Skip to main content

Making change happen: The media and violence against women

Sex Discrimination

Making change happen: The media and violence against women

The EVAs (Eliminating Violence against Women) Media Awards, ANZ Pavilion, Level 8, Arts Centre, 100 St Kilda Rd, Melbourne

Elizabeth Broderick


Sex Discrimination Commissioner

Australian Human Rights Commission

26 July 2012


Thank you, Julie, for that generous introduction.

Let me begin by acknowledging the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin nation, the
traditional owners of the land on which we are now gathered. I pay my respects
to your elders, past and present, and all the Aboriginal and Torres Strait
Islander women and men who work tirelessly to eliminate violence against
women.

Let me also acknowledge the Hon. Mary Wooldridge, Minister for Women.

It is such a pleasure to be here tonight. When I first started in my role
and was determined to learn more about violence against women, the strong advice
that I received was that I should come to Victoria and observe the collaboration
between different arms of government, the police, the courts, the coroner,
unions, business groups, NGOs such as DV Vic, Say NO to Violence and CASA and
others. And I was so inspired.

So why am I not surprised that the awards are being held in Melbourne. I
want to congratulate the organisers of The Eliminating Violence against Women
Media Awards
.[1] What an
important and innovative initiative – honouring journalists for excellence
in the reporting of violence against women and celebrating media contributions
to the prevention of such violence.

We need more initiatives like the EVAs! Just yesterday I was asked:
“Well what’s the media doing to make people aware of this
situation?” And, for once, I had a clear response –
“Initiatives like the EVA’s that can and are making a
difference!”

Violence against women, as you know, is one of the most pervasive human
rights abuses in this country.

It has reached epidemic proportions.

As we’ve heard many times this evening:

  • one in three women in Australia has experienced physical violence since the
    age of 15;[2]
  • of those women, 85% were assaulted by a current or former partner, family,
    friend or other known male;[3] and
  • three quarters of these physical assaults occurred in the woman’s
    home.[4]

More than one
woman a week is murdered by an intimate partner here in Australia.

The statistics are sobering and absolutely necessary if we are to identify
the prevalence of violence against women in Australia.

But the statistics only tell one part of the story.

When the statistics are viewed in isolation or repeated, as they so often
are, without the necessary context, they hide the human face
– the human cost – of that violence.

That is why the EVA’s are just so important. They recognise the
critical role journalists play in telling the stories of violence against women.
It’s the stories that galvanise the community to take action. It’s
the stories that encourage individuals, advocates, community and business
leaders, politicians, union representatives and human rights activists to open
their hearts and minds to the devastating impact violence has on women’s
lives – to the incredible strength of character and resilience exhibited
by so many women living day in, day out with violence.

It is also why I share the stories of women – women like Catherine
Smith, a truly courageous woman from rural NSW. Catherine, as some of you here
tonight may know already, went to extraordinary lengths to protect herself and
her children against family violence. She accompanied me to the UN earlier this
year to tell her story, so that others could understand the particular issues
for women living in rural communities. It’s one thing for the data to
tell us that we have insufficient refuges in Australia, particularly in rural
areas. It’s another thing entirely to hear how Catherine with four
children, 2 in school uniform walked almost 80 kilometres to the nearest
violence shelter, sleeping on a river bank with only the clothes on their backs.

And the stories of the children growing up in violent homes – of Vicki,
Catherine’s daughter, who told the UN when she addressed them earlier this
year:

My earliest childhood memory of the “terrorism in our home”, I
was in bed for the night and Dad was yelling at mum in the kitchen. I heard the
cutlery drawer opening and my heart sank. I froze and kept listening, but
nothing happened except Dad kept yelling.

The instinctual thought was that dad was getting a knife to kill mum. Not
this time, he was just making a sandwich.

Over the years I watched my father become a more aggressive, enraged and
threatening man, rarely with any consequence for his crimes. My father was
always outwardly empowered by his previous victories.

He was proud of getting away with so much that was in the hands of the law.
The inaction not only empowered my Father it rendered the rest of the family
powerless.

Who do you call when you don’t have faith in how police intervene. ...
how do you feel confident that you can leave for safety when you’re easily
found by him EVERY time. There was no true escape .....

As a child I wished for:

- No Christmas presents – just peace

- For someone to save us – they wouldn’t

- For Dad to pass away in his sleep – he didn’t

But as a child I never imagined that I would be here in New York at the
United Nations, speaking directly to the people with the power to change the
future for families like ours.

The fact that Catherine and Vicki were even speaking at the UN was due to the
media, most importantly to a committed journalist Jennifer Feller from Australian Story who stayed with the story over many court hearings and
many years. Not only did Jennifer document the shame, the fear, the courage and
resilience of Catherine Smith, but she also documented the failure of the system
to keep women like Catherine safe. And she provided support and empathy when it
was needed most.

