After Ashling Murphy and Sarah Everard we must stop judging women

Moira's friend, Dianne Leslie, said something that has always stayed with me. 

"Someone once said to me, 'Moira was in the wrong place at the wrong time,'" she told me. "Moira was not in the wrong place. 

"She was parking her car to go home. She had every right to do that."

She was just parking her car, outside her home. Dianne was absolutely right. Moira was not in the wrong place, she was not in the wrong in any way.

And yet, when something happens to a woman, whether an assault or a murder or a rape or even something at the mild end of the scale such as street harassment, we look at the broader context and we weigh up what she was or was not doing wrong.

We look at how she might have contributed to what happened to her. Why was she out at night, why was she out alone, why did she walk that way or not call a friend? What was she wearing? What did she do to deserve it?

Ireland is currently experiencing the type of grief and shock that people across Britain endured last year following the murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa. A young teacher, Ashling Murphy, was murdered last week as she went for a run after finishing work for the day.

In the wake of Sarah's death, the campaigning slogan was "she was just walking home".

Now, Irish women are talking of Ashling in the same terms: she was just going for a run. Sabina was just going to meet a friend. 

Four woman, all murdered while doing ordinary, everyday things. Like Moira, I live near Queen's Park. Like Ashling, I go for a run alone. There is always, in these cases, a sharp sense of there but for the grace of God.  

And yet, the onus should not be solely on women to keep ourselves safe by cowering away, afraid to take up space in public. Not only do we have to fear the effects of male violence – because male violence is the problem and we should not shy away from naming it – but we have to fear the judgement of our own behaviour.   

Last week in the Glasgow Times we told the story of a young woman who was denied a parking permit outside her home and who has to park 20 minutes from her flat then walk through Kelvingrove Park, often at night. 

There have been long running campaigns to try to persuade Glasgow City Council to light our parks at night in order to make them safer spaces for people, and especially women, to use after dark but currently parks are black spaces once the sun sets. 

What was striking was that in her appeal submission, the 26-year-old said she feared her walk home because: "I feel as though if something were to happen as I walk through the park, it would be 'Why did she do that?'"

It should go without saying that women have as much right as men to be in public spaces, doing what we want, wearing what we want, being however we want.

And yet we have these endless, silent calculations to make about where we are going and how we get there; what we look like and how we behave; if the worst happens, will we be judged for what we should have done differently.

I don't think men can fully understand this, and understand what a frustration it is, what an absolute pain in the neck, to always be on alert. 
What happened to Moira and Sarah and Sabina and Ashling and all the other women like them is at the worst, most horrifying, end of the scale. 

But women relentlessly experience harassment that makes public life more hostile and more exhausting than it needs to be and almost every time something happens, the response, alongside sympathy, is the question of what you should have done to avoid it.  

Street harassment, as an example, happens to women all the time, no matter where they are. We all have countless, endless stories. 

At Christmas I went to meet a friend for a drink in The Wee Pub at The Chip on Ashton Lane. The West End is nice, it was busy enough and not very late. You see, I instantly feel I have to justify my choice of surroundings. 

As I was walking up to the door of the pub a man was coming towards me, speaking. I thought he was perhaps going to ask me for money but then he came close enough to be in earshot and I realised he was saying, "You're disgusting, you disgust me."

I was taken aback enough to sort of laugh, sort of 'Oh' in surprise. He stopped and gave me a hard look. "Why can't you just wear normal clathes?" he asked. Not clothes, clathes.

I hadn't thought there was anything particularly abnormal about my outfit. I reached for the handle of the door of The Wee Pub. Then, the kicker.

"Why do you have to go about looking like a whore?"  

So what was I wearing? It's no one's business. Walking through a park at night alone? Doesn't matter. Going for a drink with a friend or walking home from a one night stand? Both are valid. Sober or drunk; primary teacher or sex worker – no one is deserving or undeserving.  

There are ongoing, complex conversations about how society tackles male violence and how we shift the responsibility for women's safety, both in the home and in public life, onto changing the behaviour of men.

However, a simple change that can happen immediately is to cease our judgemental, double standard attitudes towards women's behaviour. Ultimately, it makes no odds if a woman is just walking home or if she is cartwheeling in a bikini along the road. 

The streets are ours, as much as yours, and we can do what we like on them.