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This weekend, Australians across the country will join rallies urging governments to do more to end gender-based violence in our communities. The protests come after what researchers Anastasia Powell and Asher Flynn, who study violence against women, describe as “a particularly distressing start to the year”.
“A spate of cases involving women dying, allegedly at the hands of men, in the Ballarat region. The shocking case of Molly Ticehurst, allegedly murdered by her ex-boyfriend in central west New South Wales. The fact so many of the victims of the violence at Bondi Junction were women,” they write.
“It is clear there is a collective grief across our nation. The headlines express our shared hurt and disbelief that women continue to lose their lives to men’s violence against them.”
At times like these, things can feel hopeless. After all, we’ve heard about gender-based violence over so many years, what is being done -– and is any of it actually working?
Today, Powell and Flynn remind us that now is also a time “for renewing our commitments that we will not stand by and do nothing while women continue to be harmed. We have not been standing in silence.”
Their analysis outlines some of the work that has been done by governments, workplaces, schools, sporting institutions and faith-based organisations to heighten our awareness of family and sexual violence, and the role we all have to play in responding to and preventing it.
“Our national data is telling us that these shared efforts are starting to show impact in our communities. Of course, zero preventable deaths should be our goal. But the data from the Australian Institute of Criminology’s National Homicide Monitoring Program does show a continuing decline in rates of intimate partner homicide, in particular,” they write. “The Australian Bureau of Statistics’ Personal Safety Survey, the most accurate measure of self-reported experiences of all forms of personal violence in Australia, also shows some promising trends. It shows the 12-month rate of family violence may have reduced in some states, while remaining the same in others.”
The recent headlines will likely be especially painful for victim-survivors, and can “prompt an unnerving sense of unsafety; a feeling of endless risk that too often women are left to navigate largely on their own.”
“Others may feel the time is right to disclose their own experience of violence to a friend or family member, or contact a helpline like 1800 RESPECT,” the pair write.
“If you find yourself responding to a disclosure of violence, remember your initial response can have a lasting impact. Now, more than ever, she will need to be listened to without blame or judgement. She will need to be believed, and she may need some support to connect with specialist support services.”
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