Tuesday, October 25, 2016
Moving Beyond Rape Culture – can violence against women be eliminated?
A public forum to discuss what it would take to eliminate rape and other forms of violence against women.
It's easy to be united in objecting to the victim-blaming and slut-shaming that are part of the rape culture that shifts the blame for rape from the rapist to the person who is raped.
This forum seeks to tease out what it is in Australian society that makes it a rape culture, and what we need to work on changing - politically, economically, socially, in the workplace, in the family, in how we even talk and think and act around gender, sex and sexuality - to reach the point where sexual and other violence against women becomes impossible.
Speakers:
Justine Kamprad, former blue collar worker and union organiser, now law student, will use examples from popular culture to explain rape culture in Australia today.
Marianne Mackay, Noongar woman and fighter for her people, will speak about ending violence against women and the importance of ending police and other forms of racist violence that impact on women of her community.
Sanna Andrew, a social worker with years of experience in the housing sector, will speak about the impact of poverty, homelessness and housing stress on women, and the socioeconomic changes needed to break down violence against women.
Kamala Emanuel, women's health doctor and long-time feminist activist, speaking about a living example of a society without rape, and what western feminists can learn from it about how different ways societies create or experience gender, sex and sexuality facilitate or hinder the practice of rape.