Attention deficit
A couple of months ago, it was revealed that 1,151 police officers in England and Wales are under investigation for sexual or domestic abuse, including 657 of Couzens’s former Met colleagues. One in seven of the overall total has been allowed to continue working as usual while 428 have been placed on restricted duties. Only 378 have been suspended. Allegations against officers are so widespread that the Met Police Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, admitted last year that he couldn’t guarantee that a woman reporting a rape wouldn’t be interviewed by a predator. Is anyone surprised that so many rape investigations go nowhere?
It has been clear for a long time that there are failures at every point in the system, from vetting of police recruits, training and supervision of officers, and investigation of complaints. Various initiatives have been announced in an attempt to regain public confidence, including Operation Onyx, which reinvestigates allegations against officers where lines of inquiry might have been missed.
But none of this is happening quickly enough for women who find themselves agonising over whether to report a rape. Couzens should never have been allowed to become a police officer, but how many more does that apply to? Scarcely a week goes by without another officer being charged with a whole series of serious sexual assaults, but it’s often taken years before they were exposed.
I have to wonder if more attention would have been paid to this issue if people hadn’t been so busy giving all their attention to the plight of Our Trans Family. It’s as if there’s been a collective decision that feminism won a long time ago and there is no longer any need at all to stand up for women, while men who pretend to be women are writhing in agony on a bed of coals as we speak.
I suspect the deflection is partly deliberate.
It seems like a systemic version of the tic people often display during an arugment: when one side scores a point that the other side can no longer dispute, the losing side says, “fine, but…” and then quickly jumps to a different argument where they feel they have stronger, more secure ground against their opponent.
People do that when we argue, because it’s psychologically painful to admit when we’re wrong, especially in the heat of an argument. So if we have to concede defeat on a point, we make it as quick as possible and then we immediately change the subject to something that makes us feel safer.
The massive shift among men in the police department from women’s rights to “transwomen’s rights” seems like a “fine, but” pivot in the face of having to concede other points about women’s rights. Partly, they’re doing it to deflect from the sting of having to concede to feminists that the feminists are right. Here’s a way to quickly deflect that pain by switching to a topic where they can safely (in the current political climate) show feminists they’re still wrong.
Or just plain revenge on women, aka misogyny. Or all three.
Maybe the sort of men who commit sexual abuse are quick to identify and sympathize with autogynephiles.
I don’t believe that all AGPs are abusive, but many are, and paraphilias tend to cluster (a man with one is likely to have others.)
Seems like the way to guarantee that a woman reporting a rape isn’t interviewed by a predator is to ensure she’s interviewed by a female officer. I can only see one problem with that.
“I don’t believe that all AGPs are abusive, but many are, and paraphilias tend to cluster (a man with one is likely to have others.)”
Sounds similar to ‘crank magnetism’, i.e.: someone who has one crank belief probably has several more.
Similar or identical. Trans is one of the crankier beliefs going, so it’s a case of why not believe in other varieties of bullshit.