FixedIt: These women were not ‘lost’

It’s easier to deal with a concept than a violent man. I get it. I do. But we cannot solve a problem we cannot see or talk about. We have to name it, examine it, understand it, and most of all prevent it. The problem is violent men – not all men but all violent men. 

Domestic violence is a term that covers a wide range of behaviour, thoughts, feelings, and actions. It’s a pattern, a problem, an issue, a violation, an outrage, and a concept. It’s not a person. 

We can talk about domestic violence homicides as a theoretic concept or a problem to solve. We cannot talk about the murder and alleged murder of individual women that way. They were people. They had full lives and futures they should have been able to give to themselves, the world, and their children. 

Those two women and the futures they should have had were not lost like a set of car keys. They were not killed by a concept. One woman was murdered by an ex-partner. One woman was allegedly murdered by an ex-partner.

The ABC did a wonderful job with this report. It carefully navigates the legal limits of reporting an alleged murderer and a convicted murderer, and still shows the lifelong devastation such acts inflict on the children of women killed (or allegedly killed) by violent men. 

We need to see more reporting like this. It is part of the solution. I wish I could just share and support it. 

But hiding violent men behind concepts and euphemisms is part of the problem. It perpetuates our ongoing inability to recognise and respond to violent men.

We can’t stop the violence by only responding to victims – although we need to do that better too. We must respond to perpetrators, which starts with seeing them for what they are – men who use violence against women.