Ballad 2 is about not feeling safe as a woman or femme person - an extremely personal ballad to follow on from the first one. As a woman, and particularly as a woman working in music, I do not always feel safe. Coming back late from gigs, playing in male-dominated and alcohol-fuelled environments: so many aspects of my job require the extra labour of proactively navigating potentially unsafe situations. It’s shit.
I’m from West Yorkshire, and so one book that really resonated with me on multiple levels was Somebody’s Mother, Somebody’s Daughter by Carol Ann Lee. It systematically goes through each of the Yorkshire Ripper’s victims and survivors, with a focus on the women rather than the horrific murderer that links them. It is relevant to Ballad 2 in highlighting misogynistic crime and the vulnerability of women, but also the culture of victim blaming which still persists to this day. Many of the victims had engaged in sex work, and this often shaped how they were perceived by both the police and the press. Beyond this, for those of us living in West Yorkshire, the familiarity of place is significant, and brings home to those not used to feeling this vulnerability that misogynistic violence can happen anywhere, and has happened in places that you know. Whilst I’m generally sceptical of the ethics of true crime, and the book itself certainly has limitations, I think this book has the potential to open eyes.
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