In a positive move in the whole-of-community campaign to tackle family violence, schools will this year be equipped with “toolkits” to educate their students about this insidious social ill.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
From an early age, schoolchildren will be taught to recognise family violence in all its forms and hopefully be empowered to report it. This is a key step in breaking the ugly cycle in which children exposed to violence and domestic abuse grow up thinking that’s the way life is. Change attitudes and half the battle is won.
While that NSW government initiative is a step in the right direction, recent headlines suggest it’s not just our children who need educating – indeed, some of our role models and leaders are candidates for intense attitude adjustment.
Holiday times are never beacons of respect for women and this recent one plumbed some new lows.
The resignation of Cities Minister Jamie Briggs set us on a downward spiral. It was bad enough he harassed a young female public servant on a business trip to Hong Kong. Deciding to circulate a photo of her, which was then leaked to the media, betrayed not only an absence of commonsense but a complete lack of respect as well.
Fellow minister Peter Dutton’s SMS mishap, in which he referred to journalist Samantha Maiden as a “mad f***ing witch”, betrayed the same lack of respect. And then came cricketer Chris Gayle and the infamous and breathtakingly arrogant propositioning of a female sports commentator on live TV. It couldn’t get worse, could it?
Oh yes it could. The mass sexual assault of women in Cologne, Germany during New Year’s Eve celebrations was a revolting display of a neanderthal attitude still harboured by way too many men.
And while these headline grabbing incidents were playing out, local domestic violence services were stretched to the limit as women bore the brunt of rage and abuse from males.
We can be appalled but can’t control what happens in other countries but we can be appalled and control what happens here.
The wide scale condemnation of Chris Gayle is a case in point. Few people were prepared to defend his puerile treatment of a respected sports commentator. Imagine if the same criticism were applied whenever a lack of respect for women was encountered, if mates had the bottle to call out sexism when they encountered it. Ending family violence would be much easier.
