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Post by Admin on Jun 15, 2018 18:17:27 GMT
 The body of Eurydice Dixon, 22, was found at a football field in Melbourne early on Wednesday, only hours after she had performed a gig at a city bar. A man, 19, has been charged by police. Comedians and the public have inundated social media with tributes to Ms Dixon, in a case that has reignited local debate about violence against women. Authorities allege that Ms Dixon was attacked in the suburb of Carlton North sometime after leaving a bar in central Melbourne about 22:30 local time on Tuesday. A 19-year-old man, Jaymes Todd, handed himself to police on Wednesday and was charged with her rape and murder. Police say they did not know each other. Local media reported that Ms Dixon was a few hundred metres from home when she was attacked. |
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Post by Admin on Jun 16, 2018 18:30:22 GMT
 Shortly before midnight on Tuesday Eurydice “Ridi” Dixon texted a friend to say she was almost home. The comedian had finished a gig at the Highlander Bar in the city and was making her way across Princes Park in Melbourne’s north. Thousands make similar journeys through the popular park every day and night - students from the nearby University of Melbourne, runners, cyclists, commuters heading to and from the city. A 3am her body was found on the grass of the park’s soccer pitch. She had been raped and murdered.  |
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Post by Admin on Jun 20, 2018 18:52:38 GMT
Before Todd’s arrest Clayton told reporters that because the park was an area of “high community activity” women needed to aware of who may be around them. “So just make sure you have situational awareness, that you’re aware of your surroundings,” Clayton said. “If you’ve got a mobile phone carry it and if you’ve got any concerns, call police.” It was a message that Andrews would have found jarring. He made addressing violence against women an election issue before becoming premier in 2014, and his government is in the process of implementing all 227 of the family violence royal commission’s recommendations. The implication that women are in some way responsible for the harm inflicted on them is one his government has fought for almost four years to counteract. As they mourned Dixon, many shared their disbelief on social media that women were still having to deal with comments from police that there was somehow something more they should be doing to keep themselves safe.  The latest Victorian crime statistics show sexual offences rose 13.4% in the past year. And a report from the development and humanitarian organisation Plan International published in May that found one-quarter of women surveyed in Sydney said they were harassed on the street once a month or more. Of survey respondents, 92% said they felt unsafe on public transport at night, almost on par with reports from women in developing cities such as Delhi and Lima. And 81% felt unsafe using taxis and ride-sharing services alone at night. |
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Post by Admin on Jun 22, 2018 18:50:48 GMT
 If only Eurydice Dixon could have had so many words written about her while she was still on this planet, happy and hopeful, making her career in the world of comedy. What happened instead is that she has had thousands upon thousands of words written about the violence and tragedy that ended her life when she was raped and murdered on her way home from performing a gig.  Dixon, in case you have not heard, was 22. She was a young woman living and working in Melbourne, whose body was found in the central Princes Park about a week ago. Her funeral was on Thursday. She is gone. What lives for now is the deep grief and anger of her family and friends. And the mighty fury from women, who with great desperation, want men to understand to their very core what it feels like to operate as if you are under threat every time you are doing something so simple as walking alone. Or, as the case with far too many others, being a woman in the first place. |
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Post by Admin on Jun 23, 2018 19:06:09 GMT
 What happened to Dixon, a smart, aspiring comedian with a dark sense of humour, was horrific, in part because walking through a park is so ordinary. But her death has become something else: a flashpoint for an intense, often angry conversation about violence against women in Australia, and how it is men – not women – who need to change. A decade ago, stranger deaths were framed as nightmare tales of evil monsters. Now, everyone from the country’s conservative prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, to the 10,000 people who stood silently at a candlelit vigil for Dixon on Monday night, talk of culture and the structural causes of violence. In an address to parliament this week, Turnbull said : “What we must do as we grieve is ensure that we change the hearts of men to respect women.” He said Australia needed to start “with the youngest men, the little boys, our sons and grandsons”. |
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