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This was published 5 years ago
We need to quit the 'white saviour' mentality to confront violence against women
By Alex McKinnon
One of the inevitable side-effects of being a white guy dating a person of colour in Australia is getting the unwanted attention of people who don't like interracial couples very much.
Men wearing Aussie-flag bandannas or middle-aged women with I'd-like-to-see-the-manager haircuts shoot us dirty looks on the street or in the supermarket, and my first impulse is always to make a scene – to confront them on their behaviour, and possibly get into a nice cathartic shouting match.
"It's easy to wear a white ribbon when you assume that violence is something that other men do."Credit:Stocksy
That knee-jerk instinct to take over and save the day is certainly well-meaning, but not useful. As a white man in Australia, racism is something I've never personally experienced until recently, and even then only by proxy. My partner's got years of dealing with bigoted numpties under her belt, and she can handle herself just fine – she sure as hell hasn't been waiting for someone like me to come along and magically "solve" interpersonal racism for her.
The misguided and condescending compulsion many men have to swoop in and fix things that they have no expertise or experience in raises its head everywhere (including in government), and it often has very serious consequences.
When it comes to how we respond to violence against women, especially women of colour, the end result can be more than useless – it can be dangerous. Historically, the way Australia reacts to violence against women of colour (on the rare occasions when we notice it) has been with patronising, pith-helmet responses more about making ourselves feel good than actually solving the problem.
The Northern Territory Intervention in 2007, ostensibly to address shocking levels of violence against Aboriginal women and kids, is a pretty vivid example. Rather than talking to Indigenous women already working to reduce violence in their communities on how best to tackle the problem together, the Intervention only made things worse.
A 2015 report from Australia's National Research Organisation for Women's Safety found that while the post-Intervention NT had "no discernable increase in the rate of prosecution for family and domestic violence", there was "a dramatic increase in the imprisonment of Indigenous women".
'Racism'
That same dynamic raised its ugly head again recently, when National Indigenous Advisory Council chair Warren Mundine loudly wondered why Indigenous women aren't doing more to combat domestic violence themselves. Seemingly Mundine made no effort to acquaint himself with the work of women like Dr Kyllie Cripps, Linda Burney, Professor Gracelyn Smallwood AO, Lani Brennan and many others, or the organisations, programs and campaigns they have led on this very issue.
As Celeste Liddle put it in Daily Life, "for a very long time, progressive Aboriginal women and feminists have been speaking out on family and domestic violence. That no one – including Warren Mundine – listens to us is a reflection on the sexism and racism inherent within Australian society, not on our efforts to bring this issue to the attention of the public."
Likewise, those behind the push to ban Islamic head scarves and facial coverings profess a feigned "concern" for Muslim women that paints them as cringing, pliant subjects of Muslim men. Never mind that Muslim women continually and exhaustively assert that the decision to wear a hijab, burqa or niqab (or not) is a choice they make themselves, for their own reasons.
Professor Sahar Amer, chair of the Department of Arabic and Islamic Studies at the University of Sydney, writes that "a woman who wears the most conservative style of niqab or burqa still has a mind, a political perspective, and a voice. The niqab may cover her face and head, but it does not cover her mind."
All this ham-fisted, counterproductive "rescuing" stems from the same misguided preconception – that we (white men) have the answer, and the world is waiting for us to come and "save" it (read: impose ourselves on it).
Marai Larasi – who's the executive director for Imkaan, a UK black feminist organisation working to combat violence against women and girls – argues any strategies to combat violence against women, especially women of colour, must confront the "white saviour" mentality that so frequently underpins our cultural and policy responses.
"The mindset is always 'let's parachute in and do some rescuing', but that doesn't address where white Australia stands in regard to its own power," Larasi says.
"There's a desire to highlight what's going on 'over there' in the exotic space so we can go in and 'rescue' them from their horrible culture – it's always going in with a magnifying glass and never with a mirror."
In fact, this exotification of violence against women is one of the major issues holding back the conversation in Australia. By pointing the finger at "other" men in this pre-written narrative, both women within marginalised communities and those whose abusers don't fit this profile are silenced.
Preconceived ideas
The University of Wollongong's Dr Michael Flood, who specialises in masculinity, male violence and gender relations, says Australia is very comfortable calling out violence against women when it fits with our preconceived ideas of who commits it and why, but much less willing to confront those parts of our own culture that lead to such violence or reinforce the conditions that allow it to occur.
"Lots of men say violence against women and rape is bad, but their sense is very much that the problem lies with other men; with men who are different from them," Flood says.
"Men who are working-class, or Muslim, or Arabic-speaking, or from some other class or ethnic background. That's a very comforting idea, but it's an idea we have to let go of."
Speaking from personal experience, that's a phenomenon that certainly holds true. Last year, Australian comedian Brydie-Lee Kennedy wrote a confronting personal essay about an abusive relationship with a former partner that exposed widespread complacency and complicity towards violence against women among young men in Sydney's stand-up comedy community.
In the aftermath of Kennedy's article, men in my friendship circle who knew both the abuser in question and the circle of young male comedians who defended and protected him from accountability, began asking themselves why they didn't do more (or anything, really) to stop this man's behaviour and hold him accountable.
The answer to that question may explain why mainstream Australian society is so eager to point out violence against women of colour as evidence of our cultural superiority, while ignoring it closer to home.
It's extremely easy to wear a white ribbon or write a social media status declaring how serious you are about helping end violence against women when you assume that violence is something that other men do – men not like you, or anyone you know.
It's far harder to admit that someone in your own life is an abuser and then do something about it, rather than flinch away from reality to keep the peace.
If we're genuinely serious about ending violence against women in Australia, we need to be honest with ourselves and recognise that our efforts to "save" people in the past have often done more harm than good.
Before we rush out to fix the problem we see so easily in "others", we'd better take a good look at ourselves first.