The Dear Sir(s) Project with image by Laura Ensinger
30 Apr 2024
When Will Legal Equality be Lived Equality?
34 women.
2 children.
Gone.
28 women intimately knew their killers, so too did the 2 children.
11 more in April 2024 than April 2023.
Every 3.59 days, another woman dies.
Still, 1 in 7 (or 14.28%) use technology to sexually harass their colleagues.
Why?
Not because she didn’t do a chore or tend to the physical or emotional needs of a grown man. Not because she “nagged him to death”, or “didn’t know her place”.
Not because she “was too beautiful”, “wore a tight top” or “was asking for it”.
But because men in Australia do not know that the law is that men and women are equal in every way.
And because men in Australia communicate through power and control though they knew by the age of 4 not to touch another without consent.
Frankly, we were thrown by yesterday’s statistics collated by Counting Dead Women Australia that 34 women had been killed by men mostly known to them in Australia since 1 January 2024. On a beautiful sunny Australian Sunday, while nationwide people protested for women’s safety: 1 victim died.
We were prepared to write about the fabulous solidarity evident across the nation, and the swell of mood toward change, depicted in wondrous images taken by Laura Ensinger at Brisbane’s march that reflected similar images we took in 2021 and 2022 when we too marched for women’s equality, safety, and the rights to life, liberty, education, housing, health, food, clothing, and care.
Just when you thought sexual harassment might not appear in headlines again, today’s ABC news headlines are a representation of “hold the phone” because ANROWS reports 1 in 7 women are sexually harassed in their workplace by technology. And their statistics are frightening because those acts include malicious intent.
Equally as disturbing is the report that 2 politicians in the last week have been removed from their position for sexual misconduct.
Why do we collate these statistics and seemingly broader subject matter in one post?
Because it’s the same behaviour driven by the same problem: power and control.
Prime Minister Albanese is correct when he says that family violence is not just a man’s problem. It’s a society wide problem.
That’s because Australia is structurally patriarchal – in beliefs such as heterosexual male entitlement to sexual gratification regardless of consent, household responsibility being predominantly female, and that some men still refer to the care of their own children as ‘babysitting’.
And why do we assign some responsibility to the legal profession?
Because lawyers have direct contact with those:
in positions of power who seek advice to control their staff, and,
who limit risk and exposure to liability.
Lawyers are also duty bound to effectively assist in the administration of justice.
Equality is needed now.
So enough Australia. It stops with you.
Lawyers let’s face it, lived equality is long overdue and we’re the ones with the knowledge to facilitate it.
Join the Melbourne March from the State Library of Victoria tomorrow departing at 10:00am.