In news that will surprise nobody with a taste for Rupert, Political Correctness Has Gone Mad! It has gone not only mad, per the view of two News Corp publications yesterday, but power mad in its efforts to “ban” particular phrases from everyday speech. In news that will surprise nobody with a distaste for Rupert, there was no “ban” proposed. A recent publication prepared by Stop It At The Start, the federal government campaign that seeks to end family violence, had simply offered educators and others who work with young people a list of terms, including “Boys will be boys”, that may serve to normalise or endorse future acts of abuse.
This is a pamphlet. It is not a suite of regulations that make thought-crime punishable by Ingsoc. In fact, its cultural reach will be so modest and its budget — especially relative to that of the frontline legal services for those facing family violence now defunded by the Coalition — so slim, News Corp ought to be celebrating. If there is a way to cut both state spending and state “interference” in the lives of men who abuse their partners, you could probably do no better than to produce an awareness PDF.
There’s a long argument had between the libertarian press and certain advocates for social justice that is not really any sort of effective argument at all. The former side demands small government and limited state intrusion, while the latter inadvertently makes such retreat possible. If one believes ardently, and many do, that awareness raising is key to ending most forms of violence and injustice, then what you end up with is a lot of pamphlets.
There are, of course, many working to end family violence who insist that both things ought to be done at once. It would be ideal, they say, to have programs of education and adequately funded frontline services to transform the patterns of family abuse we now recognise as so dreadfully routine. The funded reality, however, tends toward programs of education only.
Even setting aside the persuasive arguments against the decades-old “Duluth Model” understanding of family violence — briefly, the proposition that cultural sexism is its chief cause — there is some value in considering how policymakers are so easily able to swap true social interventions for the promotional sort. Both things do not happen at once.
The Turnbull government’s approach to family violence is one such clear example of talk occluding action. When the Prime Minister spoke powerfully of the pain of women, many, quite reasonably, were moved by his account. His policy approach, however, has followed the usual mode of GetUp. The logic goes that one should change hearts and minds through communication, and that social practice will follow. If only we care enough. If only we can recognise the true pain.
[Rundle: the ruling myths of our domestic violence debate]
There is nothing — to be gracelessly clear — wrong with caring. Actually, there’s something very wrong with giving no sort of shit at all. On one of my unambitious jogs last month, I passed a group of women who had convened in the park to plan the escape from violence by one of their number. As these gals strategised, taking care to delegate those little but urgent tasks, like snacks for the kids in the car, my heart broke. As any functioning human organ would. My compassion was normal and easy. The woman’s escape demanded extraordinary effort.
It’s nice that I care. It’s nice that Turnbull cares. It’s nice that we can each publicly decry acts of violence as unacceptable. It absolves us from meaningful action.
Turnbull has taken the “innovation” approach he loves so well to family violence. Rather than fight for the ongoing funding of refuges founded by feminists in the 1970s, largely with no sort of state endorsement or funding at all, he argues for the use of GPS devices to track perpetrators. Rather than ensure continued funding to legal services, he will endorse the production of pamphlets that rest on the dubious claims of ‘90s academics, i.e. we make terrible reality with terrible ideas and better reality with better ones. His belief seems to be that one can simply hack one’s way out of an ongoing problem. And the great misfortune here is, especially in the case of awareness raising, many people outside News Corp largely agree with this model of social change.
We have seen this promotions-positive take on the politician’s syllogism — Something Must Be Done. This is Something. Let’s Do This — play out in a range of portfolios. The way to solve mental health is to “end the stigma”. The way to combat racism is by programs, such as that introduced by the Howard government, like Harmony Day. The way to end the gender pay gap is to make girls feel more “empowered”.
[Razer: Barbie dolls don’t cause domestic violence]
Certainly, these moves may not all have a cynical basis — although it is hard to cop in the case of John Howard. That they have a limited effectiveness, perhaps even an unintended failure built in, is beyond doubt. When communications, or public acts of compassion or contrition, become not just one defence among many but a primary defence, News Corp really should applaud. It’s cheap to raise awareness. It’s conveniently neoliberal to make individuals the source of social problems.
The youth housing problem is the result of smashed av sandwiches. The NT Intervention is the product of our personal racism. The reason that women must increasingly rely on the generosity of friends instead of the provision of services in their flight from family violence is sexism in society.
It is not as though there is no value in the dominant school of academic thought — roughly known as social constructionism — that bad ideas make for bad social practice. The way we represent and communicate, perhaps even in pamphlets, is likely to make some kind of hard-to-measure difference. But, increasingly, this is the only sort of difference we demand.
To argue against the effectiveness of pamphlets of the type is not to argue along with News Corp that ours is a society dominated by statist solutions. Rather, it is to say that our statist solutions have all but disappeared, and have been replaced with the appearance of concern.
