TW: Violence against women
It is October 15 when I am writing this. The weather is unseasonably cold, and it is raining. It has been for the last three days, and I wonder if it’s a coincidence that the weather has been so dreary since I read Dr Kate Fitz-Gibbon's harrowing new book, Our National Crisis: Violence Against Women and Children.
The rain feels cathartic, like tears of mourning, as I read about a 42-year-old woman who was killed in an alleged domestic violence attack last night. Her partner has been arrested and police say they will charge him with her death later today.
The stormy grey clouds swirling outside feel fitting as I read about 46-year-old Natalie Galcsik, who died after she was run down by a car in September. Her partner was charged with her murder.
Thunder rumbles as I read about 21-year-old Xiaoting Wang, who was stabbed in her home in August by her partner, who then died by suicide. She was an international student studying in Australia, and she had her whole life ahead of her.
The rain keeps pattering as I read about Frances Crawford, a psychologist and mother of three, who was killed in July in an attack that police say was made to look like an accident. No one has been charged with her murder. Or Indigenous leader and mother-of-five Carolyn McCarthy, who was stabbed to death at her home in Queensland in June. She was a domestic violence support advocate. Her partner has been charged with her murder.
Kiesha Thompson. Kierra-lea Jensen. Nunia Kurualeba. Sarah Miles. Joan Mary Drane. Wanda Dorothy Uhle. These are just some of the 66 women who have been killed in acts of violence this year, according to Australian Femicide Watch. The death toll goes up to 77 if you include children.
We are only 41 weeks into the year — which means we have surpassed the much-quoted statistic of one woman being killed every week in Australia. By the time this article is edited and published, it’s probable that another woman will have been killed by an intimate partner. Around the world, a woman is killed every 11 minutes — and that stat was released before Israel’s assaults on Palestine and Lebanon, which has seen the death of tens of thousands of women and children in the span of just one year.
It was with this heavy heart that I spoke to Kate Fitz-Gibbon, a professor at Monash University, who has dedicated her life to researching the causes of (and solutions to) violence against women in Australia.
“2024 has been a horrific year on top of horrific decades for women's safety. But this year does feel particularly challenging,” she tells Missing Perspectives.
“In Australia, one woman a week is killed most commonly by a man known to them. And this year we're running at one woman every four days. And then, of course, that's only looking at the deaths. And we know that there's so much more harm, devastation, that sits under that.”
Fitz-Gibbon is an internationally recognised expert in domestic and family violence, femicide, perpetrator interventions, and the impacts of policy and practice reform in Australia and internationally. She is the chair of Respect Victoria, and also a published author. Her most recent book, Our National Crisis: Violence Against Women and Children, highlights the alarming reality of domestic violence in Australia, where we haven’t made nearly as much progress as we should have in the fight against men’s violence.
“We definitely still think it's something that's happening somewhere else to someone else, not quite in our little bubble,” she says.
“We saw that in the Australian National community attitude survey results, where more people than previously identified that violence against women was a problem. But nearly 40% of people said it wasn't a problem happening in their suburb.
“Approximately one in four women have experienced intimate partner violence since they were 15. One in five have experienced sexual violence, one in three have experienced physical violence. This is an everyday Australian problem, and I think there's still quite a bit to go for people to understand that.”
Fitz-Gibbon notes that these stats don’t even include children — the reality is that domestic violence is probably happening at a higher rate than we can know, and children in particular are often absent from the data.
“One of the areas that we have achieved far less than any other is around efforts to improve the safety of children impacted by domestic and family violence,” she tells me.
“Children who experience domestic, family and sexual violence in Australia far too often fail to be seen as victims in their own right. They confront services and systems that see them as an extension of their parent and their protective parent, and assume that the risk is the same, assume that their needs are the same.”
If we don’t ensure all services and systems are attuned to and cater for the needs of children, we won’t be able to support the healing and recovery of child victims of domestic violence. And if we fail at that, the cycle of domestic violence will continue.
“The impacts of growing up in a home with violence are so significant and can be lifelong, can extend far beyond being in that home,” Fitz-Gibbon says.
“We know that certainly not all children that experience violence go on to use violence, but we do know that amongst children who use family violence, particularly in the home, there is a significantly high rate that have experienced violence themselves.
“So it's about getting in and interrupting that, resetting the norm, establishing what is healthy, respectful, acceptable relationship behaviours amongst all our family members and our intimate partners.”
Our National Crisis: Violence Against Women and Children seeks to arm us with a better understanding of domestic and family violence within Australian society: what causes it, how do we prevent it, and what can we do about it in our own lives?
The answers are not simple, and will require decades of work, billions of dollars in funding, and most importantly, empathy and action from not just our government but our friends and neighbours, too.
If the mammoth task ahead of us feels overwhelming, you are not alone — but Fitz-Gibbon reminds us not to give in to the exhaustion, and never to give up. In fact, she believes men’s violence against women is entirely preventable — and it’s why she wrote Our National Crisis in the first place.
“For over a decade, I have studied the killing of women by men’s violence,” she writes in the book’s introduction.
“From my own work, and a global body of research from which I draw, I know that this violence is inherently preventable, and within that knowledge lies hope — the hope that improved responses, more effective early interventions and a true commitment to prevention, all spearheaded by sustained national leadership, will drive down the rates of women killed by men known to them.”
We have the power to change the narrative in Australia. From the government actually funding domestic violence support and intervention services, to our bosses giving us paid domestic violence leave, to our friends checking in with us and believing us when we say something is wrong, we can all work together to end violence against women.
Preventing and ending domestic violence is possible, and we have to strive for complete eradication — if not for ourselves then for the women who have already been lost to it. They deserved to live. And so do we.
If you or anyone you know is affected by domestic, family or sexual violence and needs support, please call 1800 RESPECT.