❤️SHE MATTERS: UNNAMED WOMAN❤️
‘No one knows what people are struggling with behind closed doors. Lovely man. Very sad’
‘You don’t know all the story’
‘Maybe it was a mercy killing – who knows?’
These are just a small selection of the comments on social media after a man murdered his 88-year-old mother in her home at Fern Bay, NSW, on December 18.
Thomas Andrew Tapley, 61, is charged with murder (domestic violence)
She is the eighth of nine Australian female victims of male violence confirmed over the past week and the 70th of 71 Australian women killed this year.
The as-yet unnamed woman is the 175th woman killed since January 1 of 2024.
Imagine thinking it is somehow acceptable for a man to kill a woman? Wait. I do not have to imagine it because in almost every femicide I document, people find a way to excuse the killer’s actions, to put blame on her and to show us how much of a ‘good bloke’ he is.
Women rarely get empathy in the wake of their murders.
We really haven’t moved the dial on victim-blaming, have we? With the femicide numbers rising year on year, we haven’t shifted the dial on male violence either.
As we head closer to Christmas, we are likely to see more femicides. This time of the year, police document significantly higher rates of domestic and family violence – not to mention associate violence and stranger violence.
A Christmas Eve vigil for all women and children killed this year will be held at the She Matters Mural, Hosier Lane, Melbourne, from 5.30pm on December 24.
THE UNNAMED WOMAN MATTERS❤️
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