Lili Pâquet discusses how Trace and The Teacher’s Pet can act as informal justice beyond police and courts.
Lili Pâquet
Featured image ‘Albert V Bryan Federal District Courthouse – Alexandria Va – 0016-2012-03-10’ by Tim Evanson is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0
True crime podcasts investigating historical ‘cold’ cases where women and children are victims of gender-based violence are increasingly popular. Two recent Australian true crime podcasts, Trace and The Teacher’s Pet, discovered new witnesses in unsolved murder cases, which led to arrests and coronial inquests.
My research aims to discover if these kinds of podcasts can offer informal justice to victims who feel dissatisfied with the formal police and court systems of Australia. These podcasts have similarities to true crime podcasts from countries around the world with adversarial justice systems, like the USA, the UK, and Canada.
Trace
Trace Season 1 (2017-2018) is a seven-episode podcast narrated by Rachael Brown for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (the free national broadcaster). The podcast reinvestigates the unsolved 1980 murder of single mother, Maria James.
During the podcast, it is revealed that the local parish priest, Father Bongiorno, was sexually abusing James’s youngest son and that James was murdered the day she confronted the priest. A witness saw Bongiorno covered in blood. Police told James’s sons that Bongiorno was ruled out by DNA evidence. The podcast reveals that the exculpating DNA was from an unconnected police investigation and had been mistakenly mixed into the evidence from James’s murder. Following the podcast, the coroner opened a new inquest into James’s murder. James’s two sons state on the podcast that their voices had finally been heard, in a way they weren’t during the investigation.
Video above: ‘Invasion of the Pod People: Trace’ with Myf Warhurst, Rachel Brown, Ron Iddles, and Mark James at The Wheeler Centre, Melbourne.
The Teacher’s Pet
The Teacher’s Pet (2018), narrated by Hedley Thomas for The Australian, was downloaded over 28 million times. Over 16 episodes, Thomas investigates the 1982 disappearance of Lynette Dawson from Sydney. Thomas explicitly suggests Dawson’s husband killed her and buried her on their property. Chris Dawson’s teenage girlfriend, a student at the high school where he taught, then moved in with him and his two daughters. During the podcast, Thomas uncovers new witnesses and a disturbing culture of sexual abuse by teachers at the school, which led to a police strike force and the 2018 arrest of Chris Dawson. He is currently on trial for Lynette Dawson’s murder and the podcast has been removed for download while the case is before the courts.
Informal Justice
Definitions of ‘justice’ within formal institutions are based on successful convictions and punishment of offenders. However, this form of justice may not give victim-survivors and secondary victims a sense that justice has been achieved. Informal justice occurs outside police, courts, and legislation. According to Bianca Fileborn’s research, victim-survivors achieve a sense of justice if they have:
real participation
an active voice
vindication of harm they experienced
accountability by the offender.
Ideas of ‘justice’ should extend beyond outcomes in law and policy to include changes in social attitudes and representations of violence. Clare McGlynn and Nicole Westmarland argue that victim-survivors and secondary victims seek validation from their communities, which could include validation by podcast audiences. Academics such as Tanya Serisier argue that narrators of media about violent crime shape its representation and audience’s understanding of it.
By speaking about their victimisation to a public audience, some victim-survivors may feel they have achieved justice through true crime podcasts and, importantly, have been vindicated and validated by their communities.
Limitations of podcasts
While some podcasts allow victim-survivors or secondary victims to narrate their own stories, other podcasts have harmful representations of women. The Teacher’s Pet is empathetic toward Lynette Dawson, but its depiction of Joanne Curtis—a teenager groomed by her teacher into an unequal and controlling relationship—is problematic.
The language used, such as naming her ‘a teacher’s pet,’ is harmful. Thomas also uses audio recordings of her interviews by police, without any clear consent, replicating the abusive relationship she discloses in those interviews for the titillation of a public audience. Often, true crime podcasts also focus on certain kinds of victims: female, white, middle class, and heterosexual. Podcasts such as Bowraville challenge this stereotype in a promising way.
Some people might argue that true crime podcasts could cause unfair trials, which concerned some listeners of The Teacher’s Pet, but it is doubtful that these investigations would be reopened without the interest caused by the podcasts.
Trace and The Teacher’s Pet are examples of how true crime podcasts can act as informal justice beyond police and courts, but there are limitations. If the podcasts attempt to offer victim-survivors a sense of justice, they should give those people a chance to describe their experiences in their own voices and to feel vindicated through connection with their communities. In future, true crime podcasters could work in tandem with police, giving them access to community grapevines.
Author’s Bio:
Lili Pâquet is a Lecturer in Writing at the University of New England, Australia. Her research is in the areas of rhetoric, crime, environment, and digital media.
