Australia’s White Ribbon 2013 media campaign invites you to discover our country’s hidden secret – that one woman a week dies from domestic violence in the country of abundant rainforests, cosmopolitan cities and beautiful beaches. Using this statistic and the shock tactic is a new direction for the men’s awareness campaign.
While it’s undoubtedly important that Aussie men stand up and make their pledge not to use violence against women on White Ribbon Day there is a danger that the viewer might blink and miss the key message or, that more collectively, we may lose sight of the fact that intimate partner abuse is not all about being beaten or murdered.
Many survivors of domestic violence (and a significant number of scientific studies) say that the scars and bruises resulting from physical abuse heal relatively rapidly, whereas the psychological consequences are long-term, intergenerational and sometimes irreparable. It’s the “living on egg-shells” dynamic: monitoring of contact with friends and family, flowers sent to a woman’s workplace so that she is hyper-vigilant and aware that he knows where she is and what she’s doing. It can be those little acts that may seem innocuous or even romantic to an outsider which cleverly disguise the subtleties of control that sit behind them and the message that is invisible to all but the perpetrator and victim.
So while we wait to hear the judgement in the recent high profile Simon Gittany case, the final legal conclusion may seem somewhat irrelevant to those responding to victims of domestic violence. And to the campaigners working to raise awareness in a diverse range of communities that abuse takes many forms and in some cases might not ever include physical acts of violence. It’s certainly unlikely to make much of a difference to Lisa Harnum’s family. The court heard that Gittany told his fiancée not to wear short skirts or go bra-less and sent her texts saying “please don’t let any guy talk to you and please don’t look at any guy because your eyes should only gaze on me, the one.” The defence haven’t contested Gittany’s constant monitoring of her texts, the countless examples of controlling, manipulative behaviour and the final acts of abuse caught on the pinhole spy camera moments before her death or that they “caused her to feel seriously violated”. In fact, they’ve based their defence on the fact that she “may have thrown herself off the high-rise balcony because she was “terrified”.
All of this suggests that we urgently need to reframe the mainstream public discourse on abusive behaviour in relationships. Focussing solely on acts of murder and physical violence is not enough; it excludes the experience of those who don’t fit the neat stereotype of domestic violence that we’ve constructed. We know, for example, that gay men are just as likely to be victims as heterosexual women. We also know that young and older women and women with disabilities are at a high risk of experiencing abuse. We know that Aboriginal women living in rural and remote areas are 45 times more likely to experience DV than their non-Aboriginal peers. If we want to prevent the perpetuation of another generation of abuse we need to find an angle that tackles the dynamics of power and control in 2013 – stalking, intimidation and manipulation through social media, “gaslighting” a victim to doubt their judgement or memory of a situation, the subtle putdowns, the demeaning jokes and the pressure to dress in a particular way.
Domestic violence fatalities may make a good media angle but it’s time for our community leaders to make the connection between these horrific statistics and the entrenched misogyny, discrimination and violence that pervades all walks of Australian life. Domestic violence does not discriminate, it can happen to anyone and it takes many forms. It’s time to resource and support effective community-based campaigns and responses that make the links between real people’s lives and deaths. We’ve come a long way in the last few decades – the mainstream message is strong and clear, it’s not ok to beat women.
The secret is that it’s the rest of it that we need to tackle now.
For women experiencing domestic violence, the Domestic Violence Line 1800 65 64 63. For more information visit www.dvnsw.org.au.