I have been Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner at the Australian Human Rights Commission for the last seven years. It is a job that takes me from 200 metres under the sea in a submarine to the United Nations in New York, to spending time with young women survivors of acid attack in Dhakka, to camping out with Aboriginal women in the Kimberly in Western Australia, to the abattoirs and boardrooms of Australia, to the White House, NATO, the Pentagon, the World Bank and everywhere between.
That is the tremendous privilege of this role – whether I am working to support business people, refugee women, defence force personnel, survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, aboriginal women, women with disability or women in low paid jobs – every day I meet inspiring individuals – individuals committed to using whatever influence they have to create a more equal world.
Next week on 25 November, we will mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, a day that heralds 16 days of global activism to eradicate violence against women and their children. As part of my activism, I will begin every speech over the next 16 days with a story of violence against women.
Did you know there are now more women living in an intimate relationship characterised by violence than malnourished people in the world?
Yes, 980 million – almost 1 billion women – and in Australia around 1.2 million women today are either currently living in an intimate relationship characterised by violence or have recently done so.
More than one woman is murdered every week in Australia by a current or former partner – 75 per year – the lead story on TV in Sydney on Monday night was a woman allegedly beaten to death in her front yard by her husband. One in three women over the age of 15 has experienced physical or sexual violence at some stage in their lives.
But small actions can have a powerful impact. Two years ago now, I delivered the Vincent Fairfax orations around Australia where I chose to speak about domestic violence. One of the women attending, Margot, rang me the next day. She told me that following my speech she called her staff together (several hundred); she has responsibility for many staff being a senior manager for a large bank.
She said “I told my staff that today I wanted to talk about something different – domestic violence, the prevalence data, its overlap into the workplace and what we can do”. She started by recounting her own story – a story she’d never told before. The story of growing up in a violent household, of wiping the blood off her mother’s face, of taking her to hospital – of the shame and silence. She concluded by saying to her staff “Now I want you to do one thing. I want you to tell everybody in the bank my story and maybe in that way I can make it easier for others to tell theirs.” That bank is now a leader in supporting employees living with violence.
Understanding that it is personal narratives that create change just yesterday I engaged two courageous women – Rosie Batty and Kristy McKellar – both proud Victorians, to share with the Male Champions of Change their stories of surviving domestic violence.
The men heard from Rosie and Kristy about the “pieces that are taken from you that can never be reclaimed” such as the “joy of pregnancy and becoming a mother, the joy of parenting and watching your son grow up”.
The men started to understand at a profoundly human level what it is like for many women – robbed of dignity, living in fear in the very place they should be safe – in their own home.
And over the next few months as they become more comfortable talking about violence against women, you will see them step up their advocacy in this area.
Women lie at the heart of creating a more gender equal world but to make progress we must amplify their voice. As Rosie Batty said when she spoke to the men yesterday “Prior to Luke’s death no-one wanted to hear my story of living with violence. Now everyone does.”
As Australia’s Sex Discrimination Commissioner, it saddens me that when women living with violence speak, the system doesn’t listen. If someone had listened to Rosie’s story earlier would she have lost her son?
But it is also equally clear, that women cannot pursue this agenda alone. Men taking the message of gender equality to other men, is what will change the picture of gender equality in Australia.
This is an edited extract of a speech given by Elizabeth Broderick at the Big Ideas under the Dome Lecture State Library of Victoria last night. It is republished with permission. You can read the full speech here.