Where is the outrage over the death of Qi Yu?
THE public outcry around Eurydice Dixon’s death and the silence on Qi Yu’s shows not all victims are equal, but we need to be outraged at all woman lost to violence, writes Sherele Moody.
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THESE two women were killed just days apart in Australia — but chances are you know of only one of them.
Eurydice Dixon died in a public park, allegedly at the hands of a man who did not know her.
Qi Yu died behind the front door of her own home, allegedly at the hands of a man she lived with.
You would be hard pressed to meet an Australian who has not heard about Eurydice. But how many of us know about Qi?
This is not a “what about” article, but a part of the discussion of violence in Australia that we must have.
Put simply, the public outcry around Eurydice’s death and the silence on Qi’s shows not all victims are equal and that is outrageously tragic.
Eurydice Dixon was raped and killed on Wednesday, June 14, in Princes Park, North Carlton in Melbourne. Nineteen-year-old Jaymes Todd handed himself into police about 24 hours after news of Eurydice’s death broke.
The man was unknown to the 22-year-old. Police allege he stalked her as she walked home from a comedy gig in Melbourne’s CBD.
Qi Yu disappeared just six days before Eurydice died.
On June 8, in her home at Campsie in Sydney, Qi was speaking on the phone to her mother in China.
The phone suddenly went dead and Qi’s family were unable to reach her.
The next day police started looking for the 28-year-old, whose disappearance was entirely out of character.
Qi Yu’s car was found 12 hours later about 4km from her home.
On June 14 — not long after Eurydice was found — Qi Yu’s 19-year-old housemate Shuo Dong was charged over her death.
Qi’s body has not been found.
Eurydice had a huge number of friends and she was well known in Melbourne’s thriving arts scene as a funny and insightful comedian and an outspoken feminist.
Qi Yu, on the other hand, did not have a wide circle of friends and family in Australia and she was not in the public eye.
Since hearing of Eurydice’s death, Australia has been in up in arms that someone so young and vivacious could die in such a sad and heartless way — and so we should be.
Hundreds of articles have been penned about Eurydice’s death, social media is alight with absolute anger that a vibrant young woman could lose her life in such a horrid way.
Memorial vigils are being held across Australia for Eurydice this week.
On the other hand, a simple Google search reveals fewer than 100 articles about Qi Yu. When you speak about her on social media, people are genuinely surprised that this young woman even existed.
No vigils are being held for her.
Why are we so outraged by Eurydice’s death yet seemingly untouched by Qi’s and why do we respond so differently to two such appallingly horrid yet all too similar and familiar crimes?
I believe it is because Qi was allegedly killed by the man she lived with in her own home while Eurydice was killed a in public space — allegedly by a man who was a stranger to her.
As most femicides happen in homes across Australia, it feels like we have become immune to the vileness of domestic violence,
Whenever a killer dares strike in public, he forces us to confront this open display of violence and our own human fragility.
We become so angry, so passionate, so disturbed because it is easier to fear the bogey man lurking in the streets than the monster lurking in plain sight.
The reality is most women who lose their lives to violence in Australia are not killed by strangers in public places — they are murdered by someone close to them, someone they trust.
Make no mistake — these women do not go gently into the night.
They are most often strangled, stabbed or bashed to death. Some of them are raped first and others are killed alongside their children.
This year, 32 women have lost their lives to violence but Eurydice was the only one allegedly killed by a stranger in a public place.
Regardless of who killed them, we all need to be angry, sad and outraged by the deaths of all women lost to violence.
The sooner we become angry every time a woman is murdered, the closer we will get to stemming the flow of femicides in our country.
News Corp journalist Sherele Moody is the recipient of 2017 Clarion and Walkley Our Watch journalism excellence awards for her coverage of domestic violence issues. Sherele is also the founder of The RED HEART Campaign and a member of the Femicide Australia Project.
Originally published as Where is the outrage over the death of Qi Yu?