11:53
June 2019
Published: Judy’s Punch, The Punk Edition
Deep breath.
“Did you hear about that woman who was found in Princes Park the other day?”
“Oh yes, the poor thing.”
“I can’t believe this is still happening.”
“Oh but, you know, she should have known better. It’s just not safe for women to be out alone that late at night.”
Her name was Courtney Herron.
Her name was Courtney Herron, or her, or her, or her.
Think back, two years ago. It’s 2017 and he’s following me. I swear to God, he’s following me.
I’m in a shopping centre, and it’s well-lit and crowded. The floor reflects myself back up from an angle I don’t recognise and a water installation bubbles along the length of the walkway. On the other side a middle-aged white man is looking at me. I notice him as soon as I enter the building. His eyes flicker to me every few seconds, and I struggle to keep my steps even.
It’s 11:53 am.
So far in the six months of 2019,
twenty-one women
have been killed in Australia
in attacks motivated by gender.
I’m not alone, but I feel helpless. My heartbeat swells up to beat against my brain, so loud I’m convinced it echoes off the glass storefronts. I swallow and scan the path in front of me; lines of shops and restaurants crowd me on either side, the long fountain a low barrier between me and that man on my right. On my left, two storefronts up, there is a corridor leading to the bathrooms. I’m supposed to be meeting a friend for lunch, at a restaurant one floor above, but there’s a break in the wall of the fountain before the elevators where the man could catch up to me and– is he really following me?
This year alone
far too many mothers / daughters / sisters / people
have been murdered outside our doors
because of what (who) they are.
I make a split-second decision and turn into the small corridor, heading towards the bathrooms. I can hide for a bit in here. He won’t come inside, and maybe by the time I leave he’ll be gone and I can accept this is all just paranoia.
The bathroom isn’t empty – I can't handle empty right now – but there is space in front of one of the sinks. Breathing deeply, I wash my hands in the cold tap water and stare at myself in the mirror, attempting to convince myself – you’re insane this isn’t happening go out there and get lunch don’t do this to yourself – that everything is fine.
The names flow like prayers.
Courtney Herron. Eurydice Dixon. Fahima Yusuf. Gabriella Thompson. Aiia Maasarwe. Jill Meagher. And again. And aga i n. And a g a i n. A n d a g-
After waiting a couple of minutes, I push away from the sink and step out the bathroom door. I walk up the corridor and look out at the walkway.
There, see, everything is fine you’re just paranoid but t h e r e h e i s, lingering near the fountain. My eyes meet his before I turn to walk quickly, quickly, yet not quick enough to miss him pushing off the wall to follow me.
-a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n-
I don’t know what would happen if he caught up to me. My brain can’t comprehend what he would do in the bright light of the mall in front of so many eyes – so many, I'm supposed to be safe with so many – but my senseless fear pushes my legs to move faster and my teeth to grind so hard I can feel the enamel chipping. The elevators are in front of me on my side of the walkway, which puts an extra few – only a few but maybe enough – steps between the doors and that man. If I have a big enough lead I can get inside first and hopefully – hopefully, hopefully – the doors will close before he gets inside with me.
Nearly one in three Australian women have been physically abused,
one in five have gone through sexual violence,
one in ten have experienced violence from a stranger.
In Australia, an average of one woman
per
week
is murdered
by her current
or former
male partner.
It’s a stupid plan. What if he gets there faster? But I can’t think, can’t come up with anything else when my heartbeat is drowning (!) out (!) my (!) thoughts (!) and my mouth feels too-dry-to-open and then suddenly the elevators are right in front of me and I skip the last few steps to push the button, eyes flickering between the red numbers and him, his gaze secured on me and walking faster with each breath and he is
getting closer closer closer
with
each
step,
about to round the corner of the fountain when the elevator door
opens (!!!)
in front of me.
(thank God)
I’m choking (adrenaline sticky mucus blocking my air pipes)
Choking on my own fear-
I jump inside and s k i t t e r
(heartbeat punching me in the chest)
choose my floor and
jam my finger against the close button so hard
I feel the pressure against my shoulder
and he is nearly here now
and I can see
the muddled brown of his eyes
the pink-red of blood under pasty skin
creeping up his neck like a rash peeking over the top button of his shirt
when the elevator doors
begin (yes)
to slide (yes)
closed.
He is so close to me
so close I swear just steps away
if he runs he would make it
but he doesn’t
and
the
doors|close
and the ground
t s
f
l i
and I can finally breathe again.
“… described as a ‘horrendous bashing’…”
“…found dead by dog walkers…”
“…the violence involved here was extreme…”
Courtney Herron was killed in the dark, but that day in the mall
it was 11:53 am.
Assault doesn’t only occur at night.
The darkness isn’t the problem here.
Violence can still happen whether a woman is alone
or surrounded by a crowd.
We don’t need to be touched
to feel violated.
Do you still think sunlight will save us?
“It’s just not safe for women to be out alone that late at night.”
“It’s just not safe for women to be out alone.”
“It’s just not safe for women.”
It’s early in the morning and I’m in a grocery store
buying snacks for a sleepover,
and the back of my neck tingles.
