On Friday British police confirmed that they had found the remains of Sarah Everard in Kent. One of their officers has been arrested in conjunction with her murder. She’s not the first woman to die like this, and she won’t be the last. But her death may prove a turning point.
The discussion prompted by her disappearance and death seems to be bringing about change. Women have been begging men to take violence against them seriously for years, but to no avail. This story seems to have changed all that.
One sign is the “enough is enough” pieces being written and published - and that are now coming from men. Their acknowledgement of our collective responsibility for the violence that women are subjected to is a late but welcome development.
I was one of them, writing in an Irish newspaper (not for the first time) about a Swedish organisation dedicated to changing the way boys and young men talk about women, and in doing so treating them as human beings, rather than sex objects.
It’s one of those things that seems a no-brainer and yet it can still be so very difficult to get people to actually change.
Embarrassingly, the #notallmen hashtag began trending on Twitter on Thursday as many missed the point entirely. You don’t have to rape and murder to be a part of or benefit from something that is not right.
It also ignored the effect that negative expressions of masculinity have on men too - I find the things I like least about myself often have a strong connection to that kind of thinking.
Whatever happens, a change is definitely coming, and now it’s just a case of when, but for Sarah Everard it will be too late.
The Week
Last weekend was bonkers. I love the fact that I get to write about and report on such a variety of sports and subjects, but it almost got too much, even for me.
Saturday morning was spent sparring at the martial arts club before a shower, a bite to eat and jumping into my car to head for Västerås, which is a town about an hour from Stockholm.
I mentioned the world cross-country skiing championships in last week’s newsletter, and the second-last race was on as I drove - I got my timings wrong, and ended up having to pull into a lay-by to write the report on the race that I was due to file.
It was won by Norway’s Therese Johaug, who is one of the most dominant skiers I have ever witnessed, but a long shadow is cast over her by a doping ban. The different ways Norway and Sweden covered that story is fascinating in itself.
That done, I drove the last few kilometres to Västerås, where a mixed martial arts card was taking place.
Despite still writing about sport virtually every day, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to cover an event in person, and boy do I miss that kind of social interaction.
I went there with a new Swedish outlet called Frontkick Online - the idea was to help them cover what was their first live event, and then do a feature for Reuters on the fact that, with all amateur sport pretty much banned in the pandemic, everyone on the card had to turn pro to take part.
Like all other sports, the thing that is really of interest is the people and their stories. As I entered the sports centre where the event was being held, I said hello to Pannie Kianzad, who plies her trade in the UFC, before breezing by her as I was planning the sequence of how I would collect the material I needed for the feature.
Five minutes later I realised that I had dissed her, so I went back and we ended up talking for half an hour. Her partner Ilaz was taking part in the first fight on the card, and they were kind enough to let me ask them some questions and hang out as they prepared.
The event was a huge success, especially for Frontkick - they shot a behind-the.-scenes film that I pop up in.
When I got home I went to bed, and then got up again to at 5 AM on Sunday to write about the three UFC title fights from Las Vegas.
After that, another couple of hours sleep, followed by the men’s 50km cross-country ski race, Liverpool’s latest flop, and the Women’s Super League report from England that I write every week.
The MMA feature was due to come out Monday so I wrote most of it on Sunday night, preparing the pictures I’d taken (never shoot sports with a new camera that you are using for the first time) before going to bed.
I loved every minute of it, but it was too much, and I struggled to get through Monday.
Still, It brings home to me how much I miss being out and about at events.
The Music
One Saturday morning back in the day I was walking along Dame Street in Dublin when I met Craig and Keith Walker, the brothers who were the bedrock of Power Of Dreams. They had just returned from London where they had signed a deal with Polydor, and it was such a huge thing for a Dublin band to succeed like that.
Craig still reminds me that I was almost happier than the band themselves were, and I’d well believe it. He’s a tremendous songwriter and a man of huge integrity, and we played the same circuit of pubs and clubs as feckless teenagers.
This week the band re-released one of the songs that made them. “100 Ways To Kill A Love” was originally a riot of electric guitars. The intervening decades have infused this new version with something else entirely and it’s no less brilliant. You can check it out here (you might have to join a mailing list for it, but it will be worth it).
The Podcast
Speaking of music, I spoke to Linda Coogan Byrne earlier this week about her “Why Not Her?”campaign to get Irish radio stations to play more music by women - especially Irish women.
It’s a conversation that brings us back to where we started - misogyny has many layers and manifests itself in many different ways in our societies. Some are obvious, some are so subtle we don’t even notice ourselves that we are part of perpetrating them in our everyday lives. Either way, we have to look at them and see how we can make them better.
The Event
I’ll be speaking to Joe Brolly next week to raise money for Nordic GAA - you can get tickets for the special St. Patrick’s Day show online at Eventbrite. Please feel free to share with anyone you think might be interested - sponsorship for all the clubs has been hit hard by the pandemic and we need all the help we can get.
Tickets are available here: https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/ah-ref-an-online-st-patricks-day-celebration-with-joe-brolly-tickets-143827077661
Have a great week, wherever you are in the world.