The rape and murder of Melbourne comedian Eurydice Dixon has struck a chord, with thousands paying tribute to the slain young woman in , sparking a conversation about gender-based violence in Australia.
That conversation has provoked defensive posturing in certain quarters, with the #notallmen brigade arguing Dixon’s murder was an isolated and aberrant instance of violence and attacking feminist critiques as unfairly ‘demonising’ men.
Domestic Violence NSW Chief Executive Officer Moo Baulch said this approach profoundly misunderstands how gender inequality relates to violence against women.
Every woman I know across every political spectrum, culture, religion and class has had some level of sensibility around being responsible for their own safety for most of their lives.
“Every woman I know across every political spectrum, culture, religion and class has had some level of sensibility around being responsible for their own safety for most of their lives,” Baulch said.
She said it was not about demonising individual men but understanding how patriarchy works in society.
“There are particular drivers of violence and they are really around a sense of male entitlement,” Baulch said.
Men are really strong allies in this fight.
Patriarchy is a system where men have greater institutional, financial and social power as a class. Individuals within a patriarchal society may internalise forms of superiority or authority over women leading to the normalisation of sexist attitudes and behaviour. These sexist attitudes can trivialise violence and discrimination women experience and impact their safety in the street and home.
An intersectional approach acknowledges this risk is magnified for working class women and women from racial and religious minorities who experience a double dislocation from centres of power in mainstream society.
Individual men can fight this by acknowledging patriarchy and fighting against sexist attitudes.
“Men are really strong allies in this fight,” Baulch said.
There are particular drivers of violence and they are really around a sense of male entitlement.
Baulch said Australia was far behind in integrating this internationally accepted theory on gender equality as it relates to violence against women.
"In Australia sometimes we can be a bit insular in our thinking. Other governments and jurisdictions in other parts of the world - this stuff is normal for them," Baulch said.
"We in Australia have a political landscape that doesn’t love us having the conversation around the root causes of violence against women... we still have a very long way to go before women are considered equal in business and politics. We still accept sexist attitudes as the norm."
Baulch said women were disproportionately victims of violence at the hands of men, with men more likely to be at risk of violence at the hands of another man. One in three women in Australia experience violence in their lifetime, most commonly at the hands of an intimate partner.
Baulch said Dixon’s murder strikes a chord because it is a reminder of the daily vigilance women exercise to protect their physical safety.
“This is not just an isolated problem. This is not just the horror of one woman’s experience of violence. This is something that I would say every woman in Australia can relate to in some shape or form,” Baulch said.
Source: Our Watch Source: Supplied
