Woman raped and killed as she walked home from a show

[AlfredDaButtler]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/thousands-attend-vigils-across-australia-for-raped-murdered-comedian-eurydice-dixon-womens-safety-gender-violence-89g85f2rj?shareToken=f5f5745fce2d768b2008b9885ddc1d99

Eurydice Dixon, 22, was raped and murdered as she walked home from a gig she had performed at in Melbourne last week. A 19 year old man handed himself in to the police claiming responsibility for his crimes. The initial reaction of the police was to warn women to take responsibility for their own safety.

I am fairly confident that men are not told to exercise 'situational awareness' when they are out, nor 'why didn't you just get a cab'?'

True, the "situational awareness" was a very wtf moment indeed.

But I go a bit further. To my non-feminist sister, when she mentioned the murder, I said, "Eurydice made the 5%", and followed that up with "less than 5% of women murdered in Australia are murdered by strangers, most of the rest, murdered by (usually) men that they know".

To her friend, equally unfeminist (but thinks she is, but an equalitist), I said "this outrage will die down in a few months, and in a few years, the next outrage of stranger murder will happen". Yeah the friend was horrified. But it follows. 17yo Masa Vukoti killed in 2015, outrage. Jill Meagher raped and murdered in 2012, outrage.

So basically, a pattern of every three years, Australians get 'outraged' at senseless woman slaughter by strangers. And are totally blinkered to the 150 Australian women slaughtered in between by the current/former male partners. Selective outrage. And they think I sound cynical? The outrage pattern works like clockwork.

oldbirdy
Your comment about autism there is completely unfair. Men with autism don't routinely rape and murder people either.

I phrased it deliberately. I know of no cases where an autistic female has committed such a stranger crime. I cannot say with the same certainty that an autistic male has not. This is in part, legal defence teams grasping at any vague excuse to get their clients off (ie fake conditions) but also, males being males, and males with similar conditions to females are still more likely to commit crimes, on whatever scale.

How fucking sad is it how both crimes are reported!

Man = unprovoked attack
Woman = strayed in to killers orbit

Oh well then it’s clearly their fault then

Helmetbymidnight: "I am fairly confident that men are not told to exercise 'situational awareness' when they are out, nor 'why didn't you just get a cab'?'"

Indeed. Apart from which, it's really stupid advice - have these people never heard of John Worboys?

So our collective options are - stay at home, get raped/beaten/killed - go out, get raped/beaten/killed - or take a cab and get raped.
We have all the options! (snark, obvs)

The encouraging of women to have 'situational awareness' is so bloody tone deaf I am agog. I tried to explain to a male person a few weeks ago the difference of mindset between being a woman in public and a man in public.
If I am walking alone, and hear someone behind me, I bristle unconsciously and prepare myself. If I see a man walking towards me, I prepare myself. Just in subtle ways, but I am extremely 'situationally aware' and have been all my life. Men do not think in these terms.
In fact, there was a report on the news a few weeks ago of a woman who was stranger kidnapped and gang raped, and the man I was with when I saw the report was horrified with the idea of the crime, whereas I was horrified with the idea of the crime and checked the location of the crime to see if it was anywhere near me.

TransExclusionaryMRA what I'd like is more of the non rapey non violent men to speak up publicly. Start conversations with other men about how awful the crime was and speak up when the message that women should take more responsibility for their safety starts to be used.

I don't know of any woman who is not aware of the threats to her safety and who doesn't adjust what she does daily but sometimes we can't afford that cab back, or we're more scared of the risk of a dodgy cab driver and it ps me off that women are still blamed for not being careful enough.

I've had 3 nasty experiences with taxis. One very nasty. So Eurydice wouldn't necessarily have been safer if she called a cab. Male violence and sexual entitlement get absolutely everywhere.

I used to live pretty close to this part of Melbourne and often cycled or walked it. 😔

SpareRibFem well I don’t have a public platform but if I ever do sure! I do challenge these attitudes in my personal circle. I can’t abide rape jokes for instance.

TransExclusionaryMRA thank-you for challenging attitudes in your personal circle, that's what we need men to do. I know it's not always easy, but there needs to be a ground roots push to change attitudes.

I don't like taxis & nothing would get me to use uber

Am I the only one who finds this whole "women need to keep themselves safe" thing very confusing?

On one hand we have it constantly drilled into us from an early age that we need to keep ourselves safe and not put ourselves in risky situations. We are told that we need to be wary, not get too drunk and dress modestly.

Every time someone hurts a woman and she has broken any of these 'rules' or done something that could be deemed reckless or risky in the lead up to the event then you can guarantee there will be an army of cheerleaders out in full force to tell us what she did wrong. They will remind us yet again that we need to keep ourselves safe and that we shouldn't do a, b or c because if we do then x, y and z will happen.

On the other hand, whenever women do try and take precautions and try and talk to each other about how we can keep ourselves safe then you can guarantee that there will be an army of people waiting to yell "feminazi!" and "man haters!" at us.

You even see it all the time on here. I've lost count of the number of threads/posts I've seen here where a woman has talked about situations with men where she has felt uncomfortable or wary and got herself out of that situation as a result. Only for people to pile on and tell her how ridiculous she's being, how not all men are rapists and that she needs to quit tarring all men with the same brush.

This thread right here is the perfect example of that. Woman is in what could be described as a vulnerable situation alone with a strange man. She doesn't feel comfortable so gets herself the hell out of there. And what happens? There are posters who are quick to tell her how unreasonable she is and "but oh, won't somebody think of the men's feelings?". I guarantee that if she had helped him and he had assaulted her then the same people to tell her she is being unreasonable would no doubt be telling her how silly she was for putting herself in that risky situation and not getting herself out.

People can't have it both ways. Either women need to take precautions or they don't. But don't tell us that we need to keep ourselves safe and then get mad at us when we do exactly that. It's just stupidity.

And honestly, what woman doesn't take precautions?

We might not do it all the time. A lot of the time we are not even aware we are doing it and it's entirely subconscious but we are nevertheless taking precautions. Like I said, we have it drilled into us constantly from an early age in a way which men don't.

My DP for instance won't think twice about taking a short cut through a park or an alley after a night out whereas I would just never do that. I would always stick to well lit main roads even if it does mean that it takes me longer to get home.

I know that this isn't unique to my DP or myself either. Pretty much every single one of my male friends and relatives won't think twice about going for a jog when it's getting dark in a rural area. My female friends and relatives however will no doubt hesitate about doing so.

Statistically men are far more likely to be victims of violent crime perpetrated by strangers than women are. Yet you never hear men being told to take precautions.

When a man is doing something reckless and someone assaults him, mugs him or rapes him there is never an army of people ready to crawl out of the woodwork to tell him what he did wrong and how men need to not put themselves in these situations to begin with.

In fact even the mere suggestion that men should avoid being out alone after a certain time or that they should stop doing certain things or going certain places is often met with laughter and raised eyebrows. Funny that.

@SpareRibFem "what I'd like is more of the non rapey non violent men to speak up publicly. Start conversations with other men about how awful the crime was and speak up when the message that women should take more responsibility for their safety starts to be used."

Sounds like all the alt-right commentators that want the good Muslims to criticise the bad every time there's a terrorist incident

Fms...alright then, men should do fuck all and stay completely silent!! They should stand back and allow THEIR SEX to murder, rape, abuse and terrorize women. They should do NOTHING!

Move along men, your abuse of women is nothing to concern yourselves about. You benefiting from other men's assaults on women is something you don't need to feel bad for - it's your birthright as MEN!

Is that better? Are you happier now? Ffs just when I thought men can't get any more uncaring and selfish...they even resent being ASKED to stand up for women, never mind actually DOING it!

No fms I specifically asked what I could do, and was answered. That opinion and input was solicited for and provided can we leave the point scoring for other threads? A woman lost her life and it’s disrespectful.

fmsfms you have just demonstrated how whatever women do to keep safe men will tell them they are at fault.

The question was asked, I answered it. I do not insist men should do this and don't raise it unless as happened here someone asked but here I am demonstrating how I've been socialised into justifiying my actions to you rather than telling you to -censored because I can't remember the special rules in place for what we're allowed to say to non women when we want them to go away-

Plants: "On the other hand, whenever women do try and take precautions and try and talk to each other about how we can keep ourselves safe then you can guarantee that there will be an army of people waiting to yell "feminazi!" and "man haters!" at us."

You are completely right. This is something I've noticed myself. On the one hand, women are berated for not trusting men enough - for treating men with suspicion, for being wary and cautious around men, for always assuming the worst. "Not all men", we are constantly told.

On the other, when women do trust men - for example, going to a man's house after a date - and are raped or killed, we are told that they were foolish, that they should have realised, they should have been less trusting.

I would dearly love someone to tell me exactly what the right amount of trust is that we should put in strange men. What is too trusting, and what is not trusting enough?

I would dearly love someone to tell me exactly what the right amount of trust is that we should put in strange men.

It's a patriarchy. Women are always deemed 'wrong', no matter what they do. That is the system we live under.

Frankly, I go with the "don't trust", and don't worry about the name-calling.

Days after her murder, people had laid out flowers and messages of condolence on the site of her death - a football pitch.
Someone then desecrated the site by painting lewd grafitti over the football pitch.

A man who appears to be an unsuccessful comedian and men's rights activist has been charged and bailed for court next month. He is is known personally by friends of Eurydice Dixon.

He had previously commented on her death via his social media that:

"The mainstream media is running a brainwashing program which is designed to make everyone think that males are bad,"

www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/amateur-comedian-charged-over-offensive-graffiti-at-eurydice-dixon-s-memorial-20180704-p4zpir.html