The Saturday Briefing … Taking the long way home

There is a register of fear heard by women and gender nonconforming people, an ever-present call to vigilance never expected of men, writes Laura Jean McKay. What follows is a diary of the ordinary fear of half of the population. As much as any murder, this reality should be on the front of newspapers.

6.45am Morning and it’s dark. I have a partner who is warm. He gets up and puts on jogging clothes. I don’t. It’s still dark. I could run along the main street, with the cars and the concrete, but I’m reluctant to jog around the park or down to the Merri Creek by myself and I don’t want to go with him – he’s fast, I like to ramble and puff. I don’t like the way he slows down to wait for me under the bridge; it feels as if I’m being minded. I do some stretching on the bedroom floor until I realise I’m not stretching, I’m just lying there, thinking about Eurydice Dixon. It’s Friday. She was walking home two nights ago, through another park, right near where I used to live. I didn’t know her in life, but in death she is all I can think about,

Plus: Paul Bongiorno on the government’s $147 billion tax plans, Omar J. Sakr on describing political correctness, and Karen Middleton on the new foreign interference laws.

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The Saturday Paper