Why are we blaming the Epsom College headteacher for her own murder?

We have seen speculation that Emma Pattison’s achievements may have made her husband feel as if he was ‘living in her shadow’

The Epsom College murders have ushered in another very bad week for victim-blaming.

After George Pattison shot and killed headteacher Emma Pattison, their daughter Lettie, seven, and himself at their home on the site of Epsom College, there was speculation from some quarters of the media (and social media) that the high achievements of Pattison during her career may have made her husband feel as if he was “living in her shadow”.

Classic victim-blaming, even if there wasn’t the direct intention to do it.

It implies that Pattison could have avoided being killed if she had only been less successful than, or even equally successful to, her husband. This is yet another cross for women to bear, even in death.

I have experienced similar as a campaigning feminist. I am often referred to as a “man-hater”. But in my opinion, it is the epitome of man-hating to suggest that men are so fragile in their egos that they will be pushed to violence if they are not the top dog. I don’t know any men like that. I am more objectively “successful” than my husband – should I be worried?

The “boys will be boys” rhetoric, which makes out that men are so base and so predictable that they simply cannot control their behaviour, is to me what man-hating looks like. I think considerably more of men than that. I think they are capable human beings, in charge of all their faculties – and that when they kill and rape, it is because they are individuals making the choice to do so.

Alongside Women’s Aid, I have been working for years to try to change how we report the killing of women. This is by far not the first case that has triggered victim-blaming. Often, the ones that reach the headlines describe a loving husband “pushed to breaking point”.

Tales of infidelity on the part of a murdered woman are woven into the tapestry of how she came to be stabbed to death in her bedroom. Or, we hear how the pressures of work just got “too much” for some poor husband, who then shot and killed his wife and children.

We never hear these stories told about men who kill other men. We don’t look for the stresses at work that may have led up to a drive-by shooting by a gang. We don’t seem to think someone “just snapped and lost control” when they murder a stranger in the park.

Victim-blaming isn’t reserved to stories about murdered women, either. This week, the home secretary Suella Braverman repeated allegations of inappropriate behaviour by asylum seekers while condemning mob violence that took place outside a hotel used to house them in Knowsley.

She posted on Twitter: “I condemn the appalling disorder in Knowsley last night. The alleged behaviour of some asylum seekers is never an excuse for violence and intimidation.”

In my opinion, there was absolutely no reason for her to mention the allegations.

When we use qualifying language that perpetrators might also use in their defence, we amplify those justifications. Yet there is no justification for killing your wife and child, just as there is no justification for inciting violence against any group of people, or for attacking police officers.

Stop with the victim-blaming. The only person responsible for the terrible Epsom College murders is the one who picked up the gun.