The Victorian Women’s Trust is holding a week of community action to protest against violence towards women.
Storming against violence runs from the 13 – 17th February featuring Be the Hero is the premier event with Insight, action & strategies that break cycles of violence. Hosted by Andrew O’Keefe, with Dr Jackson Katz, with contributions from Dr Michael Flood & Paul Zappa.
To mark the event initiated by the Victorian Women's Trust, Mary Crooks (VWT Executive Director) has penned an opinion piece which examines the undercurrents of sexism, violence & complacency existing in Australian society, where individuals fear to speak against the status quo, enforcing a culture of tolerators.
The end of the tolerator
True story. People hovered in the chemist shop waiting area. She felt one of the guys looking her up and down in a way that made her uneasy. In taking his turn to speak with the chemist, he said in a loud voice – ‘You can always tell a depressed lesbian can’t you?’ Mildly discomforted, the chemist remained silent.
By choosing silence, the chemist becomes what filmmaker Abigail Disney describes as a ‘tolerator’ - someone who knows that another’s behaviour is unacceptable, but offers no resistance or contestation. As a ‘tolerator’ he becomes complicit in the other’s action. Because he did not challenge his customer’s attitude, the guilty party receives tacit permission to continue behaving boorishly.
Why did the chemist choose to be silent? It would not take much for him to challenge and contest this abusive behaviour. He could simply say with a soft smile, ‘Mate, there’s no need to talk like that,’ sending the other man a signal that he was not prepared to endorse his words. Without social sanction, his customer might think again and may even change his ways.
This sort of action and response is acted out thousands of times a day, all over the country – the turning of a blind eye to situations that we know in our hearts and minds are unacceptable. By soft-peddling on abusive behaviours and insidious violence, we erode our collective capacity to exercise compassion and respect, as well as guaranteeing the safety and well-being of our fellow citizens, young and older.
When it comes to both sexual assault and violence within families, we are a nation of ‘tolerators’. The latest statistics tell us that these particular crimes are on the increase. In Victoria alone, the latest police crime report reveals that the rape offences recorded in 2010/11 increased by 9% on the previous year. Crime against the person offences arising from family incidents accounted for over a quarter of all such crime during 2010/2011, representing an increase of over 26% from the previous year. Even allowing for improved reporting mechanisms, these are deeply disturbing figures.
The impacts of this violence are immense. Sexual assault commonly means life-long trauma for victims. Family violence exacts a terrible toll, for both boys and girls as well. Australian Bureau of Statistics survey data reveal that over one third of family violence reports indicate that the violence was witnessed by children in the care of women experiencing the violence. Other research shows that exposure to violence in the family increases children’s risk of health, behavioural and learning difficulties in the short term; of developing mental health problems later in life; and in the case of some boys particularly, of being at risk of perpetrating violence as adults.
The economic costs are huge. Analyses carried out by leading accounting firms over the last decade suggest that violence currently costs the nation billions, yes billions, of dollars every year.
The stark reality is that sexual assault and family violence is highly gendered. Some rape is male against male, and some family violence is caused by women, but the overwhelming majority of sexual assault and family violence perpetrators are male. Women and girls know intimately the ways they order their lives around the threat of violence stemming from an unhealthy and anti-social masculinity that depends and thrives on entitlement, intimidation, domination and control.
Most men implicitly reject this form of masculinity, choosing not to have violence in their lives and not to exercise violence in their relationships with women. But here’s the nub of the argument as well as the pointer to positive social change, healthier gender relations and reduced social and economic costs of violence.
While many men reject violence in their own lives, they should also assume the pivotal role in violence prevention. Men (and boys) need to commit to the challenge of contestation, to learn and practice ways of confronting the particular culture of masculinity that breeds perpetrators and sustains violence. Increasingly, and with community education and positive support, they should to be prepared and equipped to confront their peers in everyday life situations – family gatherings, staff rooms, office corridors, building sites, club rooms, on-line, and at the chemist shop – sending clear signals that sexist and violent assumptions, attitudes and behaviour are just not on.
To believe violence is somehow only a ‘women’s issue’ is a poor excuse. Victoria’s top policeman knows this. Assuming the mantle of Victoria’s Chief Commissioner in late 2011, Ken Lay acknowledged that domestic violence is one of the most complex, least visible and fastest growing areas of crime. Quite rightly, he said we are not going to solve it by locking people up. Instead, it requires urgent attention and a fresh approach.
Men making a difference is the critical ingredient of a new approach. This is the a key message of Jackson Katz, a leading United States’ violence prevention advocate who visits Melbourne and Sydney in February as a guest of the Victorian Women’s Trust. Author of
The Macho Paradox and the film
Tough Guise, Katz’s bystander approach is part and parcel of the fresh thinking that is needed to deal with one of our most pressing social issues.
We will continue to see unacceptably high levels of sexual assault and family violence as long as people remain ‘tolerators’. When men care deeply about the women and girls in their lives – mothers, daughters, partners and friends – then they should also be alert to, and troubled by, the fact that other men perpetrate terrible violence towards other women and girls. Silence and passivity (‘I don’t behave that way so I’m okay’) acts as potent cultural affirmation.
When everyone, especially men and boys, steps up and claims male violence as an issue that must involve them, and where they tackle it as best they can in a raft of day-to day practical ways, the ‘tolerator’ fabric will inexorably start to wear thin.
Mary Crooks
Executive Director
Victorian Women’s Trust
www.vwt.org.au
