Eurydice Dixon: how one woman's death put focus on 'male rage' in Australia

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Eurydice Dixon: how one woman’s death put focus on ‘male rage’ in Australia

The alleged rape and murder of a comedian has sparked anger about attitudes to women
Gay Alcorn


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Eurydice Dixon, a comedian and feminist. A man has been charged with rape and murder after her body was found in a Melbourne park. Photograph: Facebook

When Eurydice Dixon finished her comedy gig at a Melbourne bar last Tuesday she was reportedly in high spirits, sharing a drink with her boyfriend before heading home. She bought some food and walked through an area she knew well: Princes Park in an affluent northern suburb of the city. Just before midnight, she sent her boyfriend a message: “I’m almost home safe.” A passerby found Dixon’s body in the middle of a football pitch just before 3am on Wednesday, a few hundred metres from her home. A 19-year-old man has been charged with her rape and murder. Police say the two did not know each other.

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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Mourners in Princes Park, Melbourne, pay their respects to Eurydice Dixon.


The opposition leader, Bill Shorten, concurred: “It’s about deciding as a nation that violence against women is ultimately preventable.” Australia’s homicide rate – which includes manslaughter and murder-suicide – is the lowest in quarter of a century, according to research released last year. The vast majority of killers are partners and acquaintances.

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https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2018/jun/19/eurydice-dixon-death-male-rage-australia-women-men-attitudes