White Ribbon Day

My father was a violent man.

My mother is still alive thankfully, and I don’t wish to embarrass her by delving into details regarding my father’s behaviour, however it is true to say that his actions restricted her opportunities.

My mother’s whole being was concentred on protecting and shielding her children.

As a young boy, I remember the feeling of helplessness in not being able to protect her from abuse. The community I grew up in knew what was happening to my mother, but nobody intervened or even ventured a comment.

Continue reading "Every Australian man is on the frontline of this battle" »

As White Ribbon Day comes around again on November 25, I’m wondering what it actually does to address a culture that celebrates – indeed eroticises – violence against women.

Sure, men buy white ribbons. They attend events where they eat sausages and swear not to hurt women. They raise money (none of which goes into services supporting survivors of violence).

Of course it’s good that men stand up and pledge not to be violent and put white ribbons on their shirt collars. We need men to be engaged in the issue. But since the inception of White Ribbon Day, violence against women and children has continued unabated. And the culture that helps to makes violence against women permissible, even something to be celebrated, remains unaddressed.

Continue reading "Violence against women is endemic to our sick culture" »

If Matthew Newton’s A Current Affair interview was his opening shot at public redemption, it was a misfire.

Both the actor and A Current Affair seemed to want the Australian public to swallow the troubled star’s “cathartic” TV tell-all and wave him off cheerfully on his road to professional rehabilitation.

But, there was one big thing lacking – free and easy use of the “s” word.

Continue reading "Sorry seems to be the hardest word for Matthew Newton" »

Growing up in the 1950s and the 1960s I witnessed my mother being brutally beaten and verbally abused and belittled regularly by my father. For over 30 years Mum put up with this abuse and her health deteriorated over that time, so much so that she died in 1983 at the very young age of 49.

My father was responsible for her death, I don’t doubt it.

I will never get over the fact that during the many occasions Mum was being attacked by my father no one stepped in to help her. Neighbours saw and heard what was happening and did nothing to help her. I remember my brother, my sister or I running next door or across the road for help but there was none. People in the street would not stop and help when she was being abused or hit in public. Family friends would do nothing when they were around and saw the violence.

Continue reading "No-one lifted a finger as Dad raised his hand at Mum" »

Every bloke has a mother. Many of us also have sisters and daughters. Some of us have all three. When it comes to the question of violence towards women, our default position is that if anyone laid a finger on our mum, our sister, our daughter or our own partner, we’d probably want to kill them.

There is a gap, however, between this zero-tolerance rhetoric on violence towards women in the immediate personal setting, and instances of violence towards women in the more distant context of friends and acquaintances, neighbours and work colleagues.

One of the most powerful and moving programs of 2011 was the Australian Story profile on Catherine Smith, who over the course of 30 years was raped, bashed and tortured by her husband Kevin Smith. He choked her with power cables, attacked with her with a cattle prod and a fire poker, sexually assaulted her at gunpoint.

Continue reading "The price of male silence on violence against women" »

A few weeks ago we ran a column here on The Punch examining the emergence of an angry core of Australian blokes who use cyberspace as a forum to unload on how women have done them wrong.

The piece documented how even the most innocent columns on breast cancer, maternity leave, childcare or body image become a vehicle whereby crotchety men can bemoan the apparent neglect of men’s health issues, the economic pressures which single dads face, the raw deal they get from the courts.

The article had the unsurprising effect of attracting, well, an angry core of Australian blokes who use cyberspace as a forum to unload on how women have done them wrong. There was a depressingly pertinent example of this mindset last week and it’s worth pinging the perpetrators over it, as it demonstrated all the nonsensical self-pity of the men-are-victims-too brigade.

Continue reading "Even White Ribbon Day is a sinister feminist plot" »

Last night I attended the launch of National Swearing Day without realising it.

Attending functions as a politician can be a bit like an episode of “Thank God You’re Here”.  You walk through the door and suddenly discover that you are giving a speech, cooking a meal, or throwing a first prize sash over a pumpkin.

So last night, instead of being at the launch of National Swearing Day, I thought I was attending a function for the White Ribbon Foundation.  It’s an organisation headed up by Andrew O’Keefe which aims to prevent violence against women.

Continue reading "Swearing for a good cause" »