Mother Jones’ analysis of all the mass shootings in America between 1982 and 2018 found that only two of 100 shootings were committed by women. 95 per cent of the fatalities were caused by men and 60 per cent of those were white men. 7 of the 10 incidents with highest fatalities were committed by white men. The Oxford dictionary defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of violence and intimidation, especially against civilians, in the pursuit of political aims”. White men’s violence against women is differentiated from terrorism because it ascribed to personal grievances, mental illness or a good bloke who “just snapped”. Family photo of the Miles family before the shooting. Credit:Nine News Or it’s the fault of women who rejected them, left them, pushed them too far, made them jealous and somehow turned an otherwise Good Bloke into a killer. Good Blokes, of course, are only white men. Men of colour who kill are dangerous threats who should never have been allowed to come here and Arab men who kill are just straight up terrorists.

This is not just an American problem. Australia does not have the same level of gun violence as America, but in the past 20 years in Australia, six people have been killed (three of them perpetrators) and 10 people injured in so-called terrorist incidents. Nearly 1,500 women have been killed by men who claim to love them over the same period and hundreds of thousands more have been injured. All this violence is reported as a series of unrelated incidents not a pattern of behaviour driven by a collective motive – men maintaining control over women’s lives and bodies. Men who hate, fear and rage against women so much that they feel justified in killing them are radicalised and politicised in the same way as any other terrorist group. They gather together to educate each other and reinforce their fundamental belief in the dehumanisation of their clearly defined enemy (women) and the inflated entitlement due to the group claiming power by violence (men). These are the men who cannot comprehend that sex is not a right or that wives, girlfriends, partners and dates are not things you acquire to prove status or value. Duty counsel Georgia Koulis, from left, Alek Minassian, Justice of the Peace Stephen Waisberg, and Crown prosecutor Joe Callaghan appear in court in Toronto. Minassian ran a van into a crowded sidewalk. Credit:Canadian Press

The men who cannot see women as people are supported by radical misinterpretation of religion and culture. Their targets may sometimes be specific individuals who embody everything they’ve been taught to hate and fear, but they also commit mass murder justified only by rage that their rights over women’s bodies and lives are denied. Sixteen-year-old Shana Fisher was murdered by a boy she had rejected. He also killed nine of her teachers and classmates. This is not a story about the poor, rejected boy. This is a story about a pattern of behaviour displayed by mostly white men who believe their access to women’s bodies and approval is a fundamental right and violence is a justifiable response to women’s autonomy. Shooting victim Shana Fisher. Women have been talking, writing and protesting about this for years. Feminists have long understood men’s violence against women as a political not personal issue but have gained little traction in a world still dominated by white men. We have made huge steps in changing the laws and raising public debate but the rate at which men kill women and children has not changed substantially in decades.