March 2021
Women are tired. Tired of having to re-traumatise ourselves by telling deeply personal stories of being raped, harassed and violated, over and over. Tired of the push back, the attempts to frighten, demean, smear every time we dare to speak about the behavior of men, especially those in power. Tired of nothing changing.
In recent weeks, all over social media Australian women have been detailing, sometimes for the first time, horrific rapes, gang rapes, sexual abuse when they were children. While men, some men, have been going their hardest, both online and in the mainstream media, trying to discredit the woman who claimed she was raped by Attorney-General Christian Porter when she was 16 and he was 17. A woman unable to defend herself because she is dead.
It has been one of the most grotesque public displays of white Australian “mateship” and thinly veiled misogyny that I can remember witnessing. Even when confronted with their ignorance by mental health and sexual assault experts and advised of the wider damage they are doing, these mostly male journalists and commentators have not stopped.
As Louise Newman, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne, said on twitter to television network Channel 10’s political editor Peter Van Onselen (an old friend of the Attorney General) after he and Janet Albrechtsen published and commented on diary excerpts from the alleged rape victim in the Australian newspaper:
“PVO seems to consider it ethical to imply a victim was mentally ill and therefore has memory impairment and lacks credibility. He clearly knows little about the impact of trauma on memory, narrative and mental health. Maybe speak to experts before judging the dead.”
And while their target has been one woman, their attacks have been felt by all women who have been sexually assaulted or experienced male violence. All who have experienced trauma, who have seen therapists and counsellors and been down many paths to try to heal from those experiences. All of us who dare to break the silences we have kept, often for many years.
I have previously shared experiences of domestic violence and sexual assault in mainstream media and elsewhere and I could say much more. But why should I have to? Why should I have to keep offering myself up to be judged, dissected, abused by misogynists, by the mates, the commentators and journalists with political and personal agendas? Isn’t it enough that I have to carry the burden of those experiences for a lifetime?
We should of course wrap our arms and hearts around any woman who chooses to share her experiences, especially when women are so often let down by the justice system and workplaces when reporting these crimes. Making the decision to share publicly is rarely easy. But without a foundational shift to disrupt current power structures and pathways to power, no amount of recounting our experiences will lead to substantial change.
While our voices remain framed within the same oppressive systems that privilege the self-anointed few at the expense of many others, we will keep coming up against the same walls. And if I as a white woman have felt bludgeoned by the force of those walls, all I can do is imagine how much harder it is for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander women and women of colour. In any discussion of violence in Australia, Indigenous women must not just be “included”, which they often are not, they must be the leaders we follow as they reflect to us (white Australians) our failings and mark out the way forward.
In the context of the current situation, Saffron Howden, co- author of the book “Kid Reporter: The secret to breaking news” said recently that it was time for more specialist health and social affairs journalists to cover allegations against men in parliament and that “leaving it to political reporters is not working (notable exceptions notwithstanding) and leading to some irresponsible reporting on mental health and rape.”
With so many sensitive issues arising from both the alleged rape of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins and the Christian Porter case, this should be a no brainer. But to date, the reporting has come mostly from within the usual political bubble — with an alarming conflict of interest on display in Peter Van Onselen’s case — leaving little room for a reimagining of how violence against women and its consequences are represented in the media and understood within the wider community.
When it comes to our federal government, Australian prime minister Scott Morrison has hidden behind the Attorney-General’s denials to justify doing absolutely nothing. His subsequent silence on the trial by media of the deceased alleged rape victim, within the vacuum he created, has been nothing short of abhorrent.
Courageous women have for many years exposed details of harrowing abuses and harassment in our workplaces, in our homes, on the streets. No one can claim they didn’t know and it is time for those in positions of power to step out of the shadows and do the heavy lifting. Those who continue to keep secrets for perpetrators in our workplaces or in other institutions must now stand up, speak up or get out.
If a woman (or indeed a male or non-binary sexual assault survivor) chooses to publicly share their experiences — if it is a choice they feel they need to make — then more power to them and we must offer all the support we can muster. And we know that when one woman shares her story, other women will feel less alone and some will feel empowered to call out their own abusers. But as well as feeling angry, really angry, at the moment, women are also tired. And personally, I am done with offering up my experiences for public consumption.
I say to all politicians, to those we grant the privilege of serving the Australian people, and to anyone else in a position of power in this country, it is time for you to either start doing your job, start demanding and creating change for women, for all women, or move out of the way.
