“We need [to] bludgeon cunts like you in the streets,” an anonymous account posts under an activist’s tweet about strikes. “Someone needs to cave your fucking head in.” These threats are examples of the misogyny and violence that women face daily. Ending digital violence is the theme of this year’s UN Day on Eliminating Violence against Women. Digital violence, like many other forms of violence against women, is harmful to women as well as to the whole of society.
Violence against women is on the rise. While the overall rate of murder in Canada has declined for two consecutive years, 28 more women were murdered last year than in 2023, nearly half by a current or former partner. Every six days in Canada a woman is killed by her partner, and almost half of women in Canada have been physically or sexually assaulted in their lifetime, with one in ten having experienced intimate partner violence in the last 12 months. Indigenous women, girls and 2SLGBTQI+ peoples are at greatest risk of gender-based violence in Canada.
Public safety for whom?
Governments are failing to protect women and gender non-conforming individuals. When politicians like Mark Carney and Vancouver’s mayor Ken Sim parade around the phrase “public safety,” they are not referring to women’s safety in their homes, on the street, or in online spaces. Instead, all levels of government steal money from social services to boost military and police budgets. Carney’s government is spending $1.8 billion over four years to increase federal policing and to hire 1,000 RCMP personnel. Yet budgets to protect women are at risk of losing funding. This includes money for affordable housing and childcare, which are essential to fight oppression against women. A lack of services and increased economic insecurity traps women in vulnerable positions.
Police officers are among perpetrators of domestic violence and abuse of vulnerable populations, even when they are called to help people. One-third of all police suspensions in Ontario from 2013 to 2024 were due to gender-based violence. Women lack trust in the police and legal system, which results in underreporting of all sexual assault cases.
Defending the “traditional family” but not defending women
Whether it’s influencers in the Manosphere spewing dangerous rhetoric, or Donald Trump being openly misogynistic, the normalization of violence against women is everywhere. Right-wing ideology asserts white male power and domination, normalizing violence, objectifying women, and pushing the “traditional nuclear family” that exists to benefit capitalist production. (The nuclear family only appeared in the last few hundred years.) Capitalists and the politicians they control may talk about supporting women, but they benefit from women fitting into the so-called “traditional” nuclear family roles of motherhood and “housewife.” Even many women who have jobs outside the household and maintain financial independence are expected to do the majority of childcare and household work.
The alt right is a growing threat to the safety of women globally and in Canada. In particular, some young men are adopting these narrow understandings of women’s roles. The digital sphere provides an easy vehicle to threaten and enact violence, while pushing narratives of control.
Violence is rooted in the undervaluing of women
Capitalism places value on making money and profit. While women’s oppression predates capitalism (it is the oldest oppression that arose along with class society), under capitalism, women’s value is related primarily to their provision of household labour, wages, sex, and children. Capitalism places low priority on women’s contributions to their families, communities, and society. Gender-based violence is a tool to control women and maintain male power. As long as profits come before human wellbeing and the health of the environment, gender-based violence is inevitable.
We need to fight for a new system that does not depend on the oppression of women, but one that creates the condition for their liberation.
