Horrendous murder of young woman

abc7ny.com/news/exclusive-woman-describes-being-beaten-slashed-by-two-men-outside-bar/2165608/

Another one. Seemed like the right thread to post it on.

It is an extraordinary disconnect, isn't it?

There are women. There are men. Then there is this entire 'other species' - Violent Men.

There is a real failure to recognise that women cannot make a distinction between men and violent men.

And there is a further blindness that many Men and Violent Men often share 19 out of 20 characteristics and it's only that one extra that makes them manifest as violent.

This 'othering' of Violent Men keeps the discourse separate.

We should be othering men who are not violent (NAMALT).

And not because I think most men are violent, I don't. But this mental distancing continually fails to address the things that lead to violence. Sexism, misogyny, controlling behaviour, entitlement, etc.

All those are perfectly acceptable until they go the extra half inch. Only then, do they get treated as a different species entirely. Shock, horror, aren't they awful.

This is horrific. I'm local to that park and use it most days (but not late at night because it isn't well lit).

Plenty of local coverage but no national to date. Awful, just awful. Poor girl. We should be able to walk about our own towns and cities without risk of violence.

I saw this and knew it would also be a sex attack after the initial description. It is frightening and even more so because it happens so bloody often.

I have friends who live next to the park where it happened, and I've been out in the evening with them and walked home through that park. It somehow gives it a bigger impact when you know the area, and it could have been my friend, or me who was the victim.

Oh that's awful. Her poor family.

Karen Ingala Smith regularly has problems identifying murdered women - sometimes they aren't named. Sometimes they just aren't reported.

Men know how much violence against women doesn't get reported. These men view women as disposable in part because of that.

And yy Saucery. Violence of this nature doesn't happen in a vacuum.

Yet it happens so often to women and girls and many/most of us are permanently aware of the risks.

Yes, it's 'normalised' in our society.

I have quite a hard time knowing what to do with the terrorist threat as we're told not to change our behaviour or the terrorists have won. Yet as a girl and now a woman, I've had it drummed into me that I need to adjust my behaviour to the ever-present threat of men. And if I don't do that, I'm asking for it

But I digress. I saw this murder mentioned briefly in the news the other day. And was shocked.

Ellen sounds like a lovely woman who was only just getting started on life. Clearly the apple of her parents' eye. And their only child. I can't imagine their pain.

www.huffingtonpost.com/bina-shah/gender-based-violence_b_8642918.html

I found this quite an interesting view on the different approaches to terrorism and violence against women.

I will be very surprised if the alleged murderer has no previous history of violence or harassment of women.

It's horrifying and yet there seems to be absolutely no desire to treat this as a pattern at all.

The absurd thing, given the increasing vigilance around terrorism, is that misogyny and domestic violence are connecting factors in all the recent terror attackers so surely we should be looking at this as a way of measuring overall violence as well as violence towards women.

From the articles, she seemed like an ace young woman. It's completely tragic that her life is gone and her family's lives ruined so the piece of shit who killed her could have his few minutes of fun.
I feel like if the authorities approached violence against women in the same way they do terrorism -using intelligence to assess risk- maybe we'd get somewhere. Maybe not though.

Thing is, i have DD1 away at uni, living in a very rough part of a big city, drinking and clubbing and getting up to all sorts. And I worry about her a lot and talk to her about keeping safe.

But DD2 is at a this naice, selective, gently geeky college in a naice bit of town and I have never worried at all.

But we are not safe anywhere are we? However we live our lives or modify our behaviour. Has a 50 year old woman ever attacked and murdered a random 18 year old young man? I imagine it is vanishingly rare.

My DD goes to that college so it's very close to home for us. I can't begin to imagine what that poor family are going through. They are all in the middle of A levels now. Such a massive waste of a young life with so much potential.

It's been reported locally but not very much nationally. Very little info given and the note left by police saying they are so sorry they didn't get there in time isn't usual.

Gun crime in London is up 54% and knife crime 24%.

Those are barely being reported either. Even the fatal shooting of a (female, teenage) bystander in Kilburn.

I don't believe for a second that the press are lackeys of the government, so I have no idea why crime is so little reported.

There was a running thread on here (before we got drowned in kool-aid) about the women who had been murdered by men.
I can't find it - if someone can, please link to it.

It seems more important than ever, now that we are slowly loosing even the right to define ourselves as women, we don't forget these women who were murdered purely for being women.