It’s four years since the Women’s March 4 Justice thronged Parliament House in Canberra, and gathered at locations around Australia. But the issues that inspired us have not gone away; in fact, as the by-election for the seat of Prahran shows, they have never been more urgent.
I am standing as a community candidate in Prahran, my hood, because the Greens local member, Sam Hibbins, resigned following the revelation he was having an inappropriate relation with a staffer.
How does this continue to happen? What about this message is failing to connect with men? Sexual vagrancy and violence is endemic in Australian society. We have the right to expect our leaders to set a better example.
March4Justice was on the right side of history. It was the largest women’s march that Australia has ever seen. Women came in their tens of thousands to march in over 55 marches across Australia. Why?
Because silence was no longer an option. The behaviour of political leaders considering Brittany Higgins rape – and to quote Justice Lee “Mr Lehrmann raped Ms Higgins” – sent shock waves across our nation. Women thought, well if we’re not safe in what should be the safest most secure building in Australia, then where are we safe?
This is also despite, Turnbull’s aptly named “Bonk Ban.” But the sexual peccadilloes of not only our political leaders but of so many men holding high office kept being brought to the fore as journalists did their jobs and told us these stories.
So here we are, some four years later, after women stood up to say “enough is enough,” four years after we took to the streets demanding justice, demanding change, the inequality that drives violence against women, still exists.
Who has been listening? Not the men who murdered the 101 women in the past year, not the political leaders who think that a sexual relationship with their staffer is somehow consensual (despite the power imbalance). Not the State liberal party who have just appointed four men as their senior leadership team, and where men hustle for power whilst women just keep getting murdered. Even Federal Labor despite its ardent promises has failed to implement all 52 recommendations of the Jenkins report, a report that focussed solely on keeping women safe in their workplaces.
Who is listening other than the women who message me daily with details of their abuse, their harassment in the workplace, their fears of homelessness, their anxieties around not being able to feed their kids? Yet it is the poor, it is women, and it is the marginalised who pay for the policies that are imposed on them. They stand at the front of a national housing crisis, burdened by high interest rates, they are the ones who will suffer the most as the impact of climate change floods their homes and burns our forests.
As the founder of March4Justice, I know that small changes can make a big difference and that when communities work together, we can create change.
When change is driven by communities for communities, then we can make our civic spaces safer, we can work to legislate for change that comes from deep listening. Most importantly community independents don’t vote for the party, they vote according to what the community wants. That’s what makes us an important part of democracy, because as I am reminded daily, “democracy is not a spectator sport.”
I remind you all too that a young woman who was raped in what should have been the safest place in Australia is four years later still being dragged through the courts, not by her rapist but by a former politician. It’s time for the closed political system to be challenged and for the power of community, of people, to lead the way. And Prahran, which has been left without a member by another instance of male stupidity and arrogance, is a good place to start.
Janine Hendry (janinehendry.com) is a founding member of the Women’s March4Justice, she is an advocate for equality and is the founder of a Social Enterprise that supports women artists.