The harmful ripple effect of one murder is shocking and sad. This morning women across Canada were more afraid than yesterday. They are texting alerts to all their friends and mothers are picking up their girls from school – even though the murder of the 18 year old girl occurred thousands of miles away in the little town of Armstrong, BC.
So it should be no surprise when my heart pounds when I drive into a dark parkade or why I no longer wear sexy clothing out in the evening. When one girls gets murdered and the killer writes a letter saying that he is going to kill more women, we women are all reminded of our place in society. We are weak, we are vulnerable and we are not not truly free. Or rather, we live in a society where harming us it tolerated.
To shift this we need to have to be honest about the fact that men kill women. Its not just peolpe killing people. Its is not just one demeneted man, but a whole society that does not really value women. It is most definately a gender issue when for some reason we as a group (husbands, fathers and sons in particular!) can not make our communities as safe for women as it is for men.