Founded | November 2014 |
---|---|
Type | Activist group |
Focus | Anti-austerity, feminism, intersectionality, domestic violence, transfeminism, and working class feminism |
Location | |
Method | Demonstration, direct action, civil disobedience, and community work |
Website | http://www.sistersuncut.org |
Sisters Uncut describe themselves as a British feminist direct action group that is opposed to cuts to UK government services for domestic violence victims. [1] It was founded in November 2014, and came to international prominence in October 2015 for a protest on the red carpet at the London premiere of the film Suffragette. [2] The group identify as revolutionary feminists and police and prison abolitionists, and is open to women (including trans and intersex women), non-binary, agender and gender variant people. [3] The group aims to organise non-hierarchically and uses consensus decision-making. [3] Sisters Uncut originated in London but has regional groups throughout the UK [4] including Manchester and Leeds. [5]
Under the UK Coalition government of 2010 to 2015, funding for domestic violence services was cut dramatically, leading to concern from groups such as the Women's Aid Federation of England that the cuts could leave victims of abuse with no ability to escape their abusers. [6] Sisters Uncut was founded in November 2014 in response to these concerns. The group was founded by women from the anti-austerity direct action group UK Uncut, and its name is a reference to that group. [7] [8]
Sisters Uncut is a feminist organisation, and it engages in direct action to attain its goals. [9] [1] [10] They have been described as "an anti-abuse campaign group". [11] [12] The organisation opposes putting undercover police in bars and clubs. [13]
Sisters Uncut takes the position that the criminalisation of prostitution puts sex workers in more danger. They also oppose the Nordic model in which only buyers of sex are prosecuted, believing that it reduces customers and income to sex workers. [14] [15]
Shon Faye describes Sisters Uncut as a "feminist organisation fighting for better provision for women in domestic violence". [16]
The group has become known for high-profile direct action which highlights and challenges UK government policy that affects survivors of domestic and sexual violence. Protests by the group have included:
Dame Vera Baird is a British barrister and politician who has held roles as a government minister, police and crime commissioner, and Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales.
Erin Patria Margaret Pizzey is a British activist and novelist known for her advocacy on behalf of both men's and women's rights and for her work against domestic violence. She is recognized for founding the world's first and largest domestic violence shelter in the world, Refuge, then known as Chiswick Women's Aid, in 1971.
Take Back the Night is an international event and non-profit organization with the mission of ending sexual, relationship, and domestic violence in all forms. Hundreds of events are held in over 30 countries annually. Events often include marches, rallies and vigils intended as a protest and direct action against rape and other forms of sexual, relationship and domestic violence. In 2001, a group of women who had participated in the earliest Take Back the Night marches, came together to form the Take Back the Night Foundation in support of the events throughout the United States and the world.
In the United Kingdom, as in other countries, feminism seeks to establish political, social, and economic equality for women. The history of feminism in Britain dates to the very beginnings of feminism itself, as many of the earliest feminist writers and activists—such as Mary Wollstonecraft, Barbara Bodichon, and Lydia Becker—were British.
Femicide or feminicide is a term for the murdering of women, often because of their gender. Femicide can be perpetrated by either sex but is more often committed by men. This is most likely due to unequal power between men and women as well as harmful gender roles, stereotypes, or social norms.
A women's shelter, also known as a women's refuge and battered women's shelter, is a place of temporary protection and support for women escaping domestic violence and intimate partner violence of all forms. The term is also frequently used to describe a location for the same purpose that is open to people of all genders at risk.
Reclaim the Night is a movement started in Leeds in 1977 as part of the Women's Liberation Movement. Marches demanding that women be able to move throughout public spaces at night took place across England until the 1990s. Later, the organisation was revived and sponsors annual and national marches against rape and violence against women.
Scottish Women's Aid is the lead domestic abuse organisation in Scotland.
