Eurydice Dixon, Jill Meagher, and our savage species.

If we can ignore, for a moment, what happened in the places they found, the voyages of James Cook, and Christopher Columbus were, for their time, two of the greatest adventures humankind have ever been on. More recently it was Armstrong, Aldrin, and Collins. 

Emilia Earhart flew solo across the Atlanic. In 2010 - 2011 Laura Dekker sailed solo around the world. She was 15.

Joining Armstrong and Aldrin, a further 10 people have walked on the moon. About 5,500 years ago people invented the wheel. Probably the single greatest invention of all time. In 1928 Otto Frederick Rohwedder of Davenport, Iowa, United States, invented the first loaf-at-a-time bread-slicing machine. It was the best thing since...well, for a while. 

We've mapped the humane genome, we've grown a human ear on the back of a rat. We have technology that allows me to type into a computer and have you read it, wherever you are in the world, on a computer of your own. A computer that might be the small enough to fit in your hand and carry in your pocket. 

The point is we've achieved a lot as a species. The above doesn't really begin the scratch the surface of the truly amazing things humans have achieved. 

The problem is, it leads to some confusion and misunderstandings and a sense of us being far superior to what we are. 

In Tanzania in 2014, seven people were burned to death. According to this report, they were attacked by local villagers and burned to death for engaging in witchcraft. In the first four months of 2018, Saudi Arabia, the Guardian reports, executed 48 people. Half of them on non-violent drugs charges. They are beheaded using a sword. 

In the USA, a former beacon of freedom, a former 'land of opportunity', in June 2018, White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defending the separation of children from their parents, claimed it was 'very biblical to enforce the law.' CNN reporter Brian Karem pushed Sanders on the issue of forcibly separating children from their parents.  

In what was almost an emotional plea, Karem said, to Sanders "You're a parent, don't you have any empathy? Come on, Sarah, you're a parent. Don't you have any empathy for what these people are going through? They have less than you do. Seriously, Sarah, seriously, these people have nothing.'

Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to answer the questions and, instead, claimed that Karem was simply after more TV time. 

Hundreds of boys in south Sudan are kidnapped from their villages and forced to become child soldiers. 

Despite our amazing achievements, it's clear we are a savage and cruel species. 

In the early hours of Wednesday June 13th in Melbourne, the body of 22 year old Eurydice Dixon was found in a park by a passerby. She had been raped and murdered. She was 900 metres from her front door. 

Eurydice was an up and coming comedian. She'd finished a gig at a nearby hotel, had said goodbye to her boyfriend, and walked towards home. 

Her walk home that night brought her across the path of 19 year old Jaymes Todd. The exact details of what happened are not yet known. But Todd handed himself into the police. The Melbourne comedy community, the friends and family of Eurydice, and Melbourne as a whole, are in shock and saddened at what happened. 

On September 22nd 2012 Jill Meagher was walking home from a pub. Her walk home that night brought across the path of Adrian Bayley. He raped her, then strangled her until she died. He's not eligible for parole until 2055. 

As long as the list of achievements is, I can't help but feel the list of atrocities is longer. 

It's odd and disturbing to think the same species that can land a rover on Mars is capable of these acts of terror. The same species that can operate on an unborn baby can cause so much harm and damage to its fellow people.  

The road to ending this savagery is long, but I think it can be achieved. It's going to take a lot of time, and a lot of patience, but mostly, it's going to take a lot of eduction in things that we wouldn't expect to still be teaching in this day and age. 

In the aftermath of the Jill Meagher story and now, again, in the aftermath of the Eurydice Dixon murder, Victoria Police urged people to 'be aware of their surroundings.' 

Some think this pragmatic advice. Others see it as victim blaming. 

The problem is there's a gap between what ought to be, and what is. 

Boys ought to be able to live without being forced to become child soldiers. Families ought to be able to seek a new life and not be separated at the border of a country that prides itself on 'freedom'. 

The topic I want to focus on is this: Should women, or anyone, be able to walk home from a pub and not only not fear being raped or murdered, but actually NOT be raped and murdered? Of course. Is it always going to be safe to do that? The reality is, no, it's not. 

People will say we shouldn't have to be telling women they need to walk home with a friend, just to make sure they get home at all. And they're right, shouldn't have to. The reality, however, is that it's sometimes not safe and women walking home on their own, despite the possible danger, isn't going to make it safe. It's not going to keep the women safe. 

Had Eurydice had a friend with her, she would quite likely be alive today. 

Had Jaymes Todd not decided to rape and murder Eurydice, Eurydice would most definitely be alive today. 

I'd suggest that Jaymes Todd knew that raping and murdering someone was wrong. Had the police tweeted that morning 'don't rape and murder anyone tonight' I suspect Jaymes Todd would still have raped and murdered Eurydice Dixon that night. He handed himself into police. He knew he'd committed a crime. 