You are quite right Helen. Pamphlets will fix nothing. I am schoolteacher and unfortunately for me, I see this at the pointy end. I get these little kids coming and hugging me. I am concerned, not by their actions but by what they mean. Often it means I am the only bloke they see in a day who won’t hurt them. We have cases where both parents are arrested for Domestic Violence, the kids go to a scarcely safer place. The actions of the law take forever, protection orders and AVO are a joke. If a violent parent comes to our school, the police station is closed until after school and it may take 30 minutes to get a copper urgently. Nothing happens. Then there is the increasing violence in media. Take the Telegraph front page after Westminster. It makes violence seem normal. In the sexist days of my youth it was a scandal to hit a girl, not now. We could also do a lot by demanding player managers take some responsibility for the young men in their alleged care. Demanding a no dickheads policy from any sport getting public money might not be a bad idea. We make it look acceptable. Player A’s club cringes in horror and tears the contract up, the club over the road says no worries and it reinforces misconduct.
Boys and girls are in my experience quite different in their approach. This has nothing to do with skills and a lot to do with attitude. We have also made primary school a less attractive place for all males, including students. This results from a lot of good intentions to make it better for girls, who were doing all right in it, the constant villification of men and the lack of any system to end constant abuse of staff by students and parents alike. This means less role models and by Harry we need some.
‘…..a no dickheads policy from any sport getting public money….’
Excellent idea, a good start.
I only know of this from the perspective as a student in the 90s and early 00s. There’s been a few times where I’ve looked back at school and felt sorry for the teachers. Sadly, I don’t know much about what male teachers face specifically, especially today. I’d be interested to hear more, and I’ll check back later to see if you’ve replied.
Lets begin with root cause and effect. Give a man/woman a decent meaningful job, long term accommodation and the knowledge that food will always be on the table and I guarantee domestic violence will disappear over-night.
Do nothing govts fiddle and pontificate while Rome burns.
Who knew that there is no domestic violence in the upper income levels?
Things that ya go “huh?”.
Who would a thunk it?
Dear AR,
Both Julie and I believe it is not wise to make light of this very serious issue. We both have often been called to intercede in DV cases in our local neighbourhood. Mainly at the local Frankston tennis club. We always warn couples not to play in the mixed double club championships, aka Divorce Doubles. The percentages of domestic violence stemming from the loss of match-point are staggering.
Yours Sincerely
Kevin & Julie Harris
That was an attempt at satire, was it?
Who is making light of an endemic & insidious part of society? Divorced Doubles indeed.
Tennis can be very testing. All those terms.
I suppose they play for a loving cup? …. What condition is that in?
I imagine you’d have to be careful whom you were supping after, as it’s passed around in celebration?
What happens when a feuding couple “hold serve to love”?
Not to mention a “favoured back-hand”?
Thanks for this…..This type of strategy on its own may be neither here nor there….language and even thought are cultural constructs which probably are related to social relations (who knows:)……..Consider in these same newspapers, there are also adverts or items which suggest people to ‘report their suspicions’ of DV and the like, without saying how these reports are handled or what accountability there may be for true/false reports…..What happens to reports??????……The unexpected result of that bizarre dual approach is that one may well end up with a system which is both expensive for the state and society as well as being highly inaccurate and ineffective in acting on DV…Nobody in the above chain, by design, would appear to have the first clue about what is going on!!!…It is indeed, absolutely bizarre, when as you outline, one does read reports that shelters, which apparently do house actual victims of DV, are defunded and the like….
“Preaching to the converted” it feels good ’til you wake up, all wet.
They won’t soak up the bodily fluids.
This unfortunately sits very squarely in how Jeff Kennett’s highlighting mental health issues, make some flashy pamphlet’s & build a big marketing campaign around his celebrity status, and sits back & wait for the money to roll in. Like Beyondblue’s focus on mental health was discussed here last week, I hate to say it, it seems like DV has been given the same treatment, a whitewashing approach that government does while it busily reduces much needed funding, but trying to make it look like they care. I do believe that for all those people who are touched by this ingrained & endemic problem in our society. There needs to be more funding & less politicking, and let the professionals, ie the teachers, counsellors, psyche’s etc get on with trying to help these people rebuild their lives, when the reality of lost productivity due to this truly awful waste, is in the millions a year, and yet we have a government that isn’t prepared to part with a third of this amount just to try to get some sort of handle on the situation, again the spin doctors are trying to make it look good, but they are failing miserably. We all know this, the Beyondblue & Jeff Kennett appreciation club is a fine example of how this works.
The problem with outside funding is it means they live by the good graces of their benefactors. What is insane is that we need the government to not be stupid so that people who can and are willing to help tackle a problem like DV can do what they already wanted to do. The root cause is we can’t value this good, socially necessary but unproductive work any other way than paying them with money the service has no capacity to pay for without outside funds. Can’t just not pay the staff. Proposals like UBI won’t fix this, only when every human can seize their own activity will we be free of this curse.