I attended the vigil in Tralee in honour of Ashling Murphy, who was killed in Tullamore on Wednesday. Like thousands of women around the country, I needed to show solidarity. To express my sorrow and anger. I needed community.
I did not check who organised the vigil. I did not think it mattered. As I write, I still do not know the man’s name but I will never forget the words he spoke. He didn’t say anything I and countless other women haven’t heard before, but I was not expecting to hear them this evening. At a vigil for a woman killed by a man.
I had not expected there to be speeches. And I certainly wasn’t prepared for a lecture on how women can protect themselves when faced with male violence. Spraying your attacker with perfume and kicking him in balls are ideas that apparently won’t have occurred to women before this evening.
I had not intended on speaking. But I could not let this man’s words be the only ones people took away from the vigil. I stepped forward and read my Instagram post from yesterday. Ashling Murphy was going for a run, but it does not matter what she was doing because she didn't deserve to die. No woman should be killed. Ever.
While this man spoke about men needing to do something about the men who perpetrate violence against women, he was not forthcoming with concrete actions men can take. Apart from talking to each other and walking the women in your lives home. Telling men to talk to each other is a start, but what does that look like in practice?
He did, however, urge us all to write to the government calling for tougher sentencing for men who harass, abuse, assault, or kill women. More than once he talked about how things are done in America.
I hope that Ashling Murphy’s family get the answers they so desperately need. I hope they get the justice they deserve. I wish their daughter had made it home. I cannot imagine the pain they are going through. I also know that nothing the Gardaí or anyone else do can bring Ashling back. We are all holding them in our thoughts.
As this man spoke, I almost screamed ‘she should still be here.’ True justice means no dead women. True justice means Ashling would have finished her run. We need to prevent male violence. Relying on the justice system has never been enough. Especially when the Gardaí cancel 999 calls.
I found the community I needed. Women are far too accomplished at coming together with strangers to grief the death of women we do not know. We are heartsick. We are angry. We are exhausted.
To the men reading this, don’t tell me you understand because you have a mother, a sister, a girlfriend, a wife, or a daughter. Are our lives only worth something when you can picture us as family?
Do not tell me that you are listening. Listening is great, but what action have you taken since the last time the news and social media were full of women sharing their experiences of being harassed, abused, and assaulted by men. As Philip O’Connor asks in the Irish Examiner when was the last time you “made a conscious decision to make a woman feel safe based on her reading of a given situation?”
Do not tell me that you have never and would never hit a woman. Do not expect to be thanked or cheered on for doing the bare minimum in being a decent human being.
We know it is not all men. The problem is that when we do talk about the men we know have harassed, abused, or assaulted women we are not believed. The cries of ‘not all men’ quickly become ‘my mate wouldn’t do that.’
The problem is that far too many men, who consider themselves one of the good guys, are happy to let the sexist ‘jokes’ their friends make go unchallenged. Far too many men are prepared to say ‘he doesn’t mean it’, ‘he’s not like that’ or ‘he’s harmless really’ when their friend continues to chat up women who have already told him no.
Do not tell me that you don’t agree with your friend’s actions after the fact if you have not also called them out as they were happening.
Is saying nothing easier? Yes, but something being difficult is not an excuse to ignore it. Someone being your mate is not a reason to let them away with it.
Male violence against women doesn’t happen in a vacuum. These are not isolated incidents. They are part of a pattern that starts with society normalising the dehumanisation of women through misogynistic and sexist language.
Women have been calling for an end to sexism and misogyny for years, to no avail. It is long past men stepped up and took action. We cannot do it on our own.