As with other verdicts in Australia. As with the O. J. Simpson verdict and the verdict that drove Dominick Dunne to rabid activism in the United States, this was a verdict rooted in patriarchy and the unfettered rights ascribed to men.

So deep are the prejudices and the assumptions about female culpability at work in our courts, exposing them is one of the great challenges of our time.

Post-feminism women no longer believe they must stay in a bad relationship or endure the abuse Reeva Steenkamp resisted on the night she was killed.

If the murder of a mother and her children in New South Wales isn't enough, surely the Pistorius verdict is testament to the need for a royal commission into violence against women.

Let's start it in Australia.