Drew Hopwood was kind enough to speak to me yesterday and it was from him that I learned a fascinating fact about Marion, something about which the news coverage of her murder has so far been silent: she had no best friend. She was on nodding terms with her immediate neighbours, but her grandson described her as ‘always so immersed in family that she never had time for friends’. The only people she saw regularly were Drew and his half-sister, comedian Kim Tribbeck, who was adopted by another family at birth.

No. Best. Friend. Are you going to break into the police briefing to tell them the bad news, or shall I? Their theory that Billy is killing pairs of best friends has just died on its arse. Now all those brilliant detectives are going to have to look for another pattern and I’m willing to bet my vital organs that they’ll still fail to notice the glaringly obvious: that Billy is a dedicated practitioner of the misogynistic murder of women.

Think I’m wrong? Then ask yourself this: if a serial killer murdered four chiropodists and one tightrope walker, would or wouldn’t the papers and the blogs be full of speculation about what grudge he might have against chiropodists? How often do you think you’d hear the word ‘chiropodist’? I think we all know that aspect of the story would be central in our communal narrative. But substitute ‘women’ for ‘chiropodists’ and it’s not thought by mainstream reporting to be a detail worth dwelling on.

And why should we dwell on it, especially if we’re women? What does it matter what we think, when we’re so insignificant? Most of us aren’t chiropodists, and we certainly aren’t human beings with innate value. We can’t be, or else how do you explain the way we’re treated in the world and the way the phenomenon of our mass slaughter for centuries at the hands of men is ignored and erased by the very police officers whose job it ought to be to keep us safe?

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3 Comments:

From: Colin, Culver Valley

You’re properly off your trolley, aren’t you?