When behaviour towards women or girls crosses the line, a new campaign is encouraging a simple everyday intervention – ‘say maaate to a mate’.

Following on from last year’s ‘Have a Word’ campaign which influenced men to change their behaviour and call out misogyny, new research commissioned by The Mayor of London has shown that many men don’t know how to call out misogyny when they see it and found that:

• two in three men want to step-in but don’t know what to say and this was a barrier to them taking action.
• one in four men in London aged 19 to 34 regret not calling out a friend or family member for being misogynistic.
• The research also found that shaming friends is not an effective strategy and the most effective way to challenge inappropriate behaviour is from a place of respect for the friendship.

‘Say maaate to a mate’ is created based on insights from this behavioural science study and shows how this one word ‘maaate’ can prevent low-level misogyny in male groups of friends, without damaging relationships.

Call out behaviour

Councillor Peter Mason, leader of Ealing Council said: “It can be hard to know how to call out behaviour that crosses the line, but we should all get more comfortable with it . This simple intervention, ‘Say maaate to a mate’, can be used  easily, and I’d really recommend taking a look at the film.”

Find out more on ‘Say maaate to a mate’ and to view the interactive film directed by Koby Adom (Top Boy) that demonstrates multiple scenarios of casual misogyny that are too often left uninterrupted and gives viewers the opportunity to intervene.

Tackling unacceptable behaviour in Ealing

Abuse and harassment is commonly experienced by women, and often goes unreported. That’s because women fear they won’t be believed by the police or other support services, or don’t know where to report lower-level misogyny.

Ealing Council has spent a significant amount of time listening to women and making changes where possible to help women feel safe in the borough, as part of our Safer Ealing for Women Partnership. Having listened to women across the borough, the council has launched a new website – A Safer Ealing for Women – which provides a place for women and girls to get up to date information on activities and services in the borough.

Councillor Jasbir Anand, cabinet member for tackling inequality said: “We are taking important action to ensure that women and girls can feel safer in our borough. Men can help with this too, by being active allies and challenging unacceptable behaviour when they see it. As well as supporting this campaign, we are also running workshops in local schools to educate our young men on healthy relationships.”

Earlier this year Ealing adopted a renewed male violence against women and girls strategy. The strategy has four key priorities:

• Prevention: Stop violence from happening or reoccurring through education, increased awareness, and intervention
• Support for women and girls: Access appropriate and high-quality services
• Holding perpetrators to account: Demonstrating that their behaviour is not tolerated and indicating how they can address it
• Developing a community co-ordinated response: Create a culture where it is everyone’s responsibility to recognise and respond to MVAWG.

The newly developed strategy takes the initiatives further, seeking to address misogynistic behaviour, introduce new ways to tackle domestic violence and aims to further change attitudes and culture in communities that can lead to misogyny and violence towards women and girls.