Intro

Redrawing the lines on consent, women in different countries are leading the battle against gender based violence. Violence against women is a cause and consequence of gender inequality and a violation of human rights found in societies around the world.

Moving to the UK from Greece, I’ve observed differences and similarities in how gender inequality manifests itself and the different ways that society perpetuates violence against women and girls. Recent events in Greece, particularly a number of women being raped and murdered that led to a resurrection of the women’s movement, got me interested in finding out how we can stop violence against women to create an equal society for all.

Violence against women and girls is endemic but it doesn’t need to be. I spoke to survivors, journalists, lawyers, campaigners, and even a signer who are raising their voice demanding change about how we can change attitudes and behaviours when it comes to sexual violence. Whilst cultural norms, legislation and service provision for survivors in the UK differ, common themes emerged from conversations in both countries: the need for legislative protection, the role of the media in perpetuating harmful myths and stereotypes, the #metoo movement, the need for relationships and sexuality education and women’s solidarity and sisterhood built through grassroots movements.

Legislation

The Council of Europe Convention on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence also known as the Istanbul Convention defines “violence against women” as a violation of human rights and a form of discrimination against women and includes all acts of gender-based violence that result in, or are likely to result in, physical, sexual, psychological or economic harm or suffering to women, including threats of such acts, coercion or arbitrary deprivation of liberty, whether occurring in public or in private life.

Whilst Greece ratified the Istanbul Convention on 1st October 2018, domestic legislation has not yet caught up, including legislation on rape and sexual violence. Amnesty International has been running a pan-European campaign so that rape is defined by the lack of consent. Eight countries have already changed their legislation, the UK being one of them. The law in rest of the 31 countries remains unchanged. The organisation approaches the issue as an opportunity to open up a wide-ranging debate on the social and practical possibilities.

Love is a Human Right, Amnesty International Greece.
Irene Gaitanou, Amnesty International Greece.

"At the moment, in Greece, article 336 of the penal code, defines rape on the basis of violence or a threat of great and imminent danger. In practice, this means that the woman is called upon to make a report and prove that she has been subjected to violence. "It [the law] does not only exclude the many incidents where there has been no direct use of violence, but even in cases of violence it calls for a very restrictive process for victims, which includes: go to the hospital the next day to be able to record physical injuries (bruises, etc. ) but also to go through all the social stigmatization included in formal proceedings, the police, the courts, etc; to make the report." says Irene Gaitanou who works with Amnesty International on the campaign.

Ioanna Stentoumi is a lawyer who has been dealing with cases of sexual violence. She describes how the legislation is failing victims: "threatening a woman to publish a video with private content to coerce her into sex. Does that mean she gave consent? No."

“No social issue is going to be resolved by law-makers… we may get away from extreme situations we have seen in the European law more widely: what underwear was she wearing (rape case in Ireland) or if she was unresponsive (“wolf-pack”case in Spain) …I am repeating things that have been used in court...

“Generally, laws have to interact with society; they are social constructs, a way of defining and regulating something… obviously, they can not be completely separate. For me, the two processes happen in parallel: the law creates confidence and the confidence reinforces the law. At the moment, there hasn’t been a lot of discussion about the social confidence in this legislation and this is something that needs to happen.”

Ioanna was the defense lawyer involving two young women, aged 17 and 22, who were sexually assaulted by a man in a public park. Fearing that the man was going to pull out a weapon, the 22 year old stabbed him to death, in self-defense. She is currently in prison serving a 10 year sentence. The case has caused public outrage among women in Greece who feel that no matter how they respond to sexual violence, they will be blamed, punished or murdered.

“These women are in prison because they killed their perpetrator in legal self-defense. See what we were saying on legislation?  Legislation on self-defense exists; it’s just not applied. Imagine how many women defended themselves, it’s either you are going to go along with it, get raped and killed or you will pay for it in that way. What precedence does that set?”
— Kamia Anoxi

Culture

Danae Karydaki, freelance writer for various news websites, newspapers and political magazines as well as for the Press Project, an independent website that publishes political analyses and investigative reports and run by it’s memebers

“I generally believe that in Greek society, having some experience of having lived in England, there is a great confusion in defining consent, even with people who are sensitised to these issues…not only when it comes to rape but even with sexual harassment. In an article I wrote recently, it was very difficult to point out to people who are against sexual abuse and against sexual harassment that you cannot speak of consent when there is a power imbalance in the relationship, whether it comes to a work environment or a relationship between teacher and student.  It is very difficult to establish consent when someone isn’t free to leave the relationship, as they should be.

We are a little bit behind as a society in our understanding of consent. Now, if the law will change these attitudes, I do not know. It is difficult to establish if attitudinal change comes through a legislative change or if the legislative change is a reflection of a change in societal attitudes. In any case, it is a positive move. With the intoxication example, they [the public] don’t understand that there cannot be consent when someone is passed out. Both people have to be sober to have consent on both sides. That’s something that people are still not attuned to.”

“You effectively talk about how there's no such thing as assumed consent. So, the emphasis that is on women to say ‘no’ at a certain point..which...there's all sorts of ambiguity around that responsibility on a woman. Also, we understand that there's a risk of violence. So, our attempts are always to minimize and reduce that violence. And then those attempts are used as signals that there's something that we want, which is just if you don't mind is very complete b*****. ”

“Because the idea that I try and I talk about and speak up about and challenge quite a lot, is that consent is complicated. It isn't! Not in the slightest bit. There's this great video that we use called the cup of tea” , adds Catherine.

