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Original poster

Young woman murdered running, what sort of world is this?!?

373 replies

irishfarmer · 13/01/2022 14:15

A young woman was murdered yesterday in Tullamore, Ireland while out for a run at 4pm. It is not a dangerous area, she was on a popular route along the canal, in day light! These things just do not happen here. I am in total shock. It was a random, unprovoked attack. It's just so awful, 23 years old her whole life ahead of her. She was a teacher so had probably just finished work for the day and wanted to de-stress.

AIBU to think this poor girl should have been able to go for a run on a lovely winter afternoon safely? I know I am not BU just don't know where else to post. I am truly shocked and horrified.

OP posts:
Mummyoflittledragon · 13/01/2022 16:20

@BoredZelda

Bore off

BellatricksStrange · 13/01/2022 16:20

[quote headunderthewater]@Elodeastar
”I wonder if you meant to write 'some men' though, and not just 'men'.”

Yes, let’s focus on poor mens feelings.
Until misogyny end, it’s all men.
Because we can never know which one of them it’s going to be.
If this is hurtful to men, then they know how they can stop it.[/quote]
It's not misogyny, it's criminality. Unless you can show this is something condoned by society, stop making it a men vs women thing.

Due to human imperfect nature, criminals exist. They always have and always will. And let's stop pretending we can somehow cure it by 'teaching our children'.

As long as society absolutely condemns this kind of thing, there is reasonably sufficient police protection in general, and perpetrators are prosecuted when caught, you cannot blame society or patriarchy or whatever other bogeymen you want to pick on.

It's an individual criminal who targeted an individual woman. Why a woman? Well I don't know, but I'd hazard a guess that due to biology (that is biology, not misogyny), she was weaker than him.

MrsApplepants · 13/01/2022 16:23

If it’s ‘not all men,’ well, what are ‘all the rest of the men’ doing to stop it?

Nothing it seems.

mumshouse · 13/01/2022 16:24

I have come to the conclusion that male enablers are just as bad as their woman hating friends. They allow these things to happen. They see and hear disturbing things and don't care to try and stop it. They literally don't care.

Lottapianos · 13/01/2022 16:25

'I feel there should be a stage of emergency imposed with restrictions on ALL MEN for however long it takes for children, girls and women to be safe"

You suggest something like this, and everyone thinks you are some kind of man-hating hysteric (and no, I don't think this is an appropriate solution). But it's totally fine for ALL women to feel scared going about our daily business, to have to plan our lives around the constant threat of harassment, rape and murder. To get told to 'be careful' while just trying to get on with our lives like independent adults. That's all fine and dandy

Well we're fucking sick of it. And dear god, that poor woman, but nothing will come of her murder and nothing will change. Misogyny runs through society like letters in a stick of rock. Most people don't even really know it's there, it's so ingrained. We are WAY beyond rape alarms and panic buttons and sticking to well-lit streets. Men, as a whole, take NO responsibility for this issue, and until they do, none of us women and girls can feel safe

BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 13/01/2022 16:26

Not all women are getting attacked or killed. But all women are being told how to better protect themselves.

Which in itself is an ironic fucking joke.

SirVixofVixHall · 13/01/2022 16:27

@Cocomarine

RIP Ashling.

@Elodeastar my experience is that actually it is “all men” who don’t understand why we feel afraid. Sure, my husband (as an example) might nod his head when I say, “no, I’m not running my usual route tonight because it’ll be twilight by the end and it might not be safe” (in our lovely quiet low crime village). But honestly, he thinks I’m just being sensibly cautious, but more than needed. He has no idea of the fear. Not really. You can throw all the stats you like at me about young men and knife crime too… but fact is I don’t know a single man who would change his run route in my village at twilight. Men might nod and believe we feel afraid - but they (all the menz) have not idea how that fear feels, and how frustrated and angry and powerless those frequent small adjustments make me. For my husband, it’s just a sensible change of route, no biggie. For me - it encapsulates that some men hate me because I am a woman. That’s crushing.

I agree with this.
BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz · 13/01/2022 16:28

It's an individual criminal who targeted an individual woman. Why a woman? Well I don't know, but I'd hazard a guess that due to biology (that is biology, not misogyny), she was weaker than him

Men targeting women because they are less physically strong and more easy to kill is misogyny.

SirVixofVixHall · 13/01/2022 16:28

@BernadetteRostankowskiWolowitz

Not all women are getting attacked or killed. But all women are being told how to better protect themselves.

Which in itself is an ironic fucking joke.

This too. Tragic that this young woman has lost her life.
UltraVividLament · 13/01/2022 16:29

This is so horrific. Another lovely, talented young woman destroyed by a piece of shit man.

The issue is male violence. Nearly all murders are carried out by men, all rapes are male violence, nearly all other sexual crimes are carried out by men. If the number of violent crimes committed by men fell to the level of violent crime carried out by women then we would have eliminated nearly all violent crime. Why does our society tolerate this level of violence from men??

