Masa Vukotic murder: Police need to stop blaming victims after violent attacks

THERE are no words to describe the sorrow and fury we’re feeling after a schoolgirl was stabbed to death this week. But police need to stop blaming the victim.

Masa Vukotic from Tumblr

OPINION

THERE needs to be a word for what I’m feeling. A word that describes what I would suggest all of us have felt upon hearing of the appalling murder of schoolgirl, Masa Vukotic.

It needs to define the overwhelming sadness we feel for the loss of that beautiful vibrant young woman. It needs to encapsulate the sorrow we feel for her family, going through unimaginable pain. But it needs also to include the anger, the blind, impotent rage I feel that this has happened.

Not just that, yet again, a woman has lost her life at the hands of a violent attack, but that those who are charged with protecting the community (i.e. the Police) respond by suggesting we who are vulnerable (i.e. people with vaginas) should just, you know, STEP UP and save ourselves.

Masa Vukotic was murdered near her home this week.

I refer to the Victoria Police Safety Advice that was updated yesterday, one can only assume in response to this attack. Really helpful tips, the most glaring of which reads: “Create an invisible housemate”. You know, to give the impression a giant man protector is there keeping you safe.

Not since Jan invented a fake boyfriend on the Brady Bunch have I heard a better use of an imaginary friend. Should I get a bunch of flowers sent to me the next time I’m on a train station at night?

“What’s this??? For me? It must be from my BOYFRIEND, Bob. My BOYFRIEND who is a BODYBUILDER!!!”

Truly, the idiocy of such a suggestion is blatant. Apart from being a text book case of victim blaming (seriously, we’re back there??), it’s overlooking the fact that the majority of attacks on women are at the hands of someone they know, usually in their own home, so a housemate, imagined or real, is unlikely to help.

Can we stop suggesting women change their behaviour and address a system that repeatedly fails to protect victims of violence, either through a completely ineffectual court system or through soft decisions? We don’t need safety tips that belong on my daughter’s school anti-bullying brochure.

Case in point: Be confident, hold your head high, walk with purpose. That should see you fight off any would-be attacker. And get you a spot on a catwalk in this week’s Fashion Festival. Win win!

Here’s another: Park as close as possible to your train station. Great advice. I mean, what idiot is going to CHOOSE to park further than the closest available car park? But how are we supposed to just magic up a rock star spot? Oh that’s right. My boyfriend’s a bodybuilder — he can make space for me by lifting a couple of cars over his head, like Superman.

I don’t wish to be combative. I see what the police are doing — their advice is just an extension of the stranger danger lesson we teach our kids. Yes, look after yourself and don’t make stupid decisions that will put yourself at risk — like inviting an unknown man into your kitchen to open your jar of tomato paste for you. But I could become the living embodiment of precaution. I could deck myself out in high Vis vest, camouflage make-up, kneepads, bike helmet, and for the ultimate protection, a soft layer of incontinence pads over my whole person, and I may still not be safe. Because I’m not the one with the knife.

Instead of offering us glib suggestions that distract from the fact that there is an epidemic of violence against women, can we have an acknowledgment that we need deep societal change? Not just a different route home from the bus.

I’ve not yet thought of a word for my sorrow/fury, but what I do know is that words can enact change. And so I shall continue to speak up for Masa, and every other victim like her. Because while sorry is a word we all feel, it’s a word that comes just too late.

Jo Stanley is appearing in The Vagina Monologues, 26-28 March, at the Malthouse in Melbourne to raise money for the Luke Batty Foundation.