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Misogyny doesn’t always wear a hood or wield a knife. Sometimes, it wears a suit, carries a briefcase, and signs legislation.

Despite decades of feminist progress, institutional power continues to protect men and fail women—quietly, bureaucratically, and with an air of civility. From courtrooms to Parliament, from corporate boardrooms to the media, systems originally built by men, for men, still function to uphold their interests.

At a time when violence against women is epidemic in the UK, it is galling to see our safety turned into a political football. Instead of systemic reform, we are offered scapegoats. Politicians—largely male—frame immigrant communities or cultural difference as the root of male violence, while ignoring the universal truth: male violence is not cultural; it’s systemic.

The Legal System: A Shield for Male Violence

Our criminal justice system routinely fails women. Sentencing for violence against women remains far lighter than for property or financial crime.

🟣 ABH in domestic settings often results in short custodial sentences—sometimes just months.
🟣 Coercive control, despite its psychological trauma, rarely approaches the 5-year maximum.
🟣 Yet burglary can carry up to 14 years, and fraud or tax evasion often draws heavier punishment than stalking or intimate partner abuse.

🔍 Statista (2023) reports that sexual offences (including rape) receive an average sentence of just 5.5 years.
🏛️ Our system quantifies property loss more easily than emotional or psychological harm—a bias rooted in patriarchal legal history.

These disparities suggest that our justice system places greater value on protecting property than the lives and dignity of women and children.

What message does this send? That women’s bodies and lives are worth less than wealth and property.

The Political Landscape: Scapegoating Instead of Reform

Rather than addressing these systemic failings, politicians have increasingly turned to blame-shifting. Violence against women is now used to justify anti-immigration rhetoric, reinforcing the false idea that male violence is a “foreign” problem.

But male violence knows no race, religion, or nationality.
It happens in every postcode, every profession, and every household income bracket.

Data from the Office for National Statistics (2021) shows that the vast majority of perpetrators of domestic abuse in England and Wales are male, and the overwhelming majority of victims are female. These patterns are consistent across ethnicities. To suggest otherwise is not only dishonest—it is dangerous.

Scapegoating immigrants allows white, British-born men who commit acts of violence to remain invisible, unchallenged, and protected by silence. And it lets governments avoid responsibility for the very systems they oversee—policing, sentencing, housing, welfare—that could actually protect women if properly resourced and reformed.

The Corporate Cover-Up: Misogyny Behind Closed Doors

Professionalism has become a shield for systemic misogyny. In many organisations, reports of harassment or abuse are brushed aside in the name of “reputation management.” Victims are silenced through non-disclosure agreements or gaslit into doubting their own experiences.

Meanwhile, workplace gender inequality persists. According to the Gender Pay Gap Service (2023), women over 40 are among the most underpaid and underpromoted demographics in the UK. Structural biases prevent their advancement, while male colleagues benefit from networks, patronage, and an unspoken tolerance for misconduct.

When HR departments are more invested in protecting the organisation than the victim, the message is clear: power protects power.

The Media Narrative: Selective Outrage

Mainstream media coverage of violence against women is deeply inconsistent. Some victims—usually white, middle-class, and conventionally attractive—receive mass coverage and public sympathy. Others—especially women of colour, working-class women, or sex workers—are ignored, blamed, or dehumanised.

This selective outrage distorts public understanding and perpetuates harmful myths: that “real victims” behave a certain way, or that violence is an anomaly rather than a pattern.

It is not enough to report on violence against women. Journalists and editors must interrogate why it continues, and who benefits from its erasure.

The Call to Action: From Symbolism to Structural Change

To dismantle institutional misogyny, we must move beyond symbolic gestures. We need legislative and cultural change that recognises the full impact of gendered violence—not just its physical but also its psychological, social, and economic harm.

What needs to change:

• Sentencing Reform: Crimes like coercive control, stalking, and ABH in domestic contexts must carry weightier sentences that reflect the ongoing trauma inflicted.
• Survivor-Led Policy: Laws and reforms should be shaped by those who have experienced violence—not just by legal scholars or politicians.
• Transparency and Accountability: Institutions, whether legal, corporate or political, must publicly account for how they handle gender-based violence within their ranks.
• Education and Prevention: Early intervention, consent education, and dismantling toxic masculinity must be embedded in schools and community programmes.

Conclusion

The truth is simple, though uncomfortable: the systems that govern us were not built to protect women. They were built to maintain order, as defined by those who historically held power—men. That order has often meant silence, dismissal, and minimisation of the violence inflicted upon women.

But silence is no longer an option. If the patriarchy wears a suit, then so must we—armoured not in privilege, but in knowledge, solidarity, and defiance.