I also speak of women like Andrea, an Aboriginal woman from Western
Australia, who died three years ago, aged 39 years, at the hands of her abusive
estranged husband. The Australian Human Rights Commission has just intervened
in her coronial inquiry. Her murder followed a prolonged period of violence and
multiple attempts by Andrea to seek assistance from authorities and safety for
herself and her children.

Andrea, like Catherine, was let down by systemic failures of the state
– she and her children were turned away from safe housing on a number of
occasions including on the night she was murdered. It is telling, I think, that
Andrea was murdered while her estranged husband, Charles Pickett, was on parole
following a conviction for threatening to kill her and that at the time of her
murder there was a violence restraining order in place. Now that’s
systemic failure!

Stories like Catherine’s, Vicki’s and Andrea’s provide a
context to the prevalence rates of violence against women in this country. They
tell us what the statistics can’t: the stories that are so often pushed to
the periphery of public consciousness. They tell us about the reality of living
with violence, with sexual assault. About the challenges that survivors face in
ensuring their safety and often that of their children.

Stories like Catherine’s, Vicki’s and Andrea’s need to be
told!

Who is going to tell these stories?

Who is going to inform the community and inspire action?

Who is going to expose the human face and cost?

And who is going to challenge and dismantle the myths, stereotypes and
attitudes that cause violence against women in the first place – that
allow countless perpetrators to walk our streets with impunity?

The simple answer is that telling the stories is a collective responsibility!
It will take all of us.

We need to involve all sectors of the community.

We need to involve victims and survivors, we need to involve government,
business and unions, we need to involve service providers, and many, many
others.

I think it is fair to say, though, that journalists (and the media in
general) have a fundamental role to play in telling the story of violence
against women in this country.

You have the power – as those nominated for this year’s awards
have shown – to make change happen and to take the lead in
encouraging others to do the same.

You may not be able to intervene to assist individual survivors or provide
them with shelter in the way that the police or a violence refuge can.

But you can and are agents of change. Tonight is our opportunity to
thank you. To thank you for educating the community, for exposing and
challenging the myths, the stereotypes, the attitudes and unequal power
relationships that cause and condone violence against women.

Let me explain.

As I travel around Australia, I often ask people to name countries where they
consider violence against women to be a problem. More often than not, they reel
off a list of countries from overseas. What they fail to recognise is that
violence against women is endemic in Australia.

The failure to recognise the severity of the problem occurring in our own
backyards was reinforced during the recent study tour of Rashida Manjoo, the UN
Special Rapporteur on violence against women. Time and time again, the Special
Rapporteur was told that there is strong resistance in the community to
acknowledging that Australia has a culture of violence against women.

Journalists have two important functions that will create systemic
change:

  1. to educate the community about violence against women; and
  2. not to perpetuate and institutionalise harmful myths, stereotypes and
    attitudes about women.

Consider, for example, the finding of
VicHealth that more than half of the community believe that a woman could leave
a violent relationship if she really wanted to; and eight in ten people still
question why women stay in violent relationships. Such attitudes were found to
be most commonly held by men and younger
people.[5]

These findings tell us that people who have not experienced sexual assault,
domestic or family violence personally or who do not know someone who has,
really struggle to understand what it means to be a victim or survivor.

They don’t understand, for example, why some women are not able to seek
refuge or safety from violent situations.

They often don’t know about the limited number of shelters in rural
areas, a problem that faced Catherine Smith.

They often don’t know about the lack of shelters equipped to care for
women with several dependent children, an issue that affected Andrea.

And they often don’t know about women’s fear of backlash and
punishment if their abusive partner finds them or their children, an issue that
weighs on the mind of many victims and survivors of domestic and family
violence.

In other words, they often don’t know that it is not as simple as
packing the car and leaving.

By identifying these obstacles and better explaining the experiences of
women, journalists can and are playing a leadership role in challenging myths,
stereotypes and attitudes about violence against women.

In ‘The Courage of Her Convictions’, the Australian Story episode about Catherine Smith’s experiences of violence, Catherine had
the opportunity to explain:

I’ve been asked a thousand times, 'Why didn’t you leave? Why did
you keep going back?' It’s not a simple thing when someone’s a
control freak, a psychopath. He always found me any time I got away, and it
made it far worse.[6]

She later remarked before a UN audience:

From the feedback I have had since my story went public, it is clear the
community have no idea how dangerous and controlling perpetrators of domestic
violence are.[7]

Journalists bear an important responsibility not to perpetuate and
institutionalise harmful myths, stereotypes and attitudes through their own
reporting.

Unfortunately we still see in today’s media examples of dehumanising
stories and images of women.

