The Ask Sharon column as it appeared in The Area News Friday 20 November, 2015.
Following is the full version of the column featured in The Area News.
At the outset, I would like to express my sincere condolences to the friends and relatives who have lost a loved one through violence.
Jill Meagher and Stephanie Scott have become household names in Australia…for all the wrong reasons. Their names are now synonymous with violence against women.
I sit before my computer wearing my yellow singlet, the one I bought the week of Stephanie’s death (yellow is her remembrance colour). I’m hoping it will connect me with this sensitive and significant subject. It’s one that has become all too familiar featuring prominently in the headlines, day after day.
A wave of emotion has come over me. It’s similar to the unsettling feeling I had when, in a previous column, I attempted to articulate the impact that Stephanie Scott’s death has had on the community.
Unfortunately, ours is one of many communities affected by violence against women and domestic violence at large. On 23 September, media outlets reported that seven females had been killed every month of this year due to domestic violence. It came in the wake of a 12-year-old girl being killed by her stepfather.
On 30 September, The Daily Advertiser headlined with “End the Cycle” in which a special report was dedicated to the scourge of domestic violence and a new “campaign aimed at addressing the attitudes and behaviours that contribute” to it.
Just days after being sworn in as Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull touched on this critical subject declaring the level of violence against women a national disgrace. He insisted, “We have to make it as though it was un-Australian to disrespect women.”
And in the aftermath of yet another mass shooting in the US, Barack Obama uttered words which I couldn’t help but relate to our own violent epidemic. He stated: “Somehow this has become routine. We have become numb to this.”
Yet tragedies like the US shooting and the deaths of Stephanie Scott and Jill Meagher, should be anything but routine. The victims are not numbers or statistics, they were people with families and friends. They had real plans, real dreams, but unfortunately also real fears in their final moments. Lives cut short at the hands of another, for reasons we could never truly understand.
There is another household name that has appeared out of the darkness as a national torchbearer. The cover of Rosie Batty’s book, A Mother’s Story says it all. Heartache. Grief. Passion. Purpose. If she can turn such tragic events into something positive, surely so can we.
While writing this, the NSW Government allocated $60 million, following the Federal Government’s contribution of $100 million, to “tackle” domestic violence. Is it a case of something is better than nothing, even though we know more people will die from violence while these programs are rolled out? It seems we have a long way to go to help women feel safer and to change the attitudes of men who view violence as acceptable. However, there are ways to turn that helplessness into hope.
All around the country next Wednesday, men will be donning ladies shoes to raise awareness of this issue. It coincides with the UN’s International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and White Ribbon Day. Thanks to the Soroptimist Club, Griffith will be hosting its own Walk a Mile In Her Shoes event starting at 12 noon at the car park opposite Rossies and finishing at the Memorial Gardens.
Fellas, don’t let the lack of shoes in your size get in the way of a good cause. If they don’t fit, flaunt them any way you can!
More details at www.facebook.com/soroptimistgriffith
You might also be interested in…
My column following the death of Stephanie Scott.
This week’s Ask Sharon column also appeared in the Riverina’s The Daily Advertiser as a hot topic.
