These comments, while hoping to highlight the sheer horror of this attack, also perpetuate the myth that in some cases, women somehow share some responsibility for their own deaths. Such as that she had stayed in a bad relationship, made a poor decision to walk alone at night, that she family had connections to unsavoury characters.

Would the death of a young woman inside the house have been less of a tragedy if she had been in the “right address” at the right time”?

A ‘completely innocent’ woman was killed. When is she not?

The fire in Melbourne would have been no less horrific under different circumstances. The result would be the same: another woman dead.

^{Angela Priestley (Women's Agenda)}