The recent racially aggravated rape of a woman in Walsall, coming so soon after the brutal rape of a Sikh woman in Oldbury in the West Midlands, is another horrifying reminder that racism and misogyny are deeply intertwined. And on the rise.

I grew up in Walsall. This attack happened on the next street to where my parents still live. It is a pretty “safe” area by Walsall standards. But as far as I can remember, Walsall has always had a scary undercurrent of racism that sometimes bursts out — whether that’s a purposeful burp into your ear on a shopping trip, racist graffiti, or EDL marches.

It’s a run-down place, frequently featuring in the top ten lists of the most deprived areas in the UK. Once a bustling market town, it was hollowed out when the massive new Bullring shopping centre opened in Birmingham in 2003. Since then, the place has just become sadder. Even though it’s ethnically and religiously mixed, there’s a lot of segregation. When we first moved to Park Hall in the late 80s, where this latest rape took place, we were one of only a few Indian families living there. Over the years, “white flight” took hold as more and more Indian families moved in, attracted by the leafy streets, bigger houses, and good primary school.

After the police knocked on my mum’s door last night to ask if their security camera had picked up anything, my mum — a regular walker — said she now feels too scared to go out on her long canal walks alone. She is in her mid-70s; her daily walks keep her fit and engaged in local public life after retirement. The fear that seeps into our lives, that then affects how women make their lives smaller in response to male violence and racism, is an invisible tragedy — and one that many Muslim women in particular have been bearing the brunt of for a long time.

A Somali community worker I spoke to in Bristol last week said the same thing: after a racist attack on two local men by four white men with a metal rod in her area, she now doesn’t go out after dark.

These recent rapes show that religion increasingly doesn’t matter — if you’re not white, you’re a visible target for street racism and violence. You will probably feel less safe going about your daily business. You might limit what you do and where you go. The way that cases like this work to intimidate women, could arguably be labelled as 'terrorism.'

Violence against women cannot be separated from the racism that shapes which women are targeted, how they are treated, and how justice responds. We cannot afford to ignore these cases, which are signals of a darker and scarier threat: the normalisation of racism, the claiming of “territory” through St George’s flags, and the rising threat of right-wing ideology, fuelled by long-running resentments over austerity, collapsing public services, decreasing living standards, and a lack of hope or vision for a better life.

Racism, in this context, is a fundamental feminist issue. When women live with fear in their communities, when their safety, dignity, and right to exist in public space are violated, every feminist must take notice. These attacks are not isolated incidents. They reflect a wider climate of dehumanisation, fuelled by divisive rhetoric, economic precarity, and political indifference.

At a time when public discourse is becoming increasingly hostile, anti-racism must be central to feminist work, not an afterthought, both globally and nationally. Solidarity means confronting the structures that enable such violence: from unequal policing and underfunded support services, to state-sanctioned genocide, to the media narratives that vilify migrants and minoritised men and women.

We stand in solidarity with the woman attacked in Walsall, with her family and community, and with all women who live with the compounded threat of racism and violence at the hands of men. Our movements must meet this moment with clarity: there can be no feminism without anti-racism, and no equality without safety for every woman.

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Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash