OK to blame all men but not OK to blame all Muslims....hypocrisy, page-33

It isn’t up to women to modify our behaviour in order to prevent violence from being enacted against us, it’s up to society to work together to dismantle misogyny and the particular kind of male rage that informs these acts of aggression.
Sexual violence and homicide might be the extreme end point of it, but the spectrum they sit on stretches right back to "harmless" casual sexism, the rape "jokes" and threats that proliferate online and the attitude expressed towards women on a daily basis by groups of men who’ve been socialised to view themselves as superior. These toxic behaviours don’t manifest one day out of nowhere. They are cultivated.
Abusive, violent men are not unavoidable weather patterns who tear through our natural environments without warning. We don’t just have to batten down the hatches and ride out the storm, convinced that nature is an invincible force we’re powerless to resist. Because, even if we do manage to get ourselves into a protected bunker, the storm is still going to hit someone. The narrative of prevention as women’s responsibility does nothing to stop sexual violence and homicide. At best, all it might do is direct that rage towards someone else.


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Friends gathered at the Exford Hotel to pay tribute to Melbourne comedian Eurydice Dixon.

As a society, why are we not more collectively interested in figuring out why so many men seem to hate women so much that violence meted out by their hands is such a common story for so many of us? Why do people not ask better questions about their sons, brothers, friends and colleagues who appear to be showing anti-social or outwardly aggressive views towards anyone who doesn’t look like them? Like many women, I’m scared to live in a world where we can’t walk home at night without wondering if it might be the last time – but I’m not as scared of this as I am knowing the world itself seems content to make that our problem.