Reeling From Mass Stabbing, Australians Ask: Was It About Hatred of Women?

Across from the complex, which remained closed, a steady stream of mourners continued to leave flowers on Monday, adding to a large pile that had grown to stretch across multiple storefronts. Many visitors were groups of women — mothers and daughters holding hands, friends wiping tears off one another, women seemingly gripping onto their baby girls a little bit tighter.

Ms. Aravanopoulos and her daughter, Alexia Costa, were among those leaving flowers. They had returned to retrieve their car, which had been inaccessible in the cordoned-off mall since Saturday.

Ms. Aravanopoulos, 55, said she felt particularly guilty about Saturday’s brush with danger because she had insisted the pair come shopping that afternoon, to pick out a dress for her daughter’s upcoming 21st birthday. As a woman who works in the male-dominated field of construction, she has brought up her daughters to never back down and always stand up for themselves, she said.

“They think the women won’t fight back,” she said.

With the belief that the attacker was singling out women, she said she shuddered to think what would have happened if the young, female store managers didn’t act quickly and pull down the shutters.

“It was a shop full of women, and the managers were the heroes to us,” she recounted.

Simone Scoppa, 42, who was also at the memorial on Monday, said the stabbing spree was just the latest incident targeting women that makes her glance over her shoulder while walking her dog at night, even in her suburban neighborhood, and hold her keys in her hand as a defensive weapon just in case.

The setting of the mall as the site of the attack also makes women feel vulnerable, she said.

“Where are a lot of women going to be on a Saturday afternoon?” Ms. Scoppa said. “You see the dads and the husbands on the loungers minding the bags, and the mothers breastfeeding.”

Yan Zhuang contributed reporting.