Stories that convey the message that a woman’s only or primary worth is
how she looks.

Advertisements that turn women’s bodies into things to sell products to
men – it doesn’t seem to matter what it is: cars, deodorant, shoes,
beer ...

Actually the ad for a livestock service takes the cake this week. It
features a woman in pink underwear being held down and shorn like a sheep.

Derogatory language, such as ‘Ditch the Witch’, and at times
violent language, is used to describe the leader of our country, no
less.[8]

Why, in 2012, does it remain socially acceptable in Australia to use violent
and derogatory imagery and language about women?

The biggest problem this creates is that it normalises and trivialises
violence and creates a climate in which such violence is widespread.

Violent speech has no place in the Australian community. As was said
recently by some women’s groups,

[w]hile we expect that from time to time such discussions and conversations
will be passionate, dynamic and robust, we do not accept that the language used
should ever express sentiments which are reflective of violence against
women.[9]

It is important that we all take a stand against such violent and derogatory
imagery and language, both on a personal and institutional level, whether
reporting specifically on violence against women or on other issues.

I’d like to finish now by recounting a final story told to me by the
head of one of Australia’s largest women’s organisations.
It’s a story that gives me great hope about the potential to create
change.

It is the story of Ella.

Ella is a woman in her seventies, who had been living in an abusive
relationship for around 45 years.

Over Christmas, Ella’s daughter and granddaughter came to stay with
her. While they were there, Ella’s husband returned home drunk. He walked into the kitchen and – like he so frequently did – was
violent toward Ella.

Ella’s 40 year old daughter hid, just like she had learned to do.

But it was Ella’s teenage who, having just completed a Respectful
Relationships program at school, decided to do something different.

Once the violence stopped, she went up to her Grandmother and said: “It
doesn’t have to be like this, Grandma”.

For the first time,
someone – Ella’s granddaughter offered her a way out. She arranged
to take her Grandmother to the local domestic violence counselling service the
next day. And the heartening thing about this story is that Ella’s
granddaughter, the least powerful member of the family took a stand and spoke
out – in support not in judgement – and, in so doing, changed the
course of that family.



Just as everyone has a right to live free from
violence, so do we all have a responsibility to reduce violence and create
peace.



My invitation to you is: what action can you take, no matter how
small or big that can move us to a world where dignity and respect lie at the
core, a world in which violence has no place?

As I look around the room tonight, I am certain that with your help, your
talent, your influence, we can do it.

As with any awards ceremony, there will be award winners announced this
evening. I congratulate you and thank you for using your considerable talents to
help eliminate violence against women.

But as Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, I cannot stress
enough that it will take each and every one of us to create a more equal
Australia. So, to everyone who nominated or was nominated, who showed courage,
originality and creativity, who cared about increasing Australia’s
awareness of violence against women – a very big thank you.

Just like Ella’s granddaughter, we can give dignity back and tell the
truth kindly. My quest is to realise a peaceful world, one where all people can
thrive irrespective of their gender. The EVAs take us a giant step in that
direction!


[1] The organisers are Domestic
Violence Victoria, CASA Forum and No to Violence: Male Family Violence
Prevention Association.

[2] Australian Bureau of
Statistics, Personal Safety Survey Australia 2005 (Reissue), Catalogue
No. 4906.0 (2006). At http://www.ausstats.abs.gov.au/ausstats/subscriber.nsf/0/056A404DAA576AE6CA2571D00080E985/$File/49060_2005%20%28reissue%29.pdf (viewed 1 June 2012).

[3] Above.

[4] Above.

[5] VicHealth, National Survey
on Community Attitudes to Violence against Women 2009: Changing Cultures,
Changing Attitudes – Preventing Violence against Women,
A Summary of
Findings (2010), 46.

[6] “The Courage of Her
Convictions”, Australian Story, 19 September 2011 (transcript). At: http://www.abc.net.au/austory/content/2011/s3321209.htm (viewed 10 July 2012).

[7] Catherine Smith,
‘Governments of Australia and Solomon Islands Side Event: Impact of
Violence against Rural Women’, Commission on the Status of Women,
56th sess, UN Headquarters, New York, 2 March 2012.

[8] Simon Benson ‘PM Julia
Gillard “Slapped Down” at G20 Summit by the President of the
European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso’, The Daily Telegraph, 19
June 2012. At: http://www.news.com.au/pm-julia-gillard-slapped-down-at-g20-summit-by-the-president-of-the-european-commission-jose-manuel-barrosa/story-e6freuy9-1226400667769.

[9] Coalition for a Feminist Agenda
and Women Everywhere Advocating Violence Elimination, ‘Enough is Enough:
Violent Speech Has No Place in Public Debate’ (2012). At http://www.weaveinc.org.au/Campaigns/PRESS%20RELEASE.docx