Everyone's Invited

in Ladies of Hive3 years ago (edited)

Before you get all excited, this isn't some sort of new crypto website offering an airdrop. I'd be the last person on Hive to know about these sorts of things.


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Image credit @lightcaptured c/o Stock Images for Hive

What is Everyone's Invited?

Everyone's Invited is a website set up last year in UK to combat the rape culture. It allows people to post anonymously, their accounts about sexual harassment, abuse or even rape they suffered. To date, the website has over 8000 testimonials (it had over 6000 a couple of days ago over the weekend).
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Some victims have cited incidents that happened when they were as young as 10. Many incidents happened at school and names the school as well. These include well known presitigous public schools (private fee paying schools in UK) as well as some state schools and universities. Here are some testimonials from the website

"When I was in year 9 a few boys in my class suddenly “took an interest” in me and between classes, when there was a crowd in the corridor, they would push me up against the wall and I would have 5-10 boys all groping me at once. It went on for months. Teachers saw and did nothing, I guess they thought I liked it."

- Wanstead High School
"A boy at my school publicly showed a girls nudes to all the other guys around him. More and more boys kept asking to see and he showed them and they were rating her body. I told them to stop and they said that she shouldn’t have sent them to him in the first place and that it was her stupid decision."

- The Haberdashers' Aske's School
"When I was 14, my best friend drugged me and then raped me in another friends house - there was only 8 of us there. He then left and told the others he didn’t feel well and that I was asleep upstairs. I became fully conscious again a few hours later and my mum picked me up at 11pm - no one knew what had happened until I told some friends a few years on. It’s exactly 4 years today (11th March) since it happened. I never reported it as I was too scared and knew the system is set against victims even at such a young age."

- Merchant Taylor’s School Liverpool

The website has gained a lot of traction in recent weeks, probably fuelled by the Sarah Everard incident, and has now led to a cross government investigation to look into the matter.


Sarah Everard

Sarah Everard was a 33 year old marketing executive living in south of London. You notice I said "was". On 3 March 2021, Sarah was walking home in the evening, she even spoke to her boyfriend on the phone arranging to meet up the next day. When she failed to turn up the next day, the boyfriend called the police to report her missing. A week later, Sarah's body was found in the woods some 90km away from where she was last seen on CCTV. She was abducted and subsequently murdered - a London Metropolitan police officer has been arrested.

The incident caused a major uproar over women's safety in UK. A vigil was organised on 13th March in London, but was subsequently cancelled when the organisers failed to get High Court approval under Covid restrictions. Despite that, hundreds still turned up to pay their respects. Some activist groups also turned up.

The police tried to break up the vigil, and ended up arresting four people. If you need to pour oil on a burning fire, this is how you do it.
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Image credit : Sky News

The clash between adhering to Covid regulations, one's right to protest, the police manhandling people at the vigil, women's frustration that they can't feel safe walking on the streets all exploded like popping open bottle of champagne. Only this was not a celebration. It's likely these events contributed to many women to air their frustrations and grievances on Everyone's Invited.


Nirbhaya from India

Women's safety, or the lack of it is not something that has suddenly cropped up in recent years and is not limited to UK. Where it really left a mark on me was the Nirbhaya case in 2012.

Nirbhaya means fearless in Hindi and refers to the 23 year old victim who was gang raped by six men in Delhi. The victim boarded a bus one evening with a male friend. The six men, the youngest being 17 at the time, were already on the bus, one of them was the driver. The monsters gagged and beat up the male friend really bad, and then started to gang rape the victim. It was the most brutal attack, beyond anything you could, and ever want to imagine. Once the monsters were done, they threw the victim and her male friend off the bus onto the road, naked and injured, left to die. The six monsters, plus foreign objects injured the victim's internal organs (abdomen, intestines, genitals) so bad that she had to be flown to Singapore for surgery. She died from her injuries two weeks later.

The reason I felt so horrified about the Nirbhaya case is the mentality and actions of these monsters. Disregarding human life like crunching up a piece of paper and then throwing it into the waste basket.


No means no

Rape culture, sexual abuse, cat calling, porn revenge, misogyny, lads banter, it was just a joke, peer pressure, they're just kids they mean no harm, wolf whistling, shame culture, slut shaming.... these mentality have no borders. They are why so many of us feel unsafe to walk on the streets at night. They are why lives are scarred and ruined because someone thought it was ok even when we said no. No means no, it never means anything else.

