I’ve been meaning to do this post for a while now.
Amnesty International recently promoted 16 days of an end to violence against women. One in three women in Australia will be victims of violence by someone intimately known to them in their lifetimes. I count myself as one of those people thanks to my relationship with Simon Brewster when I was 17. Mine was mostly psychological, although I did have things thrown at me. I was lucky: no broken bones, minimal post-traumatic stress (my subsequent partners may disagree with that bit). We are relatively lucky in Australia, we think. We look at the stories of women overseas and most of us get to be thankful. It’s dangerous though, because the women who are experiencing intimate partner violence (and the victims are still overwhelmingly female and the perpetrators are still overwhelmingly male) are surrounded by this culture of silence.
The Victorian study of regional areas earlier this year that revealed one woman’s back was broken by her husband as she was anally raped is one example. Many of the women in the study hadn’t talked to anyone before.
If you are experiencing intimate partner violence in your life right now, and no one knows about it, please talk to someone. It’s not your fault and you can do something about it. Comment here anonymously if you like. E-mail me. My address is on my profile.
And for those of you who think the advancements women have made in the West mean that we can stop fighting, here are a few things to think about elsewhere:
Men fling acid on women’s faces in Pakistan
10 women in eight years killed by male relatives in ‘honour killings’ in one family group
And of course, the 13 year old who was stoned to death because she was a rape victim.
We can do something about all this. We can talk about it. We can stand up and say it’s not okay. We can fund education for women and girls. And it’s easy to do something: why not start with contributing to Australia’s National Plan of Action to reduce violence against women?