Comment by Lisa Macdonald and Pip Hinman
We were looking forward to going to a Reclaim the Night march in Sydney. After all, last year's march was a great success.
While there had been relatively little advertising, up to 6000 women of all ages (evidence of the still reliable women's networks) turned up on October 28. We took to the streets with an energy and confidence that comes only with sheer numbers. Chants, whistles and drum beats resounded through the city streets, encouraging many to join in as the march passed by.
This was the highlight of the night. Unfortunately, what went before was less inspiring.
The organising collective had asked a number of women who had suffered from sexual and domestic violence to share their experiences. Given the theme of the rally, this is not surprising. Nor was the emphasis given to explaining the background to "false memory syndrome" whereby psychologists and psychiatrists try to convince the person who has been sexually assaulted that they dreamt the whole thing up.
The speeches from the platform describing personal experiences of violence against women and children, quite understandably shocked and horrified us. However, what was really disconcerting was the total lack of any discussion about why there is such a high level of violence against women in this society (except to point the finger at men), and what we could do about it (other than better train the police force and give them more far-reaching powers to arrest suspected perpetrators of violence).
Women as victims
As the speeches wore on, it was clear that the "women as victims" refrain was not only causing people to switch off, but that some were leaving the rally. The mood was very downbeat.
Listening to the speeches, both before and after the march, you could be forgiven for concluding there was not much that you, as a "victim" could do to affect the extent of violence against women in this society. All that is possible, we were told, is to be supportive of women after the fact.
The fact that women can and have in the past fought back — organised themselves and others, and campaigned — and won important changes in this system's treatment of women was not mentioned, let alone encouraged. Rather, the effect of the speeches was to leave many women feeling frustrated and powerless to do much other than enjoy the very brief moment of feeling in control of a few streets for an hour that night.
Not only was there an overemphasis on women as victims (despite all the talk about "survivors"), an equally frustrating element was the emphasis, in many of the speeches, on blaming men.
Not only were men referred to as "arseholes" from the platform, but this line was taken to its logical extreme with repeated calls by the compere of the rally for women there with male children to have these children go with a strange man from Men Against Sexual Assault who would escort them, separately from the march, down to Martin Place and then to the park at the end, where they could then be reunited with their mothers. Some of the women with children left the rally at this point.
It's true that most violence against women is committed by men (though not by male children in strollers!), but it is not good enough to suggest, as many radical feminists do, that all we need to do is focus on either re-educating men (if only it was so easy!) or imposing harsher penalties on the perpetrators.
Without taking environmental, economic and social factors into account, we will never be in a position to understand why women and children bear the brunt of violence, and from there to work out a strategy to eliminate it.
But this was not the framework the Sydney collective presented. Indeed, just to underscore the point that men as a whole have to be blamed, Kate Gilmour from the 1992 government-sponsored National Strategy on Violence Against Women paper and final speaker at the rally, re-emphasised (as the paper did) that the solution is for men to change their behaviour. This avoided any canvassing of the broader structural changes that would have to take place in order for this to happen.
Men's behaviour
This emphasis on men's behaviour as the chief cause of violence against women, we believe, has to be challenged. First, it doesn't explain why so many men don't engage in violent behaviour. Secondly, it avoids taking up the discussion, even though it may be mentioned in passing, about the broader social and economic issues which, while they should not be used as an excuse, are contributing factors to men's violence against women. Thirdly, such a position skirts around a critique of this unjust social and economic system, capitalism, and its built-in violence against women — and against the majority of men as well.
Socioeconomic pressures are a contributing factor to violence. This does not downplay the importance of men changing their behaviour, or imply that men on the lowest socioeconomic level are largely responsible for violence against women. Neither does it excuse violence. Rather, it helps to explain that violence, as a social phenomenon, has a very real material base, and that only when material factors are changed can social behaviour also be changed.
This is the sort of discussion that feminists who have made their peace with the system are not comfortable with. It points the finger squarely at the role of the federal ALP in propping up an increasingly inequitable system.
It also poses the question of what (if any) reforms can fundamentally alter relations between the sexes without taking on board the broader question of major structural economic and social change. For example, not one speaker talked about the current government policies of cutting back funding to such bodies as the Child Protection Agency, which offers an avenue to report child sexual abuse, to charge offenders and to support victims.
We favour reforms such as education campaigns aimed at men and a massive increase in funding to women's services — we must mobilise again and again to ensure that this happens. However, we strongly disagree that the police should be given more powers.
Real change
We are most effective in bringing about real change for women when we mobilise around our demands the largest possible number of people in active support. This means that RTN activities, and the committees that organise them, should be as accessible and inclusive as possible.
Don't put women down or make them feel uncomfortable for having boy children; don't stop women, because they happen to be accompanied by their male partners, from walking through the park where the rally is taking place. And don't limit women's access to feminist literature, information and products.
The point of taking to the streets is to reclaim public space and draw attention to the issue in the media to which we have little or no access. We march in the public streets because we want people, both men and women, to become aware of and decide to join us in our efforts to eliminate violence in this society. It we didn't then the rally would be held in a stadium where there could be no onlookers and would address only the converted. Wouldn't it be more powerful to have the men there, to listen to the women speaking about their experiences and to learn of the need to encourage other men to take responsibility for their actions as well?
If we are ever to eradicate violence against women, we need to broaden the discussion about strategy and be prepared to canvass ideas which go beyond simply tinkering with the existing system.
It's possible to bring about fundamental changes in the lives of women, but if we are serious about this quest, we have to accept that this will also have to involve men. Men are not the enemy, as some radical feminists would have us believe. That many women understand this was clearly shown by the very positive response by women in the march to the men who lined the street at Martin Place in solidarity with the demonstration.
The majority of men, like us, are victims of an unjust system atomises us and isolates us from each other. Together, we make a powerful force for social change, a vision that those of us who took to the streets at Reclaim the Night gained a glimpse of.