Our Watch CEO recommends ‘broadening the number of voices’ in stories on domestic violence
Kate Prendergast interviews newly appointed organisation head, Patty Kinnersly.
Appointed CEO of Our Watch in June this year, Patty Kinnersly now heads Australia’s leading government-backed organisation working to prevent violence against women and their children. She joined the organisation in early 2015, serving as inaugural director of practice leadership. Currently, she also sits on the board of Ballarat Health Services and the Australian Women’s Health Network National Board, and is a member of the Minister’s Taskforce for the Prevention of Violence against Women and their Children.
Entering such a position of leadership would be challenging at any time. Yet it could be said that Kinnersly’s role is particularly weighted this year, as societies globally seem to be poised at a critical historical moment in the push towards gender equality.
Conversations around the insidious culture of violence against women — and the social, institutional and systemic mechanisms which perpetuate this culture — are unprecedented in their volume and scale. There is evidence too of positive, tangible change. In April, to use one example, the Fair Work Commission ruled that all Australian employees covered by modern awards will be entitled to five days of unpaid leave if they are affected by family or domestic violence.
And yet, family violence in Australia remains at crisis levels. As Kinnersly tells me, one woman is murdered by her current or former partner each week, and 657 family violence incidents are dealt with every day by police. The names of just two of them this year are Eurydice Dixon and Qi Yu — murdered within days of each other earlier this month.
Here, Patty Kinnersly shares her vision for the future work of Our Watch. As the July 7 closing date draws near for the 2018 Our Watch Awards — which rewards journalism that strives to end violence against women — she provides recommendations on how individual journalists and organisations can do better in the ways they tell the stories of women who have been subject to, suffered and survived various kinds of abuse.
As the new CEO of Our Watch, what are your goals for the organisation? What progress would you like to see made?
I am enormously proud to have taken on this role at Our Watch. In the four years since its inception, Our Watch has achieved a huge amount and made a vital contribution to raising public awareness of both the extent of violence against women and children and the drivers of this unacceptable scourge. We are now at a moment in history where there is tidal wave of justifiable anger around this issue and we will work to harness this energy to make positive change and take our contribution further.
Our Watch is strongly placed to continue its leading role in bringing together and supporting the excellent work of many organisations around Australia and harnessing the public will to tackle this issue. We will also increasingly aim to be an authoritative voice in debate over public policy in this area.
Our Watch is working on many fronts to drive change in the attitudes, behaviours and gender inequality that leads to violence. We are working closely with the major sporting codes to promote more respectful, inclusive attitudes to women, whether they are players, fans or employees. We also work with primary and secondary schools and parents to promote respectful relationships and healthy, positive gender roles.
Our Watch also campaigns to raise awareness of non-physical violence, such as financial and emotional abuse and social control. These are the types of violence that can be the least obvious to those outside the relationship and yet have profound effects on women’s lives. Financial abuse, for example, is a leading cause of homelessness among women, as well as a common reason why many women are unable to leave abusive relationships.
We will continue to raise awareness and understanding of the impact of family violence on women from diverse ethnic backgrounds, those with disabilities, LGBTI and Indigenous women. We will also highlight the impact of this violence on older women, a group that is too often overlooked.
Looking to the future, Our Watch aims to build key partnerships around Australia with the government and non-government organisations working in this space. We see these partnerships and collaborations as vital to our overall success. We will use our practice research and experience to drive initiatives in policies and practices that will support the work to challenge the causes of this violence, far into the future.
Do you see any persistent problems when it comes to how the Australia media reports on gender-based violence?
We know from significant research that the media plays a crucial role in shaping the public conversation around violence against women and children and in influencing the social and cultural norms that can lead to this violence. For this reason, engaging with the media is a core part of the work of Our Watch.
There have been definite improvements in the way the Australian media reports on gender-based violence in recent years. In the recent reporting on the horrific rape and murder of young Melbourne woman Eurydice Dixon, for example, the reporting was overall responsible and sensitive.
However there are unfortunately still examples of reporting that blame the victim or attempt to excuse the perpetrator’s actions. There is an urgent need to challenge any comments that normalise or excuse male violence.
In Our Watch’s work with the media, we are working with journalists and newsrooms to improve reporting on this difficult and often distressing topic. We are also working on curriculum material that will inform tertiary journalism courses and training for working journalists.
How do you feel about the #MeToo movement — do you think it intersects with Our Watch’s aims? Has it contributed to how journalists approach stories on gender-based violence, and how the public engages with these stories?
There is currently a groundswell of anger over the issues of violence against women and sexual harassment. This level of passionate engagement with the issue is leading to a very important public conversation around what we as a whole community can do to prevent this gendered violence.
There is a growing willingness by many in the media to responsibly shine a light on violence against women and children, which is at a crisis level in Australia, and we applaud this and aim to continue working closely with the media.
What are some things that individual reporters can do to craft accurate and compassionate stories on these issues?
One clear strategy for those reporting on family violence is to broaden the number of voices in their stories. In addition to law and order officials and neighbours or others who knew the perpetrator, we encourage journalists to seek quotes from family violence experts or survivor advocates.
It’s important too, for the media to play its role in raising awareness of the shocking extent of family violence. We know, tragically, that one woman in Australia is murdered by her current or former partner each week and 657 family violence incidents are dealt with every day by police. We also know that family violence is prevalent in all socio-demographic groups.
How can news organisations help educate and/or incentivise their staff to report more sensitively on gender-based violence?
Our Watch is working with the media both to improve reporting practices for those covering stories involving violence against women, but also to improve respect and equality for women working in the media. We are also immensely proud of our annual media awards which celebrate excellence in reporting on family violence and the attitudes and behaviours that drive this. We encourage all journalists to enter the 2018 Our Watch Awards, run in partnership with the Walkley Foundation.
Patty Kinnersly is the CEO of Our Watch, a not-for-profit organisation established to drive nationwide change in the culture, behaviours and power imbalances that lead to violence against women and their children.
Interview by Kate Prendergast, the Walkleys’ marketing and digital coordinator and a freelance writer published in The Lifted Brow, Overland and Neighbourhood Paper.
