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@Maj
this is very well put and something any man looking to show allyship should take ownership of. the focus from male peers and family members, in light of these events, as with all events, is on not only the "random stranger" but their acquaintances and their colleagues.
it's just as important, if not as statistically more important you shine a lense on yourself, your family members, your close friends, even if it means spoiling a family dinner or a friendly round of drinks at the pub, the group chat vibe because you, your mate or your brother said something awful. it's easy to lash the "ideal perpetrator" but the real leg work, and arguably what provides a more meaningful shift in ones attitude, is shutting down the people "we know don't mean it, just unconscious" (statistically they're likely to unconsciously enact it too).
i did find this uncomfortable to swallow, not that all victims are not deserved of the coverage Everad received, it's how quickly the media will spin up the machine for people like Everad but not other victims like the aforementioned Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry.
more than that, how often events like the murder Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry and subsequent disrespect officers of the MET conducted, is erased in reporting when reporting similar gendered state violence from other serving officers. it's not surprising, but it doesn't make it any more exhausting, especially after a summer of corporate and media entities telling us they're "listening and learning"
My sister attended the peaceful vigil the other night, to stand in solidarity with the local community, for all women of the area, it was a peaceful time for reflection, until the very officers who structurally cause so much pain and harm to women in the area and London as a whole, waited for it to get dark and dragged women half their size to the ground. My sister herself there with 2 other women and their dog, were accosted by a male officer, who, coincidentally, didn't like that a woman was ignoring him so saw fit to grab her friend, which they pulled her away and quickly left.
this violence isn't just for us to remove at a personal level, or an individual level, but for us to remove at a structural level. politicians of any party, voting against spy cops or undermining community driven efforts for reform of the police service for sake of "optics" are doing harm to women and it should be seen as that too, and are just as responsible as the officers throwing women to the ground.