In the late 90s, I worked for domestic abuse charity, Scottish Women’s Aid. I was, simultaneously, also a fledgling folksinger, devouring field recordings from Edinburgh University’s School of Scottish Studies and learning gritty ballads knee-to-knee from older singers in the city’s pub music sessions.
I was amazed to find a Scots song tradition brimming with stories of violence against women.
I heard ‘The Laird o the Dainty Dounby‘ from the great Gordeanna McCulloch. In it, the Laird asks a farmworker’s daughter:
“O lassie, o lassie, whit would ye gie (Oh girl, oh girl, what would you give)
if I was tae lie ae nicht wi ye?” (if I was to lie a night with you?)
She replies:
“Tae lie ae nicht that will never, never be, (To lie a night, that will never, never be)
though you’re Laird o’ the Dainty Dounby” (even though you are the Laird of the Dainty Dounby)
The Laird “laid her doun” anyway. Indeed “it was a lang, lang time e’er he raised her up again”.
The daughter gets pregnant. The Laird weds her. Her family rejoices. It’s a jaunty song, often sung with a raised eyebrow.
I find its jauntiness awful.
In 2005, I recorded ‘The Ballad of Eppie Morrie’, arranged by my friend Corrina Hewat. It includes a visceral depiction of an attempted forced marriage, and Eppie’s tooth and nail fight against her abductor and would-be rapist, Willie.
The Ballad of Eppie Morrie by Karan Casey
“Willie takes her to bed and attempts to sleep with her”, reads a 1970 field note entry, thus dodging a catalogue search under ‘rape’ on the sound archives portal Tobar an Dualchais/Kist O Riches.
“In the morning, Eppie Morrie is still a virgin and is rescued by John Forsyth of Breadalbane”, the record continues. Eppie’s epic, night-long resistance, the reason so many women singers connect with this song, doesn’t merit a mention.
As yet, there are no search options for ‘sexual violence’ or ‘domestic abuse’ on the Tobar an Dualchais website, though examples abound.
In ‘The Bonnie Banks of Fordie/Airdrie’, a robber demands that each of three sisters marry him, stabbing two for their refusal. The third warns that her estranged brother will avenge them. When she reveals his name – Babylon – the robber realises he’s killed his own sisters.
His crime against kin, and his subsequent suicide, are the dramatic denouement to this song. For the two young women he murders, his sisters, it’s not their story. It’s his.
The Bonnie Banks o Fordie/Pennknivsmordaren by Malinky
Too often, it is. Australian writer Jane Gilmore addresses the contemporary centring of abusive men’s experiences via her Twitter tag #FixedIt. She edits news headlines which excuse men’s violence against women, underplay their criminal agency, and render abused women invisible[1].
‘Lassie Gaitherin Nuts’ is sung by legendary Traveller singers Jeannie Robertson and her daughter, Lizzie Higgins. It’s described in 1961 and 1970 field notes as a ‘bawdy song’ about a woman ‘taken advantage of by three men passing by’.
It’s a song about the gang rape of a sleeping woman. #fixedit
I’ve never heard this sung live. Would, could, anyone sing it now? On the 1970 tape, Lizzie Higgins describes the raped woman as a “silly lass”, which catches my breath. But in 2021, there’s plenty talk still of silly lassies and their responsibility for preventing crimes against their own bodies.
In 2003, as a member of the band Malinky, I wrote a ballad in Scots called ’Thaney’. It’s a telling of the myth of St Enoch (aka. Thenew and Thaney), one of Glasgow’s two patron saints, known locally for the shopping centre and underground station named after her. Prior to reading Elspeth King’s ‘A History of Glasgow Women’, I assumed Enoch was a man. I suspect many assume so still.
In medieval legend though, she was a 6th century princess, from the area now called Lothian. Thaney was banished from her father’s court for refusing to submit to a forced marriage. Whilst living in exile, the Welsh prince Owain mab Urien raped her, and she became pregnant by him.
When he discovered her pregnancy, out of wedlock, Thaney’s father, Loth, ordered her execution. She was stoned and thrown from Traprain Law, East Lothian. But she survived, and was cast out in a coracle at Aberlady. She washed up safely across the Forth at Culross, where monks took her in, and her son, Mungo, was born.
Elspeth King regards Thaney/Enoch as Scotland’s first recorded survivor of rape and domestic abuse.
Thaney by Malinky
Mungo would become well known as Glasgow’s founding saint. But Enoch is only in recent years more widely recognised in her own right. Here she is, nursing a baby Mungo, as represented by street artist, Smug:
Glasgow’s founding story is bound up with rape, flight and refuge. Potentially, this speaks powerfully to the experiences of Glasgow women today, and to all those seeking asylum in the city in flight from gender-based violence, and other forms of persecution.
