In 2012, 18-year-old Thomas Kelly was punched in the head by Kieran Loveridge in King’s Cross, Sydney, and died from his injuries shortly afterwards.
Then in 2013, 18-year-old Daniel Christie was also punched in the head by Shaun McNeil in King’s Cross, Sydney, and also died from his injuries.
As a result of these two violent deaths, in 2014 the NSW government introduced strict lock-out laws for a number of inner-city Sydney suburbs, and also legislated mandatory minimum sentences for such assaults where they caused death. Not only that, but a huge campaign successfully agitated to change the name of what were before that time called king-hits” to “coward punches”, as the former name was thought to carry a “glamorous or powerful” connotation which was unhelpful in reducing such deaths.
Thus, as a result of TWO MALE DEATHS within a period of TWO YEARS, the NSW government virtually eliminated male one-punch deaths using methods which destroyed many hospitality businesses and disadvantaged tens of thousands of those who enjoyed Sydney’s nightlife.
Yet when an average of SEVENTY WOMEN or more are killed EVERY SINGLE YEAR by men including THREE WOMEN killed in NSW in just ONE WEEK last week, all we get are repeated platitudes and vague promises to do something from Premiers, and nothing at all from Prime Ministers.
The comparisons here are stark; they’re also enraging, and they’re completely unforgivable. It seems governments will do anything to control violence against women: except anything which might disadvantage any men, or even make them feel annoyed or vaguely upset.
The courts prosecuting male violence are set up to advantage men.
The language around male violence is set up to advantage men.
Government and police responses to male violence are careful to never give men sad feelings.
Most of all: the media is almost universally owned and controlled by men and their language and opinions dominate the discourse. And because of this, women are blamed for their own deaths and injuries and almost never receive justice for the blood they’ve spilled and the fear they’ve felt.
Look at the headline in the screenshot below. Just look at it. Sure, this case is now more than a year old but there are literally hundreds of “good dad” themes similar going back decades: always and forever, the man who slaughtered his family (in Decker’s case he was called an “active dad” in another headline at the time of his disappearance) was a great bloke and - get this - the MOTHER was to blame for the killing of her own daughters.
It’s insupportable.
And it’s sick.
And the most women seem to ever get are more committees and more talk-fests and more bleating platitudes instead of real, concrete and steadfast change to save and protect their lives.
And while our MFW Admins continue to live in caravans and friends’ homes due to repeated violent threats while our PM openly commiserates with Kyle after his sacking and sexualises women in podcasts while calling other women “difficult”, who has any confidence anything will soon change?
One shark killing causes a furore. Two men killed in one-punch attacks are grieved and remembered for a decade. But women and their children killed in cold blood by violent men? Forgedaboudit. Nothing to see here.
It never fucking ends.
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We’re in a bit of a bind, witches. We’d like to start an exciting new campaign, but after exhausting our resources fighting Kyle and Karl, we lack the financial support to ramp up a new campaign. If you’d like us to fire up our operations again and you can afford a modest monthly subscription, please consider financially supporting our work: it’s a subscription to the future for the price of a coffee (or two) each month. Go to:
mfw.org.au/support if you can help. And thank you!
#ToYourBrooms