It is no surprise that the testominials on Eveyone's Invited has shoot through the roof recently. So much that schools named in the website have rushed forward to damage control their reputation. A national task force will be set up, headed by the police working in conjunction with the Department for Education, the Home Office and the Department of Health to investigate these claims.

The task force will look into the past cases, and hopefully prosecution will come for those predators. But what do we do about the future to eradicate this rape culture?


In the few hours since I've started writing this post, the number of testimonials on Everyone's Invited have gone up from 8376 to 9611. Pretty sure this is just the tip of the iceberg.
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Hi @livinguktaiwan,
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Thanks for sharing this website. Rape is awful at anytime, I think it is very hard when it is done by a parent to a child. Here in the states it is known as incest. It is my belief that it is still hidden topic.

I think that is the most horrific form of sexual abuse, by a person who is supposed to love and protect you. Do you remember the Fritzl case from Austria? That still sends shivers down my spine.

I don't believe I have heard of the Fritzl case, I will try to look that up.

I can't praise this highly enough. I believe the fact that it is anonymous is crucial to so many in stepping forward with their stories. There are countless reasons why many women won't speak up otherwise and judgement is likely the biggest one.

Also, thank you for using and highlighting stock images provided by other Hivers and crediting them. We love to see this and have given you a tip on your post. We invite you to use the tag #freeimageshare next time you use a Hive Stock Image.

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We also have a discord server for feedback, questions and suggestions.

The fact there is somewhere for them to talk about it safely is surely a big step forward. And for those who are still self guilting themselves, hopefully they will know the issue doesn't lie with them now.

This is the first time I used Stock Images. It took me quite a long time to go through all the index yesterday, and I nearly gave up. There was nothing in portrait, female or woman. I don't think you od multi indexing for a single image? But glad i found something very suitable in the end 👍

Unfortunately there are a lot of legalities with photos of recognisable people so it's quite hard for contributors to come up with ones that are permissible. I'm good you found something, though.

We are slowly starting to get images through we can legally use without releases, so I'll have to make an index when we get enough.

Very good page, is the time that everything comes to light, there are victims who do not dare to denounce for fear of being persecuted, this site can prevent others from going through the same thing.

Yes, hopefully it will raise awareness amongst both females, and most importantly for guys so they know what their actions mean to other people

Great post. I have a post in drafts atm I've been plugging away at after the Sarah Everard tragedy occurred. Something I've always found deeply disturbing is the culture that's present in our public service wings (police mainly) where a type of grooming and sexual predation is a mainstay in career advancement. Most of the time the women who are at the receiving end of this treatment are oblivious to what's underway. They have no clue that the officer they are dating is sharing photos of them, and grooming them to pass on the next guy.

Having worked around this type and it taking me a while to clue in back when I did I can't help but feel that by granting law enforcement more powers we are essentially granting the fox control of the henhouse. These sorts are infinitely charming, wonderful at their careers, and normally seen as pillars in their community. Wayne definitely was down in Deal (I know of him in the community down there as used to live down that way, family still do). No successful predator actually stands out. They tend to blend, place themselves in positions of authority, and earn trust.

I think the dilemma that's faced is that this goes beyond no means no. We have a massive cultural issue where if the woman says no, the male just adjusts tactics and shifts into a different predatory stance. Sometimes violent, sometimes manipulative. The perception of the woman is still a creature of prey, not a human being. This is endemic among our civil servants here, not just our culture. It also directly impacts how they handle inquiries into rape investigations. If the officers decide the girl is lets say from a low social position and the officer believes she sleeps around a lot then they will completely pass over the complaint. Why does this happen? What is it in our culture that makes a woman less credible if she sleeps around? It doesn't occur with men. The more a male sleeps around the more empowered he is viewed by his peers. It's a sickening double standard, made more so when applied to responding to the victim of a sex crime.

I worked a lot through my career with victims of violent sex crime and sexual exploitation. I know how hard it is to get law enforcement to respond to an allegation. Every time it has boiled down to a cultural perception on the officer/officers view point of the victim. Website like the one in this post are a big step, but I fear may not be enough. Though I hope it's the beginning of something larger and sparks change. But really in the end we need a powerful shift in our cultural perceptions here with how we treat victims reports, and the predatory culture that currently exists in our public service branches.

