Singing for Sarah Everard, Speaking out for Better

I’m a mother of a ten year old daughter and an eight year old son. They are now of the age where they ask questions about current affairs and it’s necessary – in a way that I embrace – to discuss news stories with them. Previously, thoughts of how things might affect them were always internal or adult conversations.

Notably, the worst thing in recent years to this end, was the election of Donald Trump, amid open, very public acknowledgement of the things he claimed so proudly to be able to just grab. As the mother of a girl, that simply crushed my soul. A reversal of years of progress for women, I had no interest in anything else he had to say. Four years later, while watching Kamala Harris speak proudly, with all the respect she has earned and deserves, with my little girl, I shed tears. I’m thankful those messages of 2016 did not register in my son’s psyche, hopefully now, his yet unformed views on feminism are in better hands.

Of course, bad things, news horrors will never go away. What I hope my children see today though, is how important – how effective it is when people speak up against things that are wrong, against unfairness, prejudice – all the things. Black Lives Matter, #Metoo, footballers taking knees. These are the things that change things, force conversations – difficult ones, necessary ones. Whatever your stance, whatever your experience it can only be a good thing that the conversations are happening.

In the wake of the recent deaths of Blessing Olusegun and Sarah Everard, a collective of more than 60 female vocalists have joined forces for a “feminist Band Aid” charity single. Siobhan Fahey (Bananarama, Shakespears Sister), Brix Smith (The Fall) and Patsy Stevenson (the woman pictured forced to the ground at the Clapham Common vigil) hope to turn up the volume on current discussions on the issue of women’s safety. The single titled ‘Reclaim These Streets’ will be released Friday 14th May 2021 in aid of UK charity Women’s Aid. 

Siobhan Fahey is familiar with the charity supergroup format – she was one of the very few women to have performed on the 1984 Band Aid single ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas’. Brix Smith said of the project: “When I was asked to take part I said ‘absolutely!’, because when I thought about it, not a day has gone by when I’ve not felt scared to walk down the street. And that needs to change, for all of us.” Patsy Stevenson said: “I wanted to join this project because I don’t know a single woman who hasn’t been sexually harassed or abused in her lifetime.”

Cassie Fox said: “I wrote this song out of rage and frustration. Two women a week are killed by men. Refuge services are having to turn away one in two survivors of violence. And yet refuge funding has been cut by one quarter since 2010. This is a song of feminist solidarity and hope – all women and gender non-conforming people have a right to walk safely on every street, and be safe in their own home.”

For all initiatives like this, for all the people who speak out against the bad and ugly things that go on in the world, I applaud and thank you. You are the ones who make the conversations happen in my little world and ultimately strive for better for the generations to come.

Do us proud, LOUD WOMEN!

• Supporters are urged to visit www.loudwomen.org/reclaimthesestreets to buy/stream the song and donate to the Women’s Aid appeal.