FrolickingFannyBoots · 13/01/2022 16:30

Absolutely horrendous! Poor young woman. Oh my heart goes out to her and her family. Women are just never safe.

I live near where Sarah Everard was murdered in Kent and since that time, has much changed?

Nothing has changed that I can see to keep women safe legally. I’m fuming that we are still just targets for violent, abusive men.

BalladOfBarryAndFreda · 13/01/2022 16:32

Terrible. Poor girl. Poor friends and family. Fuck the evil bastard who killed her.

Skeumorph · 13/01/2022 16:33

[quote headunderthewater]@Elodeastar
”I wonder if you meant to write 'some men' though, and not just 'men'.”

Yes, let’s focus on poor mens feelings.
Until misogyny end, it’s all men.
Because we can never know which one of them it’s going to be.
If this is hurtful to men, then they know how they can stop it.[/quote]
THIS.

'Men' is just fucking fine actually.

EerieSilence · 13/01/2022 16:33

We are groomed to believe that men are hormonal creatures, cavemen in their hearts who just can't help it.
We are groomed to believe that we are the weaker sex and, as such, prey and accept it and live with it. Or die. Or be raped.
That belief still exists, no matter how we try to persuade ourselves about the progress we've made in women's rights.

sadnessoverwhelming · 13/01/2022 16:33

This is very local to me. I know that path so well. I know people who know her dad, boyfriend and sister. I know someone who worked with her. They described her as sunshine in human form.
I didn't sleep last night thinking about her. Her last thoughts.
Did she see him?
Did she sense the danger?
Did he catch her from behind?
Did she plead for her life?
My heart is absolutely aching for her boyfriend, her family, friends, colleagues, her little students but most of all for her. For Ashling, for the agony of her last moments and the life she won't get to live now.
Because of a man. Another man. It doesn't matter that it's not all men. It matters that when a woman dies so brutally it is ALWAYS men.

RIP beautiful Ashling. Codladh Sàmh.

EerieSilence · 13/01/2022 16:37

Actually, we had this discussion with my DH just yesterday, when I mentioned that our dog tends to go into protective mode with me, when we enter a new area or a stranger is passing by.
She doesn't do it with him and his conclusion was that she is sensitive to the fact that I'm more cautious and insecure outside.
Yes, I probably am, I'm certainly not walking around constantly on alert and paranoid but I am more cautious about meeting a stranger somewhere in secluded areas, even if it's light.

ChimChimeny · 13/01/2022 16:38

There's plenty of other smaller ways to be intimidated and/or assaulted that stop me from walking or running certain routes.

Does anyone remember the thread with loads of women talking about their experiences out running? Sexual harassment/abuse, things being thrown at them, jeering, swearing etc? No we won't all be murdered in a run of walk but it can be scary in other ways

dreamingbohemian · 13/01/2022 16:38

Gardaí said the suspect is well-known to them and has been suspected of being involved in previous violent incidents.

Of course, of fucking course

Until we start throwing the book at violent men the first time they are violent, especially if they are violent to women or children, these things will keep happening

JeshusHChr · 13/01/2022 16:39

I stand by both my comments, 1. that this is horrific, and 2. that 'some men' is a more appropriate term

This makes me angry. By actually thinking it was appropriate on this thread, to make this point, you are actually undermining your own point.

It is such a mans' world, men are so centred and women so marginal, that even when discussing the murder of a woman, we are supposed to centre men's feelings.

Let me make this clear. He did this BECAUSE he was a man. His maleness is not incidental.
Women have the whole of history, and the whole of our current experiences which tell us how we have been and are placed secondary to men, as your completely failing the read-the-room 'point' shows.

So no, I will not say 'some men' as if these violent acts against men are not firmly rooted in and nurtured in misogyny. You can bet your life the guy who killed her has been making misogynistic comments to his 'mates' all his life without been called out on it, watching legal porn where women are abused and beaten and all the rest of it. He is a product of a world created and sustained by men as a population. I will not dilute this by saying ' some men'.

BorderlineHappy · 13/01/2022 16:39

Elodeastar It doesn't fucking matter.
A woman was murdered by a man

Doing something she deemed safe.
That the crux of it.
Take it up with the man who did this

ToykotoLosAngeles · 13/01/2022 16:40

I'd quite like a hastag to trend alongside NAMALT. Like #butitsalwaysamanwhoisarrestedthough.

Toomanyradishes · 13/01/2022 16:42

#notallmenbutalwaysmen

mommybear1 · 13/01/2022 16:43

Absolutely horrific her poor family Thanks

Gonnagetgoing · 13/01/2022 16:43

Interesting - I don't know much about Tullamore but I know some of the areas around Bray and the Wicklow mountains and it can be quite bleak - especially when walking/jogging.

Alexandra2001 · 13/01/2022 16:46

@CuriousaboutSamphire ALL men is what i tell my DD when she goes running and a spray can of mace.

But really, our are laws soooo weak that a known violent offender is allowed out an about, only to be locked up when he kills?