Consider the following statements.
Mukesh Singh who was part of a gang that raped 22 year old physiotherapy student Jyoti so badly that most of her abdominal organs had to be surgically removed to try and save her, said while on death row, “You can’t clap with one hand – it takes two hands. A decent girl won’t roam around at 9 o’clock at night. A girl is far more responsible for rape than a boy. Boy and girl are not equal. Housework and housekeeping is for girls, not roaming in discos and bars at night doing wrong things, wearing wrong clothes. About 20 per cent of girls are good.” Singh also blamed Jyoti for her death, saying “When being raped, she shouldn’t fight back. She should just be silent and allow the rape. Then they’d have dropped her off after ‘doing her’, and only hit the boy.”
Her crimes that made her deserving of being beaten, raped and tortured resulting in her death eleven days later from her horrific injuries? She dared go to the cinema with her cousin to watch the movie The Life of Pi. She dared to BRAVELY resist the men that attacked her.
And she is the wrongdoer in this twisted animals mind??
Then we have attitudes like Donald Trump’s, who claimed to use his power and influence so that he could uninhibitedly grab women ‘by the pussy.’ And let’s not forget his casually incestuous remarks about his daughter Ivanka, ‘If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.’
Pushing for Russia’s decriminalization of some forms of domestic abuse, Senator Yelena Mizulina said that, ‘a man beating his wife is less offensive than when a woman humiliates a man.’
And in the U.S. in February, a Republican party leader in Utah wrote a letter opposing a wage equality bill because men “need to make enough to support their families and allow the Mother to remain in the home to raise and nurture the children.”
Last week, a European Parliament member, Janusz Korwin-Mikke, asserted that “women must earn less than men because they are weaker, they are smaller, they are less intelligent.”
In order to keep women safe after Sarah Everhards tragic murder by a police officer, The London MET warned women not to ‘go out alone.’
In 2016 Deputy Principal Cherith Telford of a New Zealand school said, ‘All skirts must be knee length in order to keep our girls safe, stop boys from getting ideas and create a good work environment for male staff.’
A Federal Commision on Crime and Violence study stated that most rapists can not even recall what their victim was wearing. That kind of casts doubt on the idea that clothing is a factor don’t you think?
But women are often targets of domestic violence too, not just sexual violence. Here in Northern Ireland we have the disturbing distinction of having the highest murder rate of women per capita as a result of domestic violence than in any other part of Western Europe. And that doesn’t even factor in the emotional misery and abuse many suffer for years.
And what interest if any do our politicians have in addressing it?
Well considering the response I received from Michelle O’Neill Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland to my recent correspondence highlighting my concerns about the rise in violence against women in the province, I’d say zero. Because that’s exactly what I got back for my efforts – zilch.
If no one listens or is willing to act, it’s not a huge surprise that many incidents go unreported. But there are other factors involved in the low prosecution rate.
Fear and lack of trust in the system. If you put one foot wrong in prosecuting, you could end up another statistic. If you speak out, where will you go? If there are children, what about them? If you have been hurt badly enough you will avoid all thought and contact with them, so pressing charges might feel too much. You will just want out. As quickly as possible. I know this.
Then there’s the stigma. I’ve heard men laugh and jokingly say, she must have deserved it. Or what did she do? Men I thought quite highly of previously. But clearly they are of that mindset, ‘she had it coming’ or ‘she deserved it.’
Did we?
Do we?
No.
We don’t.
What we do deserve is the freedom to go about our business unmolested.
To be able to trust law enforcement officers and call upon them when needed.
To have the freedom to be sexual people without it being seen as a cue for a free for all.
To be safe in our own homes and be valued as more than just a selection of holes to fuck.
To be respected by society – because in truth without us there would be no society.
To not be seen as prey because we are weaker physically.
To not be blamed for the crimes perpetrated against us.
To be heard.
So long live every Queen.
Because that is what we are.
Dedicated especially to the light and bravery of
Jyoti Singh
and
Sarah Everard
and to all victims of violence regardless of gender.
‘Though she be but little, she is fierce!’ – Shakespeare
© 2026, SamanthaJWright.com. All rights reserved.
Well presented and representative of the weakness of man towards women. How do you filter out those who do wilful harm?
Let us all live our lives equally. The politician mentioned, constantly uses the word “Equality” She nor any of our money and power hungry representatives care for anyone.
Politicians are masters at saying much and doing little. They act when it suits their agenda. Interestingly, females were regarded rather differently in many prehistoric cultures. We were seen as powerful since we bring to birth life. Femininity was deified. Honoured. Females were protected at all costs. It makes one wonder if we have regressed as a species. My suspicion is yes in some areas.