An audience at Melbourne’s Royal Society of Victoria listened with intrigue a few years ago as the speaker told of a small river town confronted by an ever-increasing number of dead people floating by.
Locals began hauling bodies from the river, burying them and then resting, thinking the job was done.
However, the bodies kept coming, so the community set up a specially equipped team to retrieve the bodies and adequately and decently dispose of them, and that worked for a while.
But the bodies kept coming and being somewhat overwhelmed, the community built an emergency morgue, and even that was inadequate as the bodies continued to arrive.
An exasperated soul said: “Why don’t we look upstream and see why so many bodies are floating by?” The band-aid solutions of special recovery teams and emergency morgues had not eased the problem at all.
And so it is with gender-based violence — we need to look upstream.
The problem, as complex as it is, will not and cannot be resolved through further reviews or studies, the establishment of new committees or the re-education of men; rather, I suspect the answer lurks somewhere within our prevailing economic system.
Yes, somewhere “upstream” from the immediate problem of men unleashing their anger and violence upon women are economic challenges.
And as we think about this, we need to remember that Shepparton is not a social island isolated from the male violence that troubles communities throughout the country.
Yes, not far from your home, a woman, a girl, a wife, or a partner is the target of an angry man’s wrath. National statistics confirm that fact.
Writing in The Guardian, Van Badham said: “Australia’s public conversation about male violence has never been so loud. We’ve arrived at a moment when the community is screaming for action.”
A wonderfully compassionate and understanding letter from Lara Blamey in Mount Eliza appeared recently in The Age, and she concluded by saying, “By today’s standards, FaceMash and Hot or Not are abhorrent. What they demonstrate is that males have a propensity to display distasteful and poor consideration of consequences. Without these errors of judgment, boys never have an opportunity to improve their behaviour or to become great men.”
Badham alerts us to the immediacy of the problem, while Blamey suggests gendered violence is evolution-related, meaning it is an “upstream” issue.
And so what is upstream? Well, most everything flowing downstream (all this “upstream” and “downstream” talk seems relevant for Shepparton, a river town) is generated by the existing and prevailing economic system, a system that promises much, but unless you live in lockstep with it, you are excluded from those assurances and the outcome can be the disembowelling of the fragile male ego, manifesting itself, frequently, as uninhibited anger.
There are, of course, no easy solutions to the inability of some men to remain calm when their status is ripped from them.
However, providing them, and even more importantly, their female partners, with economic security could play a critical role.
Yes, Universal Basic Income — a liveable income paid monthly directly into the bank accounts of all Australians, rich or poor — would provide a sense of equality, hitherto unknown comfort and security.
Those who see such a move as being financially irresponsible, and it may be if no machinery is put in place to moderate inflation, should listen to Modern Money theorist Professor Stephanie Kelton, who explains it as simply a choice and that finding the money is nothing more than a few computer keystrokes.
Yes, we can adhere to what exists, do nothing or look upstream and see that although the aggressive, competitive nature of our economic system may comfort some, many men are left floundering and angry as they are stripped of their status.
A UBI has many benefits and, in reference to this conversation, particularly the safety and security of women.
Writing in her recently published book, Change Everything: How We Can Rethink, Repair and Rebuild Society, the leader of the England and Wales Greens Party and a member of Britain’s House of Lords since 2019, Natalie Bennett, said: “There are also explicitly feminist arguments for a universal basic income. Most obviously, this is a feminist policy because it means no-one can be trapped in an abusive relationship by lack of funds (an overwhelmingly gendered situation), but its feminism goes far further than that.”
Meanwhile, back here in Shepparton, Sam Spinks, a councillor with the City of Greater Shepparton but stepping up as a member of our community, is playing a lead role in organising a local rally against gendered violence.
“I’m doing this not as a councillor, but as a community member with my own experience with gendered violence and as a woman filled with rage at the crisis happening in our country,” she said.
It seems Sam is looking “upstream”, and maybe we could also learn about gendered violence by taking a similar view.
Robert McLean is a former editor of The News.
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