I turn to see a man looking at me from between the aisles-
my sweat runs cold,
pooling in the divots of my upper lip.
I look away, try not to make eye contact,
move to a different section of the store.
But no matter where I turn
he keeps walking into my line of vision,
flitting glances out of the corner of his eye.
I’m too scared to say anything, my heartbeat drumming through my bones,
so I duck behind a row of lollies and run.
I tell my friends I forgot the chips.
a n d a g a i n
It’s sometime around noon and I’m waiting for an Uber,
the sun hidden behind steel-smoke haze
but warm air pressing close around me.
I’m with my mum
but she walks off to put out her cigarette,
just for a minute,
no second thought.
While she’s gone, a man walks up,
stopping to my left, steps falling slow and heavy.
“Hey baby, you’re so beautiful, where are you from?”
He smiles like a knife slice and leans in close-
I pretend I’m foreign,
“Sorry, sorry-“
and that my flight leaves the next morning.
a n d a g a i n
It’s a summer evening, the sun hasn’t set yet
but its slow descent leaves blood-honey smears against the sky.
I’m walking down a busy street with my best friend when
we see a group of boys leaning against a wall
ahead of us, and the space between us stretches taut.
I carry weight in my chest, mouse quiet as we pass,
eyes straight ahead
and they whistle.
It slices through me,
slick and sharp and heads down and lips pursed-
Their hands don’t move
but I can feel them on me.
a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n-
How long has this been going on? How long have we been afraid?
a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n-
On the 22nd of September 2012, Irish comedian Jill Meagher went out for drinks on a night out with her co-workers at a bar in Brunswick. She left the event at around 1:30 in the morning and decided to walk from the bar to her nearby home, but her husband woke the next morning only to realise that that she had never returned. Concerned for his wife, he immediately contacted the police. Sometime during her short walk home, Jill Meagher had disappeared.
Her disappearance was given ample media coverage, mostly due to a popular Facebook page started by her co-workers entitled “Help us Find Jill Meagher”, and thus weighed heavily on the public consciousness. In the days following her walk home, the police gathered evidence from locations near the disappearance as well as the apartment she shared with her husband. Eventually, with the help of CCTV footage showing her speaking to a man in a blue hoodie on the street, the police found Jill Meagher – but unfortunately, not alive.
Jill Meagher, on that night in September, had been raped and then strangled to death before being buried in a shallow grave.
The public response was loud and widespread. Flowers and floral tributes were placed on Brunswick streets and near the place that had briefly been her grave, colourful bouquets stacked on top of each other and left there for weeks. A candlelight vigil was held at the Brunswick Baptist Church she frequented, the faces and hands of mourners illuminated in the night. A memorial march of 30,000 people was held along Sydney Road days after her body was found, with organisers pleading for something to be done about the violence against women, for steps to be taken to stop these atrocities from happening again. Social media hosted an outpouring of grief and anger where women spoke up about the epidemic of violence and does this sound familiar yet?
That same year the Australian government launched the National Plan to Reduce Violence Against Women and their Children. That was seven years ago. But has anything changed?
Courtney Herron and Eurydice Dixon and Fahima Yusuf and Aiia Maasarwe and twenty-one women since the start of 2019-
a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n a n d a g a i n-
A national survey on attitudes towards woman led by Australia’s National Research Organisation for Woman’s Safety was released late last year. The results are disappointing but, to most women I’d suspect, altogether unsurprising. It shows that 21% of Australians believe that sometimes, a woman can make a man so angry that he hits her without meaning to. And that one in five think since women are so sexual in public, it’s not surprising that some men think they can touch women without their permission. And one in three believe that rape happens because men cannot control their need for sex. And 23% think that women exaggerate how big of an issue male violence is.
This only exemplifies a much larger issue; underneath the surface, our society is broken. Our policies aren’t working because the problem runs much deeper than posters saying that real men respect women. Woman after woman is showing up dead, killed for nothing more than existing, but most of us don’t want to admit that we’re doing something wrong. Because boys will be boys and nothing can be done-
But if boys will be boys then girls will keep dying.
a n d a g a i n.
The first notification appeared when I was at work, sneaking a text to my boyfriend while trying not to get caught. I held my phone by my hip, head angled downwards, smiling at a message. I closed the messaging app and was about to tuck my phone back into my pocket when the headline popped up on the top of my screen,
“Woman Found Murdered in Melbourne Park”
and I could feel myself tensing, air stilling beneath my breast, feeling all at once too many things and nothing at all. My teeth ground together and the muscles in my back pulled tight. Embers burned across my cheeks and the heat skimmed the whites of my eyes. I needed to say something, to plead, to scream. I wanted to scream so loud my soul was forcibly ejected from my chest, I wanted to scream until I broke down and sobbed, to pour all the emotions that were clinging to my bones out from behind my ribs in an unending flood, salty and stinging against my tongue, drowning us all in oceans until someone had to take notice and say: okay, okay, we’ll fix this.
But I couldn’t. I bit the inside of my lip until the flesh gave and smiled at the next customer.
Deep breath.