Ken Lay, Chief Commissioner of Police in Victoria, Australia, has made family violence his signature issue. In this speech, he talks about how we misapprehend the nature of family violence, making ourselves feel safer by seeing violence as an internal domestic issue and assigning complicity to victims.
There are many myths about domestic violence that we perpetuate – the victim must have incited the abuse, she is guilty of bad judgement, if a woman’s life was endangered, she would simply leave.
Ken Lay seeks to broaden people’s views on domestic violence – and to reach out to one group specifically.
“Men, I want you to consider why blokes are so quiet on these issues.”
The speaker calls for action, asking men to stand up against violence and discrimination. Placing family violence in a wider culture where vulgar and violent attitudes to women are common, he wants to see a change in attitude, making all indecency against women deeply shameful among men.
“I want you to consider what twisted sense of entitlement compels a man to grab a woman in a bar or call her a slut.”
Many activists around the world are trying to involve men and the larger community in something widely seen as a “women’s issue. The anti-sexist activist Jackson Katz, whose TED talk on violence against women went viral, emphasises the importance of collective change.
“The perpetrators aren’t monsters who crawl out of the swamp and come into town to perform their nasty deeds and then retreat into the darkness.” The violence is created in our society. Katz demands change, asking powerful men to set an example in building a violence-free community. Why?
“So that future generations won’t have the level of tragedy that we deal with on a daily basis.”