Rachel has been working and volunteering on the front-line since she was 23. She is a survivor herself and she is currently volunteering with the National Help line Live Fear Free whilst she is also finishing her Masters Degree in Counseling. She explains about the role of the media.
“I think people don’t realise how much we are in a patriarchal society and how much that influences things. When a woman is killed by her partner there is no talk about domestic violence, it’s just a murder. It’s not a murder. These things don’t happen from one day to another; he is not the perfect husband and then one day he kills her. That’s not what happens! When you read the stories in the press, it’s “ a 65-year-old has been arrested in connection to a murder of a mother of 3 children”; you don’t hear that he is her partner. I think there is more coverage now, you do get stories now in the press that are more detailed about more serious abuse. What bothers me is that you get 2 women murdered every week and you see it all the time that it is the partner, and no one refers to the fact that this is domestic violence.”

These women are not alone in drawing attention to the trivialising and sensational reporting of gender-based violence and femicide in the media. Over 20,000 have signed a petition created by Level Up, a new feminist organisation launched in January 2018. Their Dignity for Dead Women campaign calls the Independent Press Standards Office (IPSO) to introduce guidelines on reporting domestic violence deaths.

#MeToo

But women found the way to bring their issues forward. Recently through the #MeToo movement a lot of women have come out to share their stories, as a response of solidarity to one another, in a way of saying “we all in it together”.

Meanwhile, we haven’t seen similar expressions of solidarity in countries such as Greece. Danae gives her take on the reasons for this.

“About the #metoo movement, I believe that of course there are cases, and not only in theory and because of statistical prevalence, but also because we all know stories from our friends, about public figures, about actors, directors, men with influence and we’ve heard about stories that were swept under and talked about behind closed doors. The reason why women didn’t come out in Greece, I think, is because they were scared of victim blaming and because of the conservative attitudes in society, and because there is a confusion in what we define as sexual harassment,  they got scared that this would be turned against them. Probably also because we are a small society where when you speak about someone they know him. There is no simple answer to this.”

Relationship and Equality Educations (RSE)

When discussing ending violence against women, most women I spoke to seem to come back to the same idea; that is essential to tackle the mentality behind these behaviors. A way to do that is through, firstly, educating ourselves and also educating children from a young age about what is a healthy relationship

Kamia Anoxi is a Greek feminist collective whose purpose is to create solidarity so that “no woman is left alone against the patriarchy”. Members of the collective were clear that the law alone is not going to have an impact on women’s lives without commitment from the government to put measures in place to challenge attitudes and behaviours through education.

“Let's just think that in this country there are not even the structures to make a report. It seems to me like a tremendous scam by the government to say that it is going to change the law and this will solve things, when there is no sexual education in schools and you have a very deeply conservative society and a state that doesn’t want to include sexual education in the curriculum. It doesn’t even have the structures: advice centres, information and support in every neighborhood, like it should be for women and victims who experience different forms of abuse. And now, a state and a transnational European Union are coming together, the very moment when they are cutting budgets to public health and education, to change a legislation on the penal code.”

The ministry of education has launched a new program in school called thematic week where you could choose from subjects like “identity and my body” or “gender identity”. There have been some cases of teachers wanting to incorporate the program in the curriculum but of course the school governors didn’t allow them. They were threatening to burn the school down.

“There is an example of a teacher who spoke very harshly about homosexuality and a kid ended up committing suicide. These lessons can’t be introduced in schools in this way. There is no control over what is going to be said in the lessons and there is no relevant teacher training on what to do/say. You cannot change things like transphobia, homophobia, sexism with thematic weeks; without the government clashing with the church that has been representing all these. No government has ever challenged that.”

SISTERHOOD

“In the last two and a half years, we have taken many direct actions that have in one way or another highlighted incidents of gendered violence. The movement itself started by one such incident when, on 16th of September 2016, a 14 year-old girl in Larissa was trafficked into prostitution. We were calling each other and we were thinking that we can’t allow that to happen. We needed to react somehow. We came together, and this is how Kamia Anoxi was created. It’s a collective that has raised a lot the issues on gendered violence with protests on the right to feminist networking and self-defense. This is what motivates us.”

Danae adds, “when we found out about the rape and murder of Eleni (Topaloudi) in Rhodes… in the past, we have we had many similar incidents and some were reported on in very sensationalist ways. Ever since I remember the feminist movement in Greece, I don’t remember a grassroots reaction like this. There was of course anger and criticism but it’s the first time, that I remember at least, that we had a march about femicide from various groups and associations and from people who don’t belong to any of the groups but just answered to the call.

For girls it is important, not to just tell them that they can do everything because that depends on many factors, but to also have sisterhood. There are all these stereotypes that girls’ friendships are very competitive and not real. It is important to soften relationships.”

“On the 8th of March, couple of years ago, there was nothing similar to what was happening in Spain. We were counting almost a 1 million in Madrid and 1 million in Barcelona and thousands in other major cities across Spain. There was nothing happening here, so we felt that we had to do something about this. In September last year, we decided that we wanted to be more active and get involved with activism. Our aim was to organise a demo for 8th March (International Women’s Day) this year; to start materialising our passion and goals. We organised the march and it was great. All the energy we wanted to get out…it was the first time there was such a demo in Bristol we were 400 to 500 people.”

“Justice is blind but it’s not deaf, if you are in the streets shouting and demanding. It changes social attitudes and how these are interpreted in court. This is what I keep when it comes to the law.”
— Kamia anoxi