Solving the problem of violence
By Wendy Robertson
This week, women all over the country and internationally will march in Reclaim the Night marches. These marches have traditionally been used to highlight violence against women on the streets. The symbolism of the title is that women demand the right to be safe on the streets at night and during the day, in their workplaces and in their homes, and demand the same rights for their children.
The incidence of violence against women is well documented and very high. Recourse to justice is very limited. Most violence against women is perpetrated by men known to them, and the police, courts and legal system provide little protection or assistance.
Community campaigns have been conducted to raise awareness of such violence and the need to reform the ways in which institutions such as the courts and police deal with its consequences. A strong focus of many recent campaigns, and in particular of a national government-sponsored campaign against violence against women, has been to call for individual men to take responsibility for their behaviour and to stop their violence.
Meanwhile, Reclaim the Night marches have become bigger. Over the past few years more young women in particular have been going along, often to their first march.
With this increased visibility has come increased pressure to "mainstream" the marches. Where once the main speakers at marches were rape crisis centre workers or community activists, now often it's politicians or the wife of the prime minister who get asked to speak. These politicians take advantage of the opportunity offered to them to sing the praises of their own party and what it is doing for women.
But combating violence against women requires more than platitudes from politicians. It even requires more than funding handouts to crisis centres and refuges, although this kind of funding is vitally important in the short term.
Combating violence against women requires addressing the many and varied social causes of violence. Violence is caused by a whole range of factors including marginalisation, poverty, alienation, powerlessness, unemployment and so on.
Violence is above all a social phenomenon: a product of society. This is just as true for the LA riots caused by the extreme poverty and helplessness inflicted on black communities in the richest country on earth, as it is for men who take out their anger and frustration against those they perceive as weaker than themselves — women and children.
So while it is true on one level to say that individual men need to take responsibility for their actions and choose not to be violent, it is also true that we have to look more broadly at eliminating the circumstances that make violence possible, or even inevitable.
This means providing direction and resources to overcoming basic inequalities in society, providing employment and access to education for all, ensuring adequate social services to all who need them, and women winning real economic equality so that they are not forced through economic and psychological dependence to remain within violent relationships.
These are the kinds of demands that need to be raised by the Reclaim the Night marches. Demands such as free abortion on demand, so that women have full control over their own bodies. Or the demand for full employment so that women have the freedom of choice that comes from economic independence.
But these are not the kinds of demands raised by the politicians being invited to speak. They gloss over the fact that their parties support an economic rationalist program which is causing even greater inequality. They don't tell us about the jobs that have been lost, the services that have been cut, or their so-called "conscience vote" on abortion, which means we still don't have control over our own bodies.
We need speakers at our marches who will put women's point of view, who will speak up for greater equality, not gloss over their complicity in engendering greater inequality. We need demands which make this clear. And we need bigger and bigger marches to make it happen.
[Wendy Robertson is a member of the Resistance National Executive.]