Woman murdered in my community

[pigsknickers]

It's been in the national news today - a man stabbed a young woman to death on Thursday while she was at work in Aldi. She was thirty. She had a young daughter. Her name was Jodie. Apparently he was her ex.
Now I didn't know this woman personally, I'm not trying to be a "grief thief". But like many local people, I'm reeling with shock at this horrible thing. It doesn't feel appropriate to get my angry feminist rant on irl so I've come to do it here...
Another fucking man acting out his hatred of women brutally (and in this case publicly). Another family devastated; a child left without a mother. Another fucking statistic. And while there's plenty of anger locally, once again there's no mention in any media (that I've come across) that Jodie is another victim of this epidemic - of male violence against women - that our society is in the grip of. I just feel so sick and angry, and sad.

I saw this on the national news on tv. It made me cry, just the pointlessness of the death of a young mum and wife., a few days before Christmas too. Of course it’s natural for you to be reeling.

It is incredibly sad, but luckily Murder is also incredibly rare and fingers crossed, the majority of us will never experience this within our own family or friends.

I didn’t know it was someone known to this poor young lady, I think that seems worse (if that’s even possible) rest in peace Jodie

Our little town won't be the same again.
I hope she rests in peace and her family are able to find some in the future

my post was about my feelings about male violence towards women and how it is so woven into the fabric of society. My point still stands

Absolutely, OP.

@pigsknickers I can't speak for others but I couldn't agree more with your point re male violence, it was the part of why the media hadn't mentioned it in relation to this specific case I was answering to.

pigs you haven't written anything distasteful, don't worry. Unfortunately this board has it's own unofficial thread police who pop up if they feel women are bordering on suggesting there is any kind of problem with male violence. Try not to engage.

I too am sick of no-one joining the dots, the family annihilators are the worst. "He just snapped". No, he decided to take the worst possible revenge on his partner for (usually) having the cheek to leave him.

You might want to follow Karen Ingala Smith / counting dead women. She does excellent analysis on this.

I agree with you OP.

The media is always incredibly quiet on how it's male violence and male entitlement that puts women's lives at risk.

They enjoy the little details, the gossip and horror sells, but they won't take a step back and talk about the bigger picture.

bored I take your point. But how about if news reports included something like "a suspected case of gender-based violence, the XXXth such case this year." if it appears to fit the profile, in the same way as suspected acts of terrorism are reported?

sex based violence, not gender based.

Anyway, yes totally agree that society and the media absolutely do not want to join the dots, it's more comfy to see these as isolated incidents and not have to consider how they connect across the enormous amount of violence of all types that is committed against women and girls by men all the time every day.

The idea that it's impossible to say that the suspect is a man and it's pretty much always men who do this stuff and why is that and what can we do, for legal reasons, is bonkers.

It's the same with terrorists, they often have a history of DV, I'd have thought that society might consider terrorism seriously enough to start looking more closely at DV? - Or, are the number of terrorists so low that it isn't enough to prompt a more serious attitude to DV.

Anyway, yes totally agree that society and the media absolutely do not want to join the dots

Because most of us live with men as partners, fathers, sons, brothers, and we don't really want to be confronted by the socialisation of all men into violence. As Germaine Greer once said (apparently): "women can't afford to think about how much men hate them."

But if two black men were murdered each week, simply for being black, there'd be an outcry.

I know people who live in Bethnal Green. where a young woman was sexually assaulted on three separate occasions by different men. They organised a march and vigil in the local community as a way of showing their horror at what happened. It was lead by girls at the local school, with the theme of safe streets. It felt a really powerful thing to do, they were able to end at a local church and have speakers on some of the issues. Obviously it's a bit different in this case, but if there is a lot of local feeling then maybe a vigil could be organised, perhaps under the theme of 'not an isolated incident'/end male violence against women/no more misogynist murders. Would be important to speak to the immediate family about it and make sure they were okay with it.

When this story broke there was lots of speculation (including from our friend Katie Hopkins) that the perpetrator was Muslim and it was a terrorist attack.

After the very non Muslim name Neville Horden came out there was then lots of discussion about how you shouldn't assume etc.

What seemed to pass everyone by, as usual, is the most obvious fact of the case. Which is, as we all knew, that the perpetrator was a man. No one seems to think this detail is of any significance, which I guess says it all.

Rip Jodie. An obviously very much loved partner, daughter, mother, woman. Reduced to another statistic.

Yes sex-based, not gender-based.

This death is just so sad. Poor Jodie and her family.

Thehairthebod yes I think it's hidden in plain sight - the fact that it's almost always a man when anything like this happens goes unmentioned because it's obvious but actually this has the effect of obscuring it because it's so obvious that no-one thinks hold on a minute.

Notsupposedtobehere the met are pretty good at murdering black men with no comeback, and no-one really cares. Young men are also attacking / damaging / killing each other quite regularly in some areas and again no-one seems to care. I don't think it's a competition. However, with VAW the dynamic is such that it needs to be reported on and thought about in and of itself, same as young men attacking each other in some areas needs its own attention.

Fundamentally there's a lot of people society doesn't really care about / victim blames, however VAW is particularly insidious because there's still this attitude that it's somehow inevitable.