In the UK recently a policeman was arrested for kidnapping and then murdering a woman, [Sarah Everard](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-56331948). UK women took this as the last straw and organized marches/vigils to protest this and the status and safety of women in the UK.
Meantime in Australia, women have marched in all the capital cities of Australia to demand that Australia does more to address its sexism and rape culture. This is a result of the recent claims by Brittany Higgins (and others, she's not alone in the accusations) of being raped in Parliament by a Liberal Party staffer and also due to the controversy surrounding the historical claims of rape against the Attorney General, Christian Porter. Unfortunately Porter's accuser took her own life last year but others associated with both Porter and his accuser do tend to back up her story and are doing their best to prosecute it on her behalf. The police though have stated that they won't be doing the same. And Porter has come out on the offensive.
Regardless it is great to see women demanding their political rights in 2021 in both these countries. It's even better to see attitude from the organizers of the Australian marches who refused to meet with the Prime Minister Scott Morrison 'behind closed doors' after he'd made that offer. For good measure they'd added that they had 'read the room' in effect putting Morrison on the side of the problem not the fix for it. And there's only been one Liberal woman MP to side with the protests so there's justification for that view for sure.
The UK marches were a little more problematic, various left wing groups tried to take advantage of them for their own motives (which are what exactly, to entrench the power of the establishment?) and police took advantage of COVID laws to break up at least one of the marches/vigils. In the last 24 hours Priti Patel has admitted that she'd had [discussions with police](https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/mar/15/priti-patel-told-police-people-could-lay-flowers-at-sarah-everard-vigil) about breaking up the marches/vigils due to the left wing agitation (hmmm). And over the last day or two there have been more protests about this 'handling' of the vigils. But nevertheless you do get the idea that things might be changing for the better here, if only we could eject the woke left (who are not left in any way whatsoever) and their ACAB & 'Abolish Prisons" banners from the UK protests.
I guess at least it's easy to find the 'agent provocateurs' these days, they're going to be saying 'trans-women are women' and holding up the above banners. Lucky for them feminists have not officially declared war (for now).
#politics #feminism #UK #Australia