Why We Should Do More Than Counting Deaths

In light of Sabina Nessa’s killing last month and the ongoing femicides our society witnesses, I wanted to re-publish an article I previously published in the Possible Space Forum as its content is still relevant.

Our modern society is obsessed with numbers.

A key element in the exercise of governmentality is that of knowledge production. Indeed, only by knowing (wo)men — their wealth, health, resources, customs, ways of thinking etc. — can the state optimise their behaviour in a beneficial way.

The techniques of knowledge production used are not only reductive but potentially harmful. To lay claim to truth is to be able to grasp it and render complex reality intelligible and governable. For this, governmentality relies heavily on scientific and economic techniques: through the classification, categorisation and study of its population, data and statistics are accumulated, trends and forecast produced, deviations identified against a designated norm, and technical solutions designed to bring any deviation back into that norm.

These processes involve a subjective normalisation and homogenisation, whereby categories are created and norms ascribed against which to compare and categorise a vastly heterogeneous population. This brings any deviation into a ‘field of intervention’ upon which the state ought to act and inevitably leads to the exclusion or the coercive inclusion of those who do not fit in. The norms prescribed by the hegemonic state in Britain are historically based on the white, heterosexual, able-bodied, middle-class man. Gradually, these are shifting to include the white, heterosexual, able-bodied middle-class woman. This still leaves a large proportion of the population ‘deviating’ from the ‘norm’. This ‘rationality of knowledge accumulation’ and normalisation through intervention fails to acknowledge the multiplicity of realities and the socio-political complexities at stake.

Listing dead women in Parliament firstly homogenises those deaths and conceals the intricate socio-political roots at play in each. Simply listing dead women as yet another number to reduce, and including Sarah’s Everard’s case next to the experiences of women killed at home by their partners, necessarily conceals the variety and complexity of each death. Many reactions to Sarah Everard’s death evoked the ‘stranger danger’ cliché, to which the routinely suggested solution is more police on the street. Another common reaction was shock when her killer was revealed to be a policeman. For some, her death was a shocking deviation from the presumption of police protection. However, this is very much a straight white woman’s privilege: many women of colour or members of the LGBTQIA community who experience regular violence by policemen did not see this as a deviation from their normal. One can understand how bringing together women killed by strangers and women killed by policemen into one statistic to be acted upon could quickly be detrimental to women from minority groups. In this way, the annual roll call of dead women conceals more than it reveals.

The pre-eminence of governmental rationality over other forms of rationality does not allow us to think about these issues differently. If we are genuinely to address the issue of violence against women, we must rely on different discursive tools and rationalities to the ones of the hegemonic governmental state. We need a new conception of power: one where we do not just present arguments for reducing the number of dead women, but where we ask ourselves how we have come to this. One that challenges not just the number, but what this number reveals about the system from which it arises. At the very least, what we need is twofold: to listen to women’s multiple and multifaceted experiences, and to use and rely on those experiences to shape our societal environment — from urban planning to the political realm.

Originally published at https://possible-space-team.medium.com on April 6, 2021.

Related posts:

Intermittent fasting has become a popular weight loss strategy in recent years. It involves alternating periods of fasting and eating, with the goal of reducing overall calorie intake and improving…

Web development trends change to a greater or lesser extent every year. To create a professional website design and development, it is vital for decision-makers to be familiar with them for two…