stop the violence
I don't know what I'm doing anymore, I'm at a loss. Where do I begin, I'm heartbroken, devastated, crushed, gutted and whatever other emotion fits in with the unnecessary death of Eurydice Dixon. I don't know her, and I can't imagine what the family and friends are going through. She was doing all the "right things" the things women must do according to society. She was looking out for her own personal safety, texting updates of where she was, even say she was "safe" 900m from home, however, she was attacked, raped, and murdered. Another story of violence against women, this has seen women nationally unite, mourn, and question how has such a senseless death occurred.
Yet amongst it all, we are left in a state of dismay - men telling us to "stop blaming men" - no one ever stated all men are rapists and killers. Why don't they understand not everything is about them. Most of these men are white, middle to upper-class males. They have never truly experienced being disadvantaged and therefore don't understand that someone might else might be. Most women understand disadvantage because they have experienced it, so, therefore, they understand where they are advantaged too. For example, I am white, I know that gives me an undeserved advantage and I admit that (and I don't think its right). But this is where I get stuck, what next? We are up in arms until the conversation isn't as loud anymore, we get busy, we forget until it next occurs. That's the sad part it's not a case of when now, its a case of who. But HOW do we fix it.
I'm sad that we live in 2018 and there is still gun massacres, racism, gender inequality...., sex trafficking, religious oppression and many more - this show what a sad world we live in, one we don't often like to think about because it makes us uneasy. We expect that because you throw a piece of legislation at it like the women's right to vote and gay marriage, that is all fair and equal in the world. We need the social context to support the laws.
I think everyone needs to show respect to everyone. Men, women, children, black, white, Asian, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, old, young, straight, gay. Have some damn respect for each other, understand at the end of the day we are all human, we all have blood running throughout veins. We need to lift each other up not knock each other down, equality for all, safety for all.
At the end of the day, it's hard to think about. But as Lisa Wilkinson said people like Eurydice Dixon, Masa Vukotic, Jill Marr - these are names we shouldn't know, these woman and so many others like them should be going about their lives, spending time with their families. Being a wife, mother, sister, friend... Instead of telling our girls not to walk through parks, maybe we should be telling our boys not to rape them.
