Let anger be your fuel for change

I'm angry, and I'm getting angrier. The fuel for my ire is the rate at which men get away with violence against women - at work, and at home.

In just the last month I've heard two separate stories from two educated, professional, and usually outspoken women who have not been able to speak out about the abuse they've suffered at the hands of men.

In one, a senior company executive executed a prolonged and systematic campaign of harassment against his female employees. Evidence was gathered, the allegations were substantiated, and the man was asked to leave the company. But here's the catch - all parties signed a confidentiality agreement, and the man was allowed to resign rather than be fired. The consequence for the harasser is that he can find another job, start afresh, and potentially harass again. The consequences for those who suffered his harassment include anxiety and depression, reluctance to come to work, apathy and a loss of productivity, and a feeling of disempowerment.

In the second, a woman had recently broken up with her husband. She used language like "I felt like I was lost in the relationship", "I felt small", "it had become unbearable". After a long careful dance of a conversation it became clear that she'd been abused by her husband. She'd had a brief affair - a welcome and necessary circuit breaker for her - and the marriage had ended. The consequence for the abusive husband is he now feels entitled to encourage others to see their marriage breakdown as entirely her fault, painting himself as a victim of her infidelity. He can start a new relationship, and potentially abuse again. The consequences for the women are threat to her personal safety, financial insecurity, social punishment, anxiety, depression, fear, crushing guilt about whether she's made the right choice for her children, years ahead rebuilding her self esteem and her confidence.

These scenarios are horribly, depressingly, common.

Women are strongly discouraged from or actively punished for speaking out about the abuse and harassment they've suffered at the hands of men. Sex discrimination commissioner Kate Jenkins revealed today that the vast majority of harassers are men, and that two-thirds of those who've experienced sexual harassment at work do not report that experience. This is why the national inquiry into sexual harassment in the workplace is so very important. This is why the new initiative NOW Australia must succeed.

The majority of people who experience violence in the home are also women, and the majority of those who use violence in the home are men. But the numbers of violent incidents reported to police are a teardrop in the ocean of domestic and family violence (DFV) statistics. They do not tell the story about psychological and financial abuse, about how many women are raped by their partners, about the pushes, the shoves, the finger-pokes, the slaps, the bumps, the being held down and shouted at. These things are commonly not reported because usually it's only when the situation becomes life threatening (or when the neighbours have had enough of the shouting) that DFV becomes part of the public record.

Domestic and family violence knows no socio-economic boundaries - just as workplace harassment is not confined to a particular type of workplace.

But reporting DFV and seeking help for it is a class issue. The higher they climb the socio-economic spectrum, the less likely women are to speak out about DFV, or to access services that address it. The story I shared earlier is sadly not unique. To protect children, reputation, dignity, status, and ties with friends and family, women leaving violent relationships find all kinds of ways to pretend it's a simple breakup rather than a flee for life. To diminish the experience they've had and the impact it's had upon them.

The national conversation about DFV was ignited by the brave campaign of Rosie Batty: part of what's important about her work is that she is educated and middle-class, and she showed the nation that DFV can and does happen to women like her. The national and international conversation about sexual harassment in the workplace is also gaining momentum.

Because most men who use violence against women - and most men who harass in their workplace - are not formally charged, it's all but impossible to determine how much these two groups intersect. Anecdotally there's a strong correlation and that makes a lot of sense to me. If you're hitting and belittling your life partner you're not likely to show much respect to the women you work with, either.

I have the privilege of working with and supporting in some small ways extraordinary people from all walks of life who are campaigning with everything they've got to effect change for the better. The passionate, pragmatic, fierce and determined Mirjana Wilson, CEO of the ACT Domestic Violence Crisis Service (of which I'm on the board), and her compatriots at like services around the country. LJ Loch, Tracey Spicer, and the board and steering committee of NOW Australia. And the multitude of campaigners and initiators of programs large and small to work towards gender equity in all spheres of life.

Gender equity is not a 'nice to have' feel-good goal. It is absolutely vital for a healthy, thriving, functioning society.

I'm angry, and like so many others I'm letting that anger be my fuel to work for change. If you're angry, too, I urge you to contribute to the inquiry, donate to services that support women going through times of enormous challenge, speak up and speak out about your own experiences and listen with kindness to those of others. Take those stories seriously; if you're privileged enough to be in management, act on them.

Until women are equal to men, abusers and harassers will keep getting away with it; will continue to be able to move on to the next job or the next relationship and do it all again. When women are equal to men in the home, in public life, in the workplace, in popular culture and in the media, they will feel empowered - rather than ashamed - by speaking out about harassment and abuse.

IF YOU NEED HELP, PLEASE REACH OUT.

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