I'm just angry at the emphasis on these women's occupation. Firstly, the fact that they work in the sex industry (whatever my feelings about that industry) doesn't mean they deserve to be murdered or that their deaths matter any less. Secondly, the media obsession with these women's work masks the likelihood that this person is fuelled by hatred of women in general - hating 'whores' leads to or is fuelled by regarding all women as 'whores' then to hating all women. Then everyone gets their knickers in a knot when a serial killer starts going after 'normal', 'respectable' women. Like it is any sort of a fucking surprise.
The cops during the 1970s and 1980s when trying (badly) to catch Sutcliffe had their own misogynistic assumptions as well. The language, for instance, was different. When Sutcliffe murdered a woman who wasn't a sex worker, the cops at the time said "You have killed your first innocent victim".. And also the media at the time reflected that brand of misogyny too. I just hope the cops will do a better job catching this misogynist.
Nella has a good point. People do get shocked when "respectable" women get killed. The virgin and the whore.
On the issue of prostitution I think the way forward is to decriminalise and to unionise. I think we need to show solidarity with sex workers instead of wholesale moralistic fingerwagging.
Sadly, my experience of Suffolk police suggests that they won't do a much better job. This is the force that produced a leaflet for local women telling us how not to get raped. Not only is that kind of victim-blaming in itself, they also managed to completely trivialise the issue. Laura at http://notafeministbut.blogspot.com has more about this in her archives somewhere.
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