The stories we remember, and keep alive, matter now.
Scotland’s vast intangible cultural heritage of myth, song and story has been passed orally from generation to generation across many centuries via the immense skills and knowledge of traditional singers and storytellers who went before us. Collectively, we owe a huge debt of gratitude to them, and to the fieldwork ethnologists, on which the University of Edinburgh School of Scottish Studies Archives and other sound repositories have been built over the past seventy years.
But we live in this time, not theirs. As contemporary singers, storytellers, historians, and cultural institutions we need to reappraise the inequalities, injustices, cruelties and prejudices, which have been written and sung into our living traditions. And that requires careful, critical intervention in our archives and catalogues so that we can navigate and cherish these traditional sources with a contemporary understanding of violence against women, and gender-based violence.
https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk is a portal to a selection of sound archives from The School of Scottish Studies Archives, The Canna Collection (National Trust for Scotland) and BBC Radio nan Gàidheal.
Author’s bio:
BBC Radio 2 Folk Singer Of The Year 2018, Karine Polwart is a multi-award winning Scottish songwriter and musician, as well as theatre-maker, storyteller, spoken-word performer and author. Her songs combine folk influences and myth with themes as diverse as Donald Trump’s corporate megalomania, Charles Darwin’s family life and the complexities of modern parenthood. She sings traditional songs too and writes to commission for film, theatre, animation and thematic collaborative projects. Karine is seven-times winner at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards, including three times for Best Original Song. https://www.karinepolwart.com
Further Resources
Spotify playlist provided by Karine Polwart for 16Days of Activism
https://www.tobarandualchais.co.uk is a portal to a selection of sound archives from The School of Scottish Studies Archives, The Canna Collection (National Trust for Scotland) and BBC Radio nan Gàidheal.
Welcome to the 16 Days Blogathon 2021. From November 25 – December 10 we will be posting voices, stories and insights to raise awareness of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based violence.
Today is the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women and the beginning of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence which runs from 25 November to 10 December, Human Rights Day. Welcome to Day One of our annual blogathon bringing together voices from academia, activism, art and media to raise awareness of this ongoing struggle. The blogathon marks a continuing collaboration between the University of Edinburgh, Dr B.R. Ambedkar University, Delhi, and the University of New South Wales.
This year our theme is Histories, Legacies, Mythsand Memories. It is 30 years since the 16 Days of Activism campaign was first launched by the-now Center for Women’s Global Leadership at Rutgers University in the States, and more than 50 years since feminists of the so-called Second Wave women’s movement began mobilising to expose, confront, and campaign for the elimination of violence against women. We reflect upon these contemporary histories and lessons, including reflections from Australia and the UK. But we also take the longer view with posts exploring manifestations of gender-based violence – sometimes hiding in plain sight – through the centuries. Listening as past voices surface — from the archive, or through myth, traditional songs and stories, or via truth-telling criminal and media investigation — highlights striking continuities of lived experience and feeling, of societal and cultural stigma, and of strategies of resistance.
There has sometimes been a reluctance by scholars and curators to fully acknowledge the historical traces of gender-based violence, whilst others struggle with the ethical dilemmas and emotional costs of recovering these marginalised stories of trauma, injustice and agency.
Over the next 16 Days we will travel from Australia to India, Scotland to the Caribbean, and Mexico to England. Our contributors take us from Ancient Rome to a squat in 1970s Sydney; from Scotland in the 1500s to the partition violence of 1940s India. We meet women seeking justice through medieval courts and modern true crime podcasts; we hear stories of abuse and survival from epic myths and traditional songs from India and Europe; we share the dilemmas of educators and curators; we learn about the struggles of marginalised and racialised women for justice and support both within their own communities and wider societies; and we reflect on lessons to be learned from both contemporary and ancient histories.
Ultimately, a focus on histories, legacies, myths and memories gives us a very important tool. It helps us to identify more lucidly what is unique and distinct about the moment and location we inhabit. It reinforces our understanding of the ubiquity of gender-based violence as well as the ways that the modes and experiences of gender-based violence are shaped by intersecting structures and identities of difference and inequality.
It helps us to understand where we have come from, and the continuing resonances of the past over the long haul of time. And it helps us to imagine where we want to go.
We launch our 2021 Blogathon with a powerful contribution by award-winning Scots singer and composer Karine Polwart who surfaces stories of sexual and gender-based violence in traditional music and oral traditions and their contemporary relevance.
Content note: posts inevitably address distressing experiences and issues around sexual and gender-based violence. We hope they also provoke, energise and sometimes uplift.
