Post by Manager of Victim Services and Outreach Programs, Dalya Israel

I was scrolling my Facebook feed last night, trying to stay in the loop on all things popular culture when I came across a news article about the horrifying misogynistic killing of Janese Talton-Jackson. I read the news report and instantly began looking for what others had written about this tragic murder with a critical eye and feminist analysis. I came across writing by The Root and this great response by Idrissa Louise to a VerySmartBrothas post that definitely made the connections between male entitlement to women’s bodies and women asserting their autonomy over their bodies and just how incredibly dangerous that can be…

I felt content in the moment that there were conversations happening that were honouring her life and making the larger connections to the all too common experiences of violence that women negotiate when saying ‘No’ on a regular basis. I emailed our social media committee at work with the links to the articles so we could discuss it at our morning scrum.

When I got in this morning I wanted to make sure that I had Janese’s name spelt correctly… so when I spoke her name at scrum, I also honoured her name; so I Google’d. Googling things in our line of work can often illicit significant gut wrenching responses, and today was certainly no different! My Google search was “mother of 3 murdered for rejecting advances” and Janese’s murder did not even appear, yet…

25,300,000 other stories did in 0.43 seconds. For some reason a good old Google search can really put things into perspective and act as a little cultural barometer very quickly. My brain quickly started thinking about what this all means for us… I had a rush of thoughts; this is only a search for “mothers of 3,” my goodness what if I just searched “women” because that, in all actuality, is what really matters. Janese mattered just because she was Janese… women are murdered for saying no, that is significant. We shouldn’t have to have signifiers next to our names to make us count for something, my brain continued. What are the implications for this ongoing hype around pick-up artistry… men are going to “camps,” “retreats,” watching on-line videos, paying “consultants”, reading, etc. to learn the “artistry” of the pick-up… are they also being taught that when women decline their advances they should be respected as a human being? What story or narrative is being offered about women’s worth in the “pick-up” world?

I’m cautious to not forget that the vast majority of violence that women endure is from those that we trust AND I also can’t help but think that backlash is real. For years the Feminist community has been trying to engage boys and men to change attitudes about women’s worth and value in society, to open Masculinity up and give permission for men to have a variety of emotions, to be vulnerable, to seek support. When I say backlash is real, I mean we have an entire industry, the “pick-up industry,” that is calling itself “Men’s Self-help” or “Therapy for low self-esteem” and what it’s doing is re-entrenching ideas about men’s entitlement to women’s bodies. While being cautious so as not to buy into stranger danger, as I mentioned before, it is also important to acknowledge that these realities and the murder of women who have rejected men’s advances shape and influence the way women feel safe and walk in the world. We must always place the violence that women endure back into the larger context of the Rape Culture that we live in and men are socialized in. I yearn for the day that a Google search for “mother of 3 murdered for rejecting advances” turns up not one result.