#NotAllMen but #UsuallyAMan

NOBODY with more than half a brain is accusing “all men” of violence, but it’s a fact most violent crimes are committed by men, and men are more often victims. Clear-headed discussion can only help us all, writes Wendy Tuohy.

THE hair splitting over which women’s deaths actually “count” towards the mounting annual toll is exactly what it seems: callous.

And in light of the fact 10,000 people turning out and showing up in solidarity after Eurydice Dixon’s death a fortnight ago, it’s also incredibly tone deaf.

No sooner had women — and many men — started raising their voices about the issue of male violence than the predictable #NotAllMen backlash began.

Well, of course #NotAllMen but to cherry pick rare examples of violent women to try and mount an argument that violence isn’t a gender based issue is simple dishonesty.

The fact is, 95 per cent of victims of violence in Australia — whether male or female — report the perpetrator is a man, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

We must be able to examine why this might be without being sucked into a tedious Left versus Right argument.

And any examination of the reasons can only help women, AND men — who are in fact more likely to be the victim of a violent crime than a woman.

The problem with arguments that seek to minimise the impact of men’s violence against women is that the victims are slain human beings, not vague political constructs.

And instead of centring the debate around why it is that women are still being killed every week at the hands of men, a number of loud voices have decided to turn the discussion around, focusing on the impact this uncomfortable but desperately needed conversation is having on men generally.

The Reclaim Princes Park vigil for Eurydice Dixon in Carlton drew 10,000 people. (Pic: Jason Edwards)

Take, for example, Former Liberal Premier, Jeff Kennett, who took issue with a comment made by Victorian Minister for Women, Natalie Hutchins recently, in which he felt she “implied” men regard women’s murders differently from how women see them.

Kennett said the words were an “appalling comment” about men, that she had “implied…that men tend to apportion some blame to the victim of the most horrendous crimes,” and went on to explain what he believes can cause a man to murder a woman.

The reasons included: “Sometimes an act of unsociable behaviour is just an out of character, spur-of-the-moment act, that has terrible consequences. But as society attempts to address these issues, please do not make matters worse by blaming all men.”

In other words, please women, do not make matters worse.

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Then, there are those who take issue with the way the tally of dead Australian women is assembled each year, pointing out in the grim 2018 Counting Dead Women toll of 30 killed, not all were killed only by men.

(If we really must split hairs, to date, men have been charged with killing 26 women in the first 26 weeks of 2018; the gender of one woman’s killer is as yet unknown, and women were implicated alone or in a group in three more murders.)

The parents of Jaiden Walker, Jon and Heidi Walker with a photograph of their 22-year-old son Jaiden, who died after being punched outside a Melbourne bar last year. The fact is, men are more likely to be victims of violence than women, with the perpetrators overwhelmingly likely to be men. (Pic: Tony Gough)

The problem with this line of argument, though, is that it aims to delegitimise fact by raising questions about how these killings could possibly be relevant to an discussion about men’s violence against women.

And in the words of Tom Meagher, the widow of murdered woman Jill Meagher, we cannot continue to buy into the “monster myth” and delude ourselves into believing only that kind of man hurts a woman.

Perhaps what is most disappointing about this attempt to shift the focus away from how we make life safer for women and girls to a ‘Not All Men’ discussion, is to see people with high profiles choosing to use the murder of women as substance of a political argument, rather than a reason to join the campaign to lower the toll of victims of violence — against men and women.

After all, men’s violence against men causes more deaths than men’s violence against women, and it doesn’t matter less than men’s violence against women. Our problem with violence, per se, needs huge amounts of daylight and action.

No-one with more than half a brain is making blanket allegations about “all men” being part of the problem, but all men can be part of the solution and they are warmly invited to join it.

Lord knows we need them.

Originally published as #NotAllMen but #UsuallyAMan