Many steps to real justice for women
As women across Australia took to the streets this week to fight for recognition of their basic human rights, it became glaringly obvious we still have an enormous amount of work to do to heal gender disparity and injustice in our country.
One in three women experience sexual trauma during their lifetime, and one in four have been subjected to violence by a partner since the age of fifteen. Even more shockingly, one woman is murdered at the hands of a partner every week in Australia. But this violence doesn’t just occur at home or on the street. Around forty per cent of women have experienced sexual harassment in the workplace in the past five years. And experts believe that only half the incidences of sexual assault and violence are actually reported.
Factors including feelings of shame, hopelessness and low confidence, fear of repercussions, and psychological programming and grooming of victims can prevent people coming forward for years, if at all. The scars of gender violence and sexual trauma can be lifelong, and adversely impact a person’s physical, mental, sexual and reproductive health, leading to psychosocial challenges, PTSD and premature death.
So, how can we heal as a nation?
Firstly, we must stop the culture of misogyny and victim blaming — we need to make it safe for people to talk about their experiences of sexual assault and rape. Grassroots campaigns such as Red My Lips, #MeToo and #LetHerSpeak have made great strides to expose the prevelance of sexual violence against women and give survivors a voice. And White Ribbon Australia has championed some of the work to eliminate gender violence through primary prevention strategies in communities, schools and workplaces, as well as policy and research. But this week’s March 4 Justice protests, which demonstrated solidarity and hope also highlighted the colossal divide that remains.
Importantly, these initiatives must be met with strong leadership from the top, through policy and legislative reform to protect victims as well as improve access to trauma support services. There’s a need for compassionate wrap-around support for sexual assault survivors from the moment they first reach out and report abuse. Thankfully services like Sexual Assault Resource Centre in Perth provides free support and counselling including a 24 hour emergency service and hotline.
Long term healing interventions such as innovative trauma informed arts therapies, combined with neurobiological, somatic and cognitive behaviour treatments have shown positive results for PTSD recovery. Though more research is required to establish the effectiveness for healing sexual trauma. It’s also important to remember that we can start the preventative work at home with our children, and at school through teaching them how to develop emotional literacy, authentic communication and a healthy sense of self-leadership.
Good Blokes Co in Perth is doing some of the work to stamp out gender inequality and improve men’s mental health and behaviour. The organisation’s founder Mike Dyson said, “I would love women to know there are people out there who care and that boys can learn how to be healthy young men”. Good Blokes Co empower boys and men through skills training, camps and coaching programs to build healthy masculine leadership and have truly great respectful relationships with women, children and their mates.
Despite centuries-old oppression, the real triumph of this week’s March 4 Justice protests is the enduring resilience of women and their allies to stand against gender violence in Australia. Transformational leadership through courageous conversations coupled with concrete action, law reform and increased funding for prevention and healing will lead to collective social change, and there’s a role for all of us to play.
1800RESPECT National Sexual Assault, Family & Domestic Violence Counselling Line: 1800 737 732
Sexual Assault Resource Centre: 1800 199 888
Lifeline: 13 14 11
This article was first published in The West Australian in Renée Gardiner’s weekly column in Agenda, 13 March 2021.