Monday, 25 November is White Ribbon Day - a national campaign inviting men and boys to take a stand against male violence toward women and girls. It also marks the start of the global 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence.
Bishop Simon Burton-Jones, the Bishop of Tonbridge has shared a message inviting men to make the White Ribbon promise to never use, excuse or remain silent about men’s violence against women.
Read his message in full below or watch here
White Ribbon Day - 2024
It’s said that nagging is the repetition of unpalatable truths. The same could be said of statistics.
In the year to March 2023, the police recorded 3,000 crimes of violence against women and girls every day. I’ll do the maths for you.
That’s two every minute. And that’s only reported crimes, which are often the tip of the iceberg.
Since 2018, there has been a 37% increase in reported crimes of violence against women and girls. The whole thing is getting worse. A lot worse.
It isn’t obvious why this is so.
Thanks to social media, the online world has become utterly toxic for women with any public profile. Misogyny has found a loud hailer on social media; a concerted attempt to frighten women and drive them out of the public world. But it can’t all be put down to the poison online seeping offline.
Because this is real world violence.
Perhaps females are more willing to report violence against them, but if so, this advance only starts to reveal the depth of the problem. A million recorded violent crimes a year against females is a million too many.
If the culture has changed for the worse, it can also change for the better. This change can’t be made quickly and it can’t be left to government and law enforcement, however important that is.
We have to contribute to culture change in a thousand small ways.
November 25 is White Ribbon Day, launching 16 days of global action against gender based violence. And White Ribbon has a special focus. It asks men to make a pledge to never use, excuse or remain silent about men’s violence against women.
Too often, the issue of violence against women has been framed as a problem for women to solve when all the time it is men who have generated this trauma. As this year’s theme says: it starts with men.
To make the White Ribbon pledge is not about men riding to the rescue of helpless women in another case of patronising chauvinism. It is about men working together to draw the poison of gender based violence and the culture of misogyny in which it is formed.
And here’s the thing: maybe this White Ribbon pledge is going to cost some of us because it asks men not to excuse or remain silent about men’s violence against women.
In 2024, we have seen one high profile case in which a famous and wealthy man abused his position of power to commit horrible acts of sexual violence against hundreds of women in his employment while the men around him kept quiet, presumably because it was personally advantageous for them to do so.
The pledge must have an edge if it is to cut deeply into places of male entitlement.
As Jesus’ life drew to a close, his friend Mary poured some expensive perfume over his feet and wiped it with her hair. She was instantly judged by at least one man for having wasted a lot of money that could have been spent elsewhere. It was a timeless example of a woman’s actions being labelled by a man as emotional and unstable – not rational.
And Jesus’ response?
Leave her alone, he said.
If you’re tempted to think that Jesus has nothing to say about men’s demeaning attitudes and violent conduct towards women today, think again.
Leave her alone, he tells us.
If you’re a man, please join with me in making the White Ribbon pledge today: I promise to never use, excuse or remain silent about men’s violence against women.
Because women are created free and in the image of God.
Bishop Simon Burton-Jones
Bishop of Tonbridge
November 2024
Get help
If you or someone you know is being affected by domestic abuse details of support can be found here: www.rochester.anglican.org/safeguarding/domesticabuse/