Gary Gannon (Dublin Central, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

Last week, to try to make sense of an inconceivable loss, we pointed to the very simple act a young woman was doing when she was murdered by a man. Social media platforms ignited with a simple phrase, "She was just going for a run". In reminded me of the everyday acts that other women in this country were carrying out as they were murdered at the hands of men. She was just walking home from work. She had just returned from a night out. She was just in her home on Christmas Eve. There are no words that can make this okay for Ashling Murphy or for those who knew and loved her. There are no words that can make this right for any woman who has experienced the scourge of gender-based violence in public or in private, in her home or on the street. It requires political action, as has already been discussed, which is catered for in the Istanbul Convention and the UN's Safe Cities and Safe Public Spaces for Women and Girls global initiative but which remains unfulfilled on Government and local authority desks.

It would be remiss of me not to speak today about the responsibility of men to end men's violence against women. There is an onus on men to end this scourge. I want to speak to the lies that we, as men, tell ourselves so that we may be absolved of blame for, or complicity in, the toxic masculine culture that many of us were formed by. In 2014, Tom Meagher wrote about the monster myth following the murder of his wife Jill in Australia in 2012. Tom Meagher challenged men to break their silence on the root societal causes of male violence against women and to no longer perpetuate a monster myth that merely places blame on evil individuals as if they operate outside the boundaries of the society in which they were formed. Last week, following the tragic murder of Ashling Murphy, we saw Tom's words enacted once again by men attempting to "other" Ashling's killer, as if he operated outside the full spectrum of men's violence against women. There was talk of a "violent monster" who must be caught. Emphasis was placed on the nationality of a suspect because that allowed us to separate or "other" the killer from the everyday. Once again, #NotAllMen came to the fore, as if that hashtag alone did not cause harm to any woman who has had to look over her shoulder in fear of a man who may approach.

To end men's violence against women we must accept that perpetrators of gender-based violence are socialised by the sexism and masculinity that typify their everyday relations and, in turn, institutionalise sexism in our culture. It is crucial that while not all men commit violence, it is almost always a man that is the perpetrator. Men's violence against women is a spectrum. It starts with what many see as harmless banter or sexist jokes and ends with women afraid and hurt in relationships, with random attacks and harassment of women on the street and with women being killed. Men's violence against women is a spectrum but to truly confront this violence, men must not only call it out but also understand that spectrum and the excuses we make to absolve ourselves from that culture. Ashling Murphy was killed by a man, albeit one who committed a monstrous act. Women all over this country are being attacked in their homes. Men must act to break the cycle, challenge it wherever it may be formed, root it out at its source and commit ourselves to never replicating it.

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