18 Women killed is too many, we should be outraged

It’s an often repeated statistic that Australian women are dying at the rate of one a week due to gendered violence. I am writing this in week fifteen of 2024, and we now have a reported death toll of 18 women, so let’s be clear that it is more than one a week.

At the time of writing, the headlines are dominated by the most recent incident, the shocking death of Hannah McGuire in Ballarat. A beautiful young life cut short in an incomprehensible act of violence, allegedly perpetrated by a man she knew.

Hannah is one of 18.

18 women who were daughters, sisters, friends, wives, mothers. Eighteen women whose dreams and potential will never be fully realised. And most were killed by men that they knew.

Our Premier Jacinta Allen along with women’s advocates and organisations, have been admirably vocal about the fact that this must stop, and I join the chorus. If 18 women had died because of faulty medication, tainted food products, or dangerous exercise equipment, the public at large would be united in outrage.

There would be demands for action, products would be recalled and there would be enquiries into how things could have gone so wrong. When we hear that women were killed in acts of violence, and by men that they knew, this outrage and level of ferocity from the public is not always felt.

At Women’s Health and Wellbeing Barwon South West, these statistics and headlines are part of our work everyday. We are feeling the outrage, and it motivates us in the work that we do on prevention of gendered violence. I often wonder though how this news lands for others.

Are the headlines so common place that they’ve lost impact? Is the way that the media reports on gendered violence obscuring the tragic facts and reality of what is happening to women? Or, perhaps the public reaction is tempered because the actions to make a difference are not as immediately obvious as a product recall.

Violence against women can be described as any act of gender-based violence that causes or could cause physical, sexual or psychological harm or suffering to women, including threats of harm or coercion, in public or in private life (Our Watch). This definition includes all acts of violence including family violence, intimate partner violence, coercive control, stalking, harassment and assault.

Men are most often the perpetrators of violence against women, and women are three times more likely to experience violence from someone they know than from a stranger.

Shockingly, in Australia violence perpetrated by intimate partners contributes to more death, disability and illness in women aged 25-44 years than any other preventable risk factor. That should be a mind-blowing statistic and one that really warrants our anger and our attention. We should be all be outraged!

Notably, this statistic refers to violence as a preventable risk, and the take-away message here is that violence against women is preventable.

Research on the matter is absolutely clear: the drivers of violence against women, the things that make it possible, are disrespect towards women, rigid gender stereotypes, men feeling they should control or have power over women, and social norms and attitudes that condone this violence. This is where it becomes clear that our societal attitude to violence against women, and more broadly our attitude to gender equity, has a very real impact.

There is consensus amongst researchers and experts internationally that violence against women arises from the social context of gender inequality, in other words, gender inequality is the soil from which violence against women grows. Maintaining attitudes and beliefs that foster gender inequality contributes to the prevalence of violence against women.

These harmful attitudes directly influence behaviours that produce violence.

According to Patty Kinnersly, CEO of Our Watch, this means that sexist, disrespectful humour and remarks do matter; that put-downs and controlling behaviour do cause harm, and that these all contribute to an environment in which men’s violence against women is more likely.

It’s important to recognise though, that the attitudes we hold also have the power to produce positive behaviours and drive acts of intervention.

Making change to deeply held attitudes and beliefs is challenging. It is long term work requiring broad involvement and commitment across our communities. We are fortunate to be in a region where we have a number of organisations, employers and community groups who have committed to the elimination of gendered violence.

At WHWBSW we have the privilege of being close to this work and seeing the genuine dedication, progress and change that is happening, but there is so much more to do. The 18 deaths of women so far this year clearly suggest that we cannot take the foot off the pedal on this.

Preventing violence before it occurs means confronting some of the more challenging ideas we have about men and what masculinity means, about gendered power imbalances, and patterns of abuse and control. It is about pulling down the cultural structure that we know and rebuilding it to be more inclusive, equitable and safe, for everyone.

It is also about a collective understanding that our attitudes and beliefs as a society matter, it is what drives the behaviours that either allow or prevent violence. Our attitudes to every day behaviours that perpetuate gender inequity, the jokes, the comments, the exclusion.

Our attitudes to the inappropriate behaviours. Our attitudes to minimising and trivialising violence against women, and our attitudes to blame shifting.

Our attitudes to the invisibility of perpetrators of violence. And inevitably, our attitudes to the procession of headlines about dead women that appear week after week. Our attitudes set the tone for society and, ultimately, as a society, we set the pace of change.

The women in those headlines deserve more than a cursory glance before we turn the page or scroll on. When you next read a headline about the murder of a woman, really consider how it makes you feel. If you feel outrage or disgust, use it as a trigger to check your beliefs and attitudes about gendered violence and gender equity.

Use it as an opportunity to drive the conversation with sons and daughters, partners, friends and workmates about their attitudes. Gendered violence must stop, and we all have a role.