Is violence against women our Sandy Hook? | Article | The Punch

A balding, middle-aged man said something dumb about breastfeeding on TV last week.

Furious mums turned out in the force outside Channel 7?s studios in Martin Place, juggling bubs on their chests. As is their right.

But while this was happening, there was another protest underway.

You just wouldn?t have heard a whole lot about this one. That?s because there was no rally. No public outcry. No TV cameras.

It?s a demonstration that many women participate in everyday. The only difference being that it is a silent and solitary protest.

Their protest is less a demonstration than a plea: Stop hurting me.

An astonishingly high number of Aussie women will be assaulted or sexually abused in their lifetimes. One in three, figures furnished by the White Ribbon Foundation say.

This violence stems from the sexism of whole communities.

Of blokes who say ?she deserved? it over sinking a few schooners; even of some deeply conservative religious groups that refuse to approve of women divorcing their husbands if they beat them, or force women to marry people they do not love.

The victims of this violence are wives, mothers, sisters, daughters. Even Jill Meagher was one of them.

Every disaster, like Jill?s, hurts. We all felt for Jill. My heart broke then, last year, when my girlfriend said after the killing: ?Great, I?m just going to end up in a bag somewhere.?

One violence expert I talked to yesterday compared Australia?s reaction to violence against women with the recent spate of mass shootings in the United States.

?Every time, people talk about there being tipping points, or that community reaction feels different this time ? or maybe they?re just desperately hopeful this time?s going to be different,? said Greg Aldridge, the co-director of the Canberra Men?s Centre.

The violence keeps happening though. For instance, the number of domestic violence deaths in WA more than doubled last year.

David Koch said something that I reckon wasn?t overly well thought out.

But he?s just a guy. As a guy who is known to say dumb things in conversation with friends all the time, I can sympathise.

Now that the dust on the breastfeeding debate has settled, what we should really all be getting angry about isn?t some media storm in a teacup.

Kochie - White Ribbon ambassador, dad of four - isn?t the real face of sexism.

The real face of sexism is a battered one. Even a dead one. And every time that happens to one of our women - that?s what should be getting us howling, every day of the week.

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Source: http://www.thepunch.com.au/articles/is-violence-against-women-our-sandy-hook/

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