Last weekend we saw a fourth and fifth women killed in Australia.
My heart goes out to the women’s family and communities, it’s horrendous and a situation that is all too common. Death, when it reaches the media, is the pointy end of crisis when we look at violence against women and children.
Many people in the public are shocked and horrified, they feel a sense of urgency that many of us in sector feel daily. My colleagues and I are often asked “How do we fix it?!”
Cultural change is a lengthy process that requires everyone to examine their attitudes and behaviours. In a time of mindless scrolling, we all need to engage a little more deeply on “those hilarious memes’’ we send without a second thought. A simple action everyone should take is observing our own responses to social media, media headlines and other popular culture engagement.
I went on a TikTok and Instagram deep dive over 7 days. We need to understand the voices that people are listening to outside of our social circles and belief systems. Social media provides a neat echo chamber where we don’t have to be challenged with views diametrically opposite to our own. It’s a space where we can always be right. I set a task to look at some top trending pieces of content and headlines I normally wouldn’t engage on.
I did this because hyper-sexualisation and aggression towards women and children is a perversive force in popular culture and an acceptable media narrative; we see these intersections when looking at community attitudes about violence against women and children. Underestimating content on TikTok and Instagram and its role in shaping the ideas of people, is a misstep in thinking. These platforms are a major source of information gathering and influencing.
“The woman should feel smaller- he needs to feel like he could kill her.”
This was some advice that appeared on a podcast called “When Sex Happens”. Currently, on TikTok, they boast over 30,000 followers, 1.7 million likes and that clip has almost a million views. This channel is dedicated to celebrating very narrow forms of masculinity – that being attractive and commanding respect requires you to install fear in women. Women should be grateful that you are actively choosing not to hurt them. It’s alarming, but the stats and comments show this a view that resonates with people.
“What the F*CK are you wearing?” “Where the fuck do you think you are going dressed like that?”
This by no means is isolated to content from the United States. An Australian content creator Chris Keverian made mainstream headlines for berating his girlfriend over the length of her skirt. Now, anyone can see this is their bit; the video is staged, complete with slapping her at the end. This couple regularly produce videos being awful to each other – I suppose for entertainment? It’s not for me but it did amass 100k of likes and an array of comments from women saying, “they needed a man to humble them”. Often when we examine this content and indeed critique its damaging messaging – typically there is a boring response of “it’s just a joke, can’t you have a laugh.”
Why are you so uptight?
Well, I’m uptight because homicides of women are on the rise in Australia, and misogynistic views like these are rampant in our society. These views tacitly provide an environment where abuse and violence against women is normalised.
I recently spoke with my colleague Lauren French at BodySafety Australia, who outlined to me that the number one thing to have in a relationship for young people in Australia is ‘’loyalty”- women must be loyal, understanding and obey men. Young women know that loyalty and support is the expectation if they want the relationship to be successful. It would seem the ‘’tongue in cheek joke’’ has a darker more damaging meaning to the audience it is intended for.
These two channels on TikTok have a reach of over 27.7 million. They aren’t at risk of being deplatformed and they have an engaged audience. When we think of men’s rights activism, people immediately think of the poster boy Andrew Tate. Make no mistake, Tate is one of a cast of thousands. His views are distasteful and dangerous, but I would argue no more dangerous than these channels, or of mainstream media personalities like Jermey Clarkson, who famously published (in print and digital) he would like to see Meghan Markle “paraded naked through the streets with excrement thrown at her”. Her crime? Existing.
This week also saw global retailer H&M withdraw an ad featuring schoolgirls after complaints that the campaign encouraged the sexualisation of underage girls. The advert, launched in Australia, featured the slogan: “Make those heads turn in H&M’s Back to School fashion” above a photo of two girls wearing gray H&M pinafore dresses. Naturally, there have been the standard insincere apology, and regrets, reminiscent of the “apology” from Balenciaga in 2022 for having children feature in a BDSM shoot.
These kinds of campaigns occur because in a creative director’s mind, being talked about and considered edgy is of greater interested than really understanding and engaging with the horrors they are replicating for advertisements. The same goes for representations of child sexual abuse in movies and tv shows.
This weekend, The Sydney Morning Herald published a piece about the forthcoming movie May December headlined “She was 36, he was 13; their scandalous affair is now an unsettling film”.
What affair? She was 36, he was 13 – that’s a crime.
May December a movie based on the story of convicted child sex offender Mary Kay Letourneau and her victim Villi Fualauu. The movie is classed as a comedy/romance. This is extremely confusing to me, someone who talks to survivors of child sexual abuse regularly and understands the devastating consequences of it.
The director Todd Haynes turned this film into an intellectual exercise; how nice for him to be able to do that. He feels this film is about the ‘’ambiguity of desire” and mused he didn’t think that his lead character was paedophile – except of course Mary Kay Letourneau was and went to prison for this crime.
There is no ambiguity in a sexual relationship between a 36-year-old and a 13-year-old. Villi was a father to two children at 15. He suffered suicide ideation, and alcoholism at an early age. The film makers did not contact him to talk about his story.
He is alive and well, he has talked about his anger – that they have oversimplified a complex situation. Advocate Harrison James from Your Reference Ain’t Relevant expressed his frustration at this regressive narrative that damages the cause for victim survivors of child sexual abuse.
“This story is not the next Notebook- romanticizing paedophilia is a disgrace and irresponsible.’’ I agree wholeheartedly.
These headlines have generated thousands of clicks every day. This is the tip of the iceberg; but it clearly demonstrates that the current national approach and messaging to the broader community is not effective.
We should all question what we engage with online and think about what these “humorous or edgy” takes really support and normalize.
If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, chat online via 1800RESPECT.org.au or text 0458 737 732.
If you are concerned about your behaviour or use of violence, you can contact the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or visit www.ntv.org.au.