To be sick of women being told to exercise 'situational awareness'

[Quantumblue]

In Melbourne we have just had another sickening rape and murder of a young woman. A 22 year old comedian, walking home at 10.30 pm after finishing a gig. Through an inner city park where thousands of people walk, run, cycle and hang out each week.
The police response has been to tell women to exercise caution and situational awareness.
So upset at this loss ( she was at school with my nephew) and so upset that the solution is for women to be more aware. We are all aware of danger every time we go out our front doors.
RIP Eurydice

Brilliant post Ginger

Excellent post, Ginger.

That poor girl, and I think of her as a girl, as she's my DD's age.

At least the Victorian Premier has said something about the victim blaming police

au.news.yahoo.com/women-dont-need-change-premiers-powerful-facebook-post-aspiring-comedians-death-045819364.html

Mr Andrews said it was men who needed to change not women.

In a series of tweets, the Premier agreed with the growing discontent online saying Ms Dixon “died because of her attacker’s decisions, not because of her own”.

He urged women to go about their lives how they usually would.

“So our message to Victorian women is this: Stay home. Or don’t,” he wrote in the poignant message.

“Go out with friends at night. Or don’t. Go about your day exactly as you intend, on your terms. Because women don’t need to change their behaviour. Men do.”

Men protecting other men.

This was a violent stranger attack, and the violent attacker is still on the loose.

Advice in those specific circumstances is (rightly) different from how people could and should behave in a society where no-one needed to consider risk.

I would consider myself failing as a parent if I did not teach my teens about the risk of violent stranger attack - and that's boys as well as girls because young men are also all too often victims of violence. Situational awareness is part of risk assessment.

Would it be my DC's fault if they were attacked - hell no. But do I want them to think about what they are doing, in the hope of reducing the chances - yes of course. Especially when police have cautioned there is a violent attacker currently on the loose.

Why are we not doing more to prevent men from doing stuff like this

I'd love to know what "prevent men" actually means. So .... lock up every man? As stated upthread, rapists don't go around with a badge on their lapel saying "I'm a vile arsehole who attacks women", they can be perfectly "respectable" looking. I'm not saying we victim-blame women, but by the same token, saying we as a society need to "do something" is as futile as saying we need to stop drug dealing or we need to stop violent crime.

If it was that simple, we'd probably have sorted it by now.

Good job women get paid more than men so they can afford all these cabs for short journeys men can just walk.

Oh... hang on.....

"Why would you walk through a park at 10:30 p.m. Nothing good happens in the park after dark.
A lady was raped the other day going to work at 6:30 a.m. in the morning and it was light."
Do you see your own contradiction?
So don't walk through parks at all then? Women should be housebound unless they go out with their husbands?

meditrina - no he's not on the loose. He handed himself in to Police and has been charged.

Should women no longer walk home after work at 6pm? Go for a run at 7pm when the children are on bed?
When I travel for work I take the opportunity to walk to where I need to be and get some exercise. Clearly I should be getting taxis and going to the gym.

Oh what. Lovely young woman .

Yes and no

Men should not rape and kill and I agree that’s the primary message . Quite how I get that across to my DC I don’t know but I shall

But in parallel I cannot blame anyone with a DD (and DS) teaching them of the risks that
Men pose and making them aware . I know it’s men’s fault but knowledge is power . At the very least about inebriation , flashers and ensuring you can get home .

I took so many risks as a young woman . Dark parks , dark alleys , dodgy mini cans and inebriation. Was never raped and never attacked .

Some women are just very very unlucky

Statistically it’s men who get muredered . And statistically the women who are , it's usually done by a partner

Due to the sheer horror we hear more around these fairly isolated cases

I understand some of where people are coming from with talking about risk etc and I used to think they way. The trouble is that if you are a rapist/murderer then you are going to rape and kill. We could stop walking through parks and they would hide somewhere else. We could stop leaving the house at night and then they would break in. We could just turn into a country where women are never allowed to be alone “for their own safety” And then we live in the handmaids tale and I am not sure that is working out so well

I have two night away for work starting Monday. I am going to put on a pedometer and aim to get steps as high as possible. I won't manage that in the tube. I will need to walk - or are parks and roads just for men, and women with men?

Whilst there are humans there will always be crime. Rape, murder, robbery, muggings will always happen. It can't be eradicated so it makes sense that we all need to practise personal safety or situational awareness.

It would be great if we could all go anywhere and do anything we like, but we can't because we cannot dictate other people's actions.

Yes it stinks, yes it's always the criminals fault but that's the world we live in sadly.

I'mblue what you are describing is called cognitive dissonance. We have more ability to change our beliefs that the world so we do that to help settle it fears.

Their saying what else can we do to show men. Well lost of things. The media can stop portraying victims as the bad ones. They can stop coming to the aid of the rapists. Everyone can start behaving in a way that truely shows how shocking the take culture is rather than 'not wanting to rock the boat'. E.g. rape jokes in any form. Something is minimal as that should be met with the disapproval it deserves. More and more conversations need to happen involving boys and men. The few conversations that happen now seem to be about 'you can't do that as it is against the law' but we need man to be in a mindset where they DON'T WANT to do it. No, it won't stop all the sexual assaults and rapes but I would help. We all need to be much more clear and much more open about what constitutes consent and appropriate boundaries.

More conversations, less minimizing.

Graphista, are you seriously suggesting that what would have stopped paranoid schizophrenic serial killer Peter Sutcliffe from committing his crimes was a simple message of "you must not rape anyone?! Do you think schizophrenic hallucination can be combatted by a bit of education? A quick pamphlet and Peter would have said" eee I 'no idea I shouldn't stick screwdrivers in't prostitutes, or even women who ain't prostitutes." Do you think smooth psychopath Ted Bundy just needed an intensive workshop? They're really not a great example of your average rapist now, are they.

I think the majority of women are killed by people they know. Lovers or ex-lovers. So we can also exercise our situational awareness by never being involved in sexual relationship. Some girls are also killed by their fathers. (Exercising situational awareness there is a little harder.)

We are all potential targets for sexual violence. This is a bleak and uncomfortable truth. Some of us try to make ourselves feel a little better by attempting to invent stories that will show we are not actually targets. 'I would never walk down that street like she did so nobody will rape and kill me.' Etcetera. Etcetera.

Why are people so quick to blame men for this terrible crime. It seems to have been committed by a man - singular. Sexist point-scoring using such a terrible event is disgusting.

trip I can name approximately 4 violent women who have murdered. I wouldn't have enough time to list male names.
As for situational awareness telling women not to drink or walk home alone is victim blaming or putting the onus on women to modify their behaviour is unjust. However until men, and its not ALL men modify theirs we absolutely must do everything we can to minimise our risk.

Peter Sutcliffe wasn't psychotic when he committed his crimes. I know his family.

I completely understand your point, OP, but were the police supposed to reassure women that it was fine to carry on as usual, if that included going alone through dark, deserted places at night? Or to ask any potential murderers/rapists, including that particular fiend, to kindly stay at home watching the football instead?

In a perfect world of course the poor woman should have been safe, but we don't live in a perfect world, and I'm sure any parents of daughters would also be urging them not to take unnecessary risks. I know I would.

My colleague runs in this park early every morning. This park (and all the others) is part of the fabric of so many women's lives.

Or to ask any potential murderers/rapists, including that particular fiend, to kindly stay at home watching the football instead?

They could advise men to not go out after a certain a time. They're the ones who are committing the majority of these crimes after all...

^time.

I'm also completely at the idea that taxis are safer than walking home.