So I'm not convinced telling 'men' not to rape and murder is the answer either. Those who do it know it's wrong already. Harsher punishment isn't the answer either. As this report  finds, there's no evidence to suggest that the death penalty is a deterrent to crime. 

Where does that leave us? Well, from what I've found out, education, and shame. 

Firstly, the shame part. THIS is where men come in. Let me sidebar for a moment...

When I was a 17 year old (still a child, technically) I was working full time at a local factory. One of the 'men' (I would guess 30 years old) was talking to me about his wife. There were just the two of us in the conversation. He mentioned that sometimes when his wife gets out of line, he gives her a backhander, and then he chuckled. It made me feel horrible to hear that. But I wasn't brave enough to say anything. I said hmmm, and walked away. 

If a 30 year old man told me that now, I'd call him a fucking criminal, tell him that he's a coward and tell him to never talk to me again. I'd then research how best to deal with that situation. I'd be wary of making the situation worse. Around one woman per week is killed by their current or former partner in Australia. I wouldn't want to make that more likely to happen. 

But the point is, it's up to men to shame and denounce other men who brag about violence towards women. It's up to men to have discussions with other men about what's acceptable and what's not. And it's not just the rape and murder we have to denounce. We need to talk to our female friends and find out what it is men are doing on a consistent basis that they don't like. Then when we hear men talking about doing that kind of thing or we SEE other men doing that kind of thing, we stand up to them. We demand they stop and denounce and shame them for doing it. We make them aware that it's 100% not acceptable. It's not acceptable if it's their partner. It's not acceptable if it's a stranger. And what we also need to do is NOT tell women that it's meaningless, or it's harmless, or it's just a bit of fun. If they don't feel that it's harmless, it's not harmless. 

There are also things we can do to make women feel safer. If you're a man getting off a train and walking to your car in the station carpark and it's the middle of peak hour, and you are, coincidentally, following a woman walking to her car...it's probably not much of a big deal. 

If you're getting off a train late at night and there's no one else around and you're coincidentally following a woman who's walking to her car...she's likely to be wary of you, if not outright frightened. You can help out here by slowing down. Tie your shoelace, walk a slightly different path, don't continually watch her, get on your phone and talk to someone. Make it clear you're NOT following here. (For the record these tips were given to me by my partner). 

The best thing men can do to ensure women are not raped and murdered is to not rape and murder them, of course. But if ANY TIME a man hears or sees another man talking about being violent towards a woman or BEING violent towards a woman, stop him and SHAME him for it. 

The other thing that needs to be done is eduction, and it needs to start early. It needs to come with sex education. Boys (AKA 'future men') need to be taught about consent, and about bodily integrity. It feels sad and unfortunate that this needs to be 'taught' and isn't just inherent knowledge, but as I pointed out, we're a savage species. On the scale of time, we're really not that far from being 'wild animals'. 

I feel we get fooled into thinking we're better than we are because of what we've achieved. It's like we get tricked into thinking our 'exceptional best' is actually our 'standard'. But we need a reality check. We NEED to understand that humankind is a species that rapes and murders. It happens in the most violent societies, and it happens in the happiest and 'safest' societies. It's kind of like the alcoholic who needs to admit they have a problem, before they can get sober. 

So we not only have to teach our young about not raping, not murdering, and about the things that make other people fearful and uncomfortable, we need to consistently reinforce these ideas and lessons, and not just in school, but as adults. We need to do it whether it's a stranger (hard) or a friend (even harder). 

For this post I searched and read about ideas to prevent rape, or reduce the instances of rape. The best article I found was this one, written in 2014 by Jessica Reed for The Guardian. It contains very good advice, and a good overall view of the situation. It points to a site called ScarleTeen as a good resource for teens to learn about sexuality. I've not yet had the chance to check that out, but I highly recommend reading the article by Jessica. 

Another site I found was HealthyPlace. It has an article titled: Rape Prevention - How to Prevent Rape. It has three tips. I won't list them here, you can read it if you wish. But I know that each of the tips is aimed at women. I had hoped tip number one was aimed at men and said 'don't rape'. (I know not all rapes are men on women, but it's the vast majority). The same article does have advice for if you are being raped. On the surface the advice seems good, but I'm no expert so I highly recommend reading it in conjunction with other sources. The Healthy Place website does have a page that lists all its references, which you can find here. It seems very thorough. 

It's a dangerous world. Maybe not as dangerous as some would have us believe, but certainly more dangerous than we'd like it to be. We can work towards getting it closer to what we want it to be, but maybe...until we get there, until the changes we need to make are showing an impact, maybe the advice from Victoria Police isn't too bad.