Domestic violence is violence or other abuse that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. The term "domestic violence" is often used as a synonym for "intimate partner violence", which is committed by one of the people in an intimate relationship against the other person, and can take place in relationships or between former spouses or partners. In its broadest sense, domestic violence also involves violence against children, parents, or the elderly. It can assume multiple forms, including physical, verbal, emotional, economic, religious, reproductive, financial abuse, or sexual abuse, or combinations of these. It can range from subtle, coercive forms to marital rape and other violent physical abuse, such as choking, beating, female genital mutilation, and acid throwing that may result in disfigurement or death, and includes the use of technology to harass, control, monitor, stalk or hack. Domestic murder includes stoning, bride burning, honor killing, and dowry death, which sometimes involves non-cohabitating family members. In 2015, the United Kingdom's Home Office widened the definition of domestic violence to include coercive control.
Julie Bindel is an English radical feminist writer. She is also co-founder of the law reform group Justice for Women, which has aimed to help women who have been prosecuted for assaulting or killing violent male partners.
The history of the Metropolitan Police in London is long and complex, with many different events taking place between its inception in 1829 and the present day.
Refuge is a United Kingdom charity providing specialist support for women and children experiencing domestic violence. It was founded by author and Men's Rights Activist Erin Pizzey. Refuge provides a national network of specialist services, including emergency refuge accommodation (refuges), community outreach, independent domestic violence advocacy (IDVAs), culturally specific services and a team of child support workers. Refuge also runs the Freephone 24-Hour National Domestic Abuse Helpline. The National Domestic Abuse Helpline specialises in supporting women, but will support other genders including men, especially out of hours.
The anti-austerity movement in the United Kingdom saw major demonstrations throughout the 2010s in response to Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government's austerity measures which saw significant reductions in local council budgets, increasing of university tuition fees and reduction of public spending on welfare, education, health and policing, among others. Anti-austerity protests became a prominent part of popular demonstrations across the 2010s, particularly the first half of the decade.
Domestic violence is a form of violence that occurs within a domestic relationship. Although domestic violence often occurs between partners in the context of an intimate relationship, it may also describe other household violence, such as violence against a child, by a child against a parent or violence between siblings in the same household. In the United States, it is recognized as an important social problem by governmental and non-governmental agencies, and various Violence Against Women Acts have been passed by the US Congress in an attempt to stem this tide.
Suffragette is a 2015 British historical drama film about women's suffrage in the United Kingdom, directed by Sarah Gavron and written by Abi Morgan. The film stars Carey Mulligan, Helena Bonham Carter, Brendan Gleeson, Anne-Marie Duff, Ben Whishaw, and Meryl Streep.
Jessica Rose Phillips is a British politician who has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for Birmingham Yardley since 2015. A member of the Labour Party, she has served as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Safeguarding and Violence Against Women and Girls since July 2024.
Elizabeth A. Kelly CBE is a British professor and director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU), London Metropolitan University, former head of the, now defunct, Women's National Commission, and co-chair, along with Marai Larasi, of the End Violence Against Women Coalition.
Lois Galgay Reckitt was an American feminist and activist. Called "one of the most prominent advocates in Maine for abused women", she served as executive director of Family Crisis Services in Portland, Maine, for more than three decades.
Domestic violence and abuse in the United Kingdom are a range of abusive behaviours that occur within relationships. Domestic violence or abuse can be physical, psychological, sexual, financial or emotional. In UK laws and legislation, the term "domestic abuse" is commonly used to encompass various forms of domestic violence. Some specific forms of domestic violence and abuse are criminal offences. Victims or those at risk of domestic abuse can also be provided with remedies and protection via civil law.
On the evening of 3 March 2021, 33-year-old Sarah Everard was kidnapped in South London, England, as she was walking home to the Brixton Hill area from a friend's house near Clapham Common. She was stopped by off-duty Metropolitan Police constable Wayne Couzens, who identified himself as a police officer, handcuffed her, and placed her in his car before transporting her to Kent. Couzens subsequently raped and strangled Everard, before burning her body and disposing of her remains in a pond in woodland.