There is a particular confidence that comes with claiming to protect someone. It places you on the side of the righteous, the reasonable, the good. When men take to the streets to declare themselves the protectors of women, it is worth asking what kind of danger they believe they are responding to. The answer is rarely subtle. Migrants, strangers, outsiders. Yet the violence women experience does not usually come from the figures being named on those signs.
The Office for National Statistics reported that in the year ending March 2024, more than 70,000 rapes were recorded by police in England and Wales. Overall, there were about 193,000 sexual offences. Nine out of ten victims were women and girls. Around 90 per cent of suspects in rape cases were men. Most of those men were British and known to the victim. Those are not easy numbers to sit with. They tell a story that does not match the chants about dangerous migrants.
The threat to women is not a mysterious outsider. It is usually a man she already knows.
Old Stories
When I listen to these marches, I hear a very old song. In the late nineteenth century, politicians spoke of protecting white women to justify colonial rule. In the twentieth century far far-right groups in Britain used the same language to stir fear of immigrants. Today it has returned in a new outfit. A saviour complex wrapped in the language of feminism.
This pattern is not unique to Britain. Across Europe and North America, similar movements claim to defend women as a way to push anti-immigrant policies. The so-called protector becomes a gatekeeper deciding which women are worth saving and which men must be cast as villains.
What Women’s Groups Actually Ask For
Women’s organisations have been clear about what real protection means.
- Rape Crisis England & Wales reports that only around 1.6 per cent of recorded rapes in 2023–24 resulted in a charge or summons.
- Refuge, the UK’s largest domestic abuse charity, saw more than 100 000 calls to its helpline last year and continues to ask for stable long-term funding.
- The Femicide Census records that on average one woman every three days is killed by a man in the UK, most often a current or former partner.
These groups call for more refuge spaces, reliable legal aid, and proper relationship and consent education in schools. They ask for investment in prevention and support, not just punishment after the fact.
The Comfortable Myth of the Outsider
It is easier to point at strangers than to look inward. Calling yourself a protector sounds heroic. Examining the culture that excuses male violence is uncomfortable. Yet without that work, the promise to protect is just theatre.
The myth of the outsider is comforting because it suggests that safety can be achieved through tighter borders or increased patrols. But the statistics refuse to cooperate. Most violence against women happens behind closed doors, not in dark alleys patrolled by imagined foreigners.
If men want to help they can start at home. They can challenge sexist jokes in the pub. They can believe their friends when they speak about assault. They can vote for leaders who invest in services that actually keep women safe. They can listen to the many survivors who have been telling the truth for years.
The hypocrisy is hard to ignore. Women’s bodies are used as symbols, their fear repackaged as political currency, while the realities of gendered violence are dismissed or distorted. The figure of the dangerous outsider is paraded as the threat, even as evidence consistently shows that most harm to women is committed by men they know, in homes rather than on streets. Protection is not a banner to wave. It is a daily practice of respect and responsibility. Anything less is just a performance and women deserve more than that.
Add comment
Comments