Peter Sutcliffe, “The Yorkshire Ripper” might seem an unlikely subject of this blog, but here’s why.

There’s a song on the upcoming EP by The Blue Yellows which started from the imagined point of view of the victim of a real-life historic unsolved murder and also delves into themes surrounding the extreme, murderous subjugation of women that used to prevail in the times when women who were too loud or too clever or too scandalous in some other way were burned as “witches”. The song then found a strengthened focus following a BBC documentary about Sutcliffe’s crimes from a new perspective; that of his victim’s families and surviving victims. It brought into stark focus how the extreme sexism that was widespread in the 70s & 80s in the police force, the press and the public at large led to further murders, and further subjugation of women in general. 

The victims were portrayed as “unworthy” in various ways, as “dirty prostitutes” (often with little or no evidence that this was the case, or any investigation that if it might’ve been for one or two, how this may have actually resulted from the dire poverty that women in particular were often subject to, or the factors in society which lead to women being more likely to be in poverty). Some newspapers and police officers even took the view that Sutcliffe was “doing God’s work” in “ridding the streets” of these unworthy women we’d seemingly be all be better to forget, or better off without. Members of the public asked about the crimes at the time often said the same sort of thing. 

As these murders continued, it was women, not men who were told to “keep off the streets” in the female-only lockdowns of the time. If you are female and go out, surely you “have it coming to you”? The view being that it is up to women to protect themselves from male violence by changing THEIR behaviour and lives. There seemed to be no such suggestion for men to stay indoors, even though the murderer was known to be a man. 

Notions that continue to this day.