The conversation that can help prevent family and gender-based violence

Together, we can change the conversation about family and gender-based violence and do our bit to prevent it.

Family and gender-based violence, which Berry Street Yooralla believes is reaching crisis levels and increases around men’s football grand final time, thrives on disrespect. The leading driver of family violence is gender inequality, which allows the kind of attitudes and beliefs that fuel violence to take hold.

We will not be able to stop family violence if we can’t talk about it openly and respectfully in ways which do not minimise the seriousness and the impact on victim-survivors and children.  We all have a role in changing the conversation about gender-based violence. When we talk, write or comment online about family and gender-based violence, the language we use matters: we can create change through our words as well as through our actions.  

When communicating about gender-based violence, avoid language that blames victim-survivors, excuses violence or presents alcohol, gambling or strong emotions as causes.

We should:

Centre victim-survivors

Focusing on the impact on the person committing the violence is not only disrespectful to victim-survivors it minimises their experience.

Family and gender-based violence is a human rights abuse and has significant impact on victim-survivors, even when the abuse is not physical. Saying ‘it was only verbal abuse’:  

• minimises the significant and devastating impact this has on someone’s psychological and physical wellbeing.  
• fails to recognise that it is used to create an environment of fear and ongoing disempowerment of the victim-survivor, and  
• ignores that non-physical abuse is often a pre-cursor to escalating harm.  
   

Avoid language that blames or minimises the experiences of victim-survivors

Too often, people look to excuse the (mostly) men who use violence against their partners and families by looking to their victims for an explanation. This is disrespectful to victim-survivors and removes accountability from the person using violence.  

Minimising the impact of family and gender-based violence allows it to thrive in our communities.  
 

Hold people who use violence accountable

We see this same tendency to excuse or minimise harmful behaviour in the way gendered violence is often discussed in commentary more broadly. Comments like ‘boys will be boys’, ‘they just made a mistake’ or ‘they were really drunk’ mean we don’t hold the person using violence to account.

There is nothing that a victim-survivor could do or say or wear that justifies violence against them. Men who abuse their partners or families are making the choice to use those behaviours, and it’s important we focus on them and their choices.

When we keep the person using violence accountable, ‘what was she wearing?’ becomes ‘there are no reasons to assault someone.’

To find out more about how to communicate about gender-based violence respectfully and responsibly, get Berry Street Yooralla’s ‘Language matters: family and gender-based violence’ guide.

If you’d like to learn more about speaking with children about family violence in age appropriate ways to help them to understand that violence is never OK, get our guide: Family Violence and children: What you need to know.