Violence against women
I think it is most unfortunate that Clive Ashwin’s article on the evolution of sexual mores in British society was published in the Friend on 10 January, immediately before Elizabeth Coleman’s article on Quakers in the displaced persons camps of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The previous week (3 January) there was an article by Damian Entwistle on why patriarchy must be resisted. This was very welcome as Quakers rarely seem to talk about male domination over women and the violence to ensure this continues as with all forms of power and control.
Elizabeth Coleman talks of a fourteen-year-old Quaker girl raped, and of the risks and destitution that Quakers and others in the camps live under. We know that rape is used as a weapon of war and has been since time immemorial (see the Book of Judges), but rape and sexual assault are also used by far too many men to ensure domination. We also know that from time immemorial men have been allowed to have sex with more than one woman (Abraham, Jacob and others).
Rather than believing that the popular enthusiasm for the trials of men accused of many instances of historic sexual assaults is because of unease with sex, it is more likely that the #MeToo movement has enabled many women to overcome their fear and shame and break the silence to speak of what happened to them. As one woman said of being raped by a man accused also by many women in different countries, ‘He enjoyed seeing the fear in our eyes’. Crimes of sexual assault by powerful or ordinary men have not been viewed as crimes for most of recorded history. We know that even now placards can be held up at a televised protest calling for women to be raped, killed, beheaded. The unfortunate politicians who spoke only later expressed anger and upset (since the placards were behind them they had no knowledge of them).
Quakers, with some isolated exception of individuals, Local Meetings and Area Meetings, are silent about violence against women (VAW), despite on the news and in newspapers there are accounts of domestic abuse and sexual assault/rape as well as other forms of VAW. (I don’t participate in any form of social media so may be missing a great deal.) If our sympathy lies with those accused and not with those who suffer (the police have recently reported that more women who have experienced domestic abuse now commit suicide than are murdered by their ex/partner), then when asked ‘What Didst Thou Say’ against the evil of violence against women, we said almost nothing.
Kate Arnot
Methods of management
Beth Allen (31 January) praises managers’ skills to promote efficiency and effectiveness, but she does not mention values. For example, if the managers’ values-led aim for UK PLC is to enrich the rich and to run down and privatise state services, then they are very effective.
The power and status generally accorded to managers can limit their insights and efficiency. I know nurses, teachers and care workers who tell me they understand how to make their work much more effective, but managers do not listen. And are technical management skills so hard to learn? There is evidence that the most efficient companies are cooperatives where the workers, instead of being managed, are committed to decisions that they shared in making – a more Quakerly method?
Priscilla Alderson