I never thought about what goes on inside the force. I mean no force is perfect,and I wouldn't doubt some still see women who sleep around as less credible, but to groom for career advancement... I'm just lost for words. That's institutionalisation 😖

I've known plenty of good guys when they start matey... but in the end they become bad. Dunno if it's institutionalisation, contamination from being around the sick in society, or just bad eggs to start... dunno. I've always liked to think the best of all people until they aspire to control (no matter the motive). Then I ask why they want it. If a human being just wants to live then they don't want power on those doing the same. They want to live and let live.

If they want to help others do the same the idea of power terrifies them from the sheer weight of responsibility it holds... This I Know personally. I've worked my backside off for many people that most would call "council estate slags" who were actually good people doing the best they know how. I've had colleagues who feel the same who are good people.

I'm gonna hammer out a post on the topic here soon. Doubt it will be seen by many, but I'm hoping folks on team UK see it. I've worked in these channels and it used to be my career... I think we need a change in culture personally. Not laws, not new wave female empowerment (nothing is more disempowering), but a change in culture.

It's a global issue, and happens everywhere, but I think there are just too many issues all around the world, and at the end of the day is which issue makes the most noise and rises to the top of the agenda. I have a feeling this will blow up as I fully agree with you, this isn't about female empowerment, but change in culture, in both male and female.

Look forward to your post @mudcat36

Rape is indeed barbaric, neither justified nor defended, under any circumstances. What is surprising is that sometimes women who become victims are even ostracized because they are no longer considered holy, even though they are victims of the savagery and lust of irresponsible men.

That's the massive problem within some in the other half of the population who view and treat woman as a play object rather than a human being, the same as them. That's where the education needs to be done

Testimonials like some listed in this post can be hard to read at times but I think they are worth sharing and worth taking the time to read. Its important to bring more awareness to such an this issue. Its time that things change and that these behaviors stop, they have been going on for far too long. It sounds like that website is doing a lot of good to combat the problem.
Thanks for sharing.

There are some even more terrible ones in the website but I had to stick with some short ones for my post. Hopefully more people will realise what they think is ok, or just a bit if fun is not for those on the receiving end

Yes, I agree.

Happy to see someone who finally thinks about this aspect and set up such a website because I'm sure there are a lot of women who experienced this awful thing and never had the courage to talk with someone.. Unfortunately, numbers are speaking for themselves..

The increase in number of testimonials is really shocking, it has gone up by another 1000 since I made this post 15 hours ago, and this just in UK. Imagine what it's like for the rest of the world

So sad and tragic. I think the pandemic only made this problem worse as people have to spend more time together and obviously, not all can handle that. There has been a truly alarming surge in violence against women all over Latin America for example. Mexico now even has its female George Floyd. Cannot believe this is happening :(

That's shocking, you'd think police forces around the world would be more aware of how they handle people nowadays 😔

I hear domestic abuse have got worse in UK during Covid, I guess that problem isn't unique to us...

These stories always run a shiver down my spine
I read them and wonder what they must have gone through, the terror
Call me paranoid (but I'd say for good reason), I always prepping the girl (actually even the boys when they were younger) on certain situations
Now in subtle ways, I tell the boys what's appropriate and what's not
And only hope that angels are watching them at all times...

I think it's very important that the boys are taught about these sort of things as, to be very blunt, they contribute to the problem. This isn't something the parents can expect the school to do for them. Girls have a natural instinct, it's just peer pressure and fear that often gets to them first 😔

Thank you for two separate unrelated reasons! This is a matter that always needs more attention! I was very happy to see you've used one of my photos for your cover image!

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It took me a while to find a suitable image and I'm glad I came across yours which fitted perfectly the mood and theme of my post!

I'm happy you find those stock images I provide useful. If you need any other please feel free to drop me a line anywhere, here or Discord, as before posting new ones to the stock images community, I always wonder what people here would potentially need :)
Have a great and sunny day!

The part that angered me the most was it will take a LONG time to convict monsters. A Malaysian Chinese woman was raped and murdered but it took twelve years because the monster fled to Australia.
https://www.mariammokhtar.com/the-long-wait-for-justice-is-finally-over-for-chee-gaik-yaps-family/

The Nirbhaya incident was probably the most brutal, revolting act I have ever heard. It really made me ill, what they did to her, and her poor fiance was there too. I can't even imagine. It still turns my stomach to this day. As much as I practice compassion I have NONE for these men.

We are talking a lot about consent and woman's issues in my class at the moment. There's been a lot coming out a bot sexual assault in government and in schools here. Da fuck? It's 2020.