How can Domestic and Family violence be prevented?
[Michael Salter: Associate Professor of Criminology, School of Social Sciences, University of NSW]
Domestic and family violence, it is an Australia wide issue and there are many different things we can do in our communities, in our institutions to prevent it. First and foremost, paying attention to gender inequality. Gender inequality, it’s the context that allows domestic and family violence to flourish. It gives abusive men the mechanisms that they need in order to control and to dominate their partner. So as a society we pay attention to Sexist and misogynist attitudes. We pay attention to the way in which male aggression and male violence is normalised, and often seen by many men as a problem-solving tool, as a way of resolving conflict in their relationships. We want to expand the opportunities that are available to girls and women to participate as equals in social life and to participate as equals in the workforce as well.
[Patty Kinnersly: Chief Executive Officer, Our Watch]
Domestic and family violence is certainly preventable, the evidence is really quite clear now that the largest driver of violence against women in this country is gender inequality and a particular expressions of gender inequality around condoning violence, around women’s independence, around rigid gendered stereotypes and around environments where masculinity or masculinity in particular forms becomes quite dangerous and so what we understand about prevention is that we need to change the underlying environment where these particular forms of gender equality come to life. We need to make changes to that under lying environment in the places where people spend most of their time. At work, at sport, at church, where they play, where they meet people. The media has a huge influence. Working with people so that they understand that we need to change the culture around how we work with women, how we treat women, how we set up environments where they can be equal. That means we are not saying “those men or those women”, we are saying our community together we need to promote and normalise gender equality in public and private life wherever we can.
[Moo Baulch: Former Chief Executive Officer
Domestic Violence NSW (DVNSW)]
Whether it’s within schools, whether it’s within community context connecting up the crisis work to things like Love Bites which is a program which is run in a number of schools across New South Wales. Talking about how you can shift that community attitudinal stuff over a generation or so. We’re Seeing more and more activities that are at a community level with people who would never have been involved before and it’s super encouraging for us because when I get up and talk about domestic violence it’s what people expect to come out of my mouth, but when other people have that conversation it’s incredibly powerful and it’s part of that building a really strong community movement. When the unexpected people get up and say, actually this is something I grew up with in my childhood and I don’t want to be the same for the next generation, or, I saw something last week and it didn’t quite look right, how can we Tackle this and doing In a way that it doesn’t have to be pointing fingers and saying there’s that evil person over there and this is what the impact of their behaviour are on their family. It’s about how we can gently build a community that is less accepting of violence and promotes gender equality Because we know that gender equality works for all. It’s not just about bringing women up; it’s about building our community strength and resilience.