The 2021 curators:
University of Edinburgh: Prof. Fiona Mackay (Director) and Aerin Lai (PhD web and editorial assistant) for genderED; Dr. Zubin Mistry (Lead), Prof. Louise Jackson, Prof. Diana Paton, Dr Hatice Yildiz, for the Histories of Gender and Sexualities Research Group.
Dr B R Ambedkar University Delhi: Prof. Rukmini Sen (Director, Centre for Publishing), Dr Rachna Mehra (School of Global Affairs).
University of New South Wales: Prof. Jan Breckenridge (Co-Convenor), Mailin Suchting (Manager) and Georgia Lyons (Research Assistant) for the Gendered Violence Research Network.
It’s a wrap! We’ve reached the end of #16daysblogathon! It’s December 10th, Human Rights Day and the final day of the global 16 Days of Activism 2020
The 16 Days Blogathon Team
Today is International Human Rights Day and the final day of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-based Violence for 2020. We have been sharing daily blog posts to raise awareness in our annual 16 Days Blogathon as part of our commitment to the ongoing struggle to put an end to gender-based violence around the world, once and for all.
How often have you heard the phrase ‘Due to #COVID19…’ this year? In 2020, the global COVID-19 pandemic has loomed large – exposing and exacerbating deep and intractable social, political and economic inequalities and vulnerabilities to gender-based and intersectional violence for women and members of marginalised groups. Lockdowns and restrictions on movement have thrown the spotlight on the ‘shadow pandemic’ of domestic violence and underlined the grim reality of “home” for many women and LGBTQ people.
This year, our main theme has been arts-based and creative responses to gender-based violence and we’ve been honoured to share the blogathon with a wonderful array of artists, writers, musicians, playwrights and performers. They join activists, academics, students, and survivors – noting that the boundaries between all these categories blur.
We’ve posted stories, reflections and performances from around the world. From Scotland to Brazil, from Australia to Nigeria, and from South Africa to India. Through images, video and text we have shared ideas, experiences and acts of remembrance and resistance that have been sometimes harrowing and challenging but always illuminating and, ultimately, hopeful.
On Day Eight, we explored art installations that play a role in transitional justice efforts. The Blue Dress in South Africa and Thinking of You in Kosovo (and travelling) provide alternative ways to remember and address women’s experiences of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict situations.
Gender-based violence still exists everywhere and in multiple forms
Gender-based violence and abuse is still happening across the world, in private homes, workplaces, and in public spaces. And it is comes in many different forms, a number of which we have covered in the last 16 days including domestic violence , psychological abuse, femicide, and mass conflict related sexual violence . The Covid-19 pandemic has forced much of our lives online, and has exposed the rise and variety of gender-based and intersectional violence and abuse online.
On Day Four of the 16 Days Blogathon, the UK Femicide Census released its ground-breaking report analyising ten years of men’s fatal violence against women and girls in the UK. Karen Ingala Smith, co-founder and Director of the UK Femicide Census, gave an in-depth look at the findings of the report and what it outlines for the future.
On Day Eleven, Scottish lawyer Claire Mitchell QC – who fights contemporary miscarriages of justice in her day job – together with author Zoe Venditozzi shared their campaign The Witches of Scotland. Claire and Zoe hope their campaign will highlight historic miscarriages of justice and the persecution and murder of women during the witch hunts of the 16th-18th centuries in Scotland. The campaign also hopes to expose the accusations of witchcraft that continue to be used to persecute women and girls in other parts of the world.
Speaking out and speaking up has always carried risks for women, whether in the real or the virtual worlds. On Day Fifteen, Margie Orford traced how old and how deadly this taboo is on women’s free speech and their safety. The International PEN Women’s Manifesto takes stand against the vilification and censorship of women activists, artists, writers and journalists – and provides a powerful tool to fight for women’s right to free speech and creative expression.
Focussing on online abuse: on Day Two, we read a personal account from interdisciplinary artist and activist Megan Bellatrix Archibald who attracted persistent online misogynistic threats after going public with a campaign, and quickly realised there is much progress to be made surrounding technology and the law. The Museum of Rape Threats and Sexism post on Day Three provides inspiration in terms of sharing and resisting online abuse. Through a digital installation, Isha Yadav is bringing the experience of digital harassment, usually suffered by women as individuals in private, into the public space in an act of collective reckoning.On Day Fourteen, Zelda Solomon outlined more subtle violence and the difficulties we face in fighting bias when it is encoded into algorithms; where “women of colour are often found in the intersections of oppression in the new digital world.”
Creative acts of resistance are happening everyday
Small and large acts of defiance continue to take place across the world. On Day One Jo Clifford wrote about her transgressive and transformative play Jesus, Queen of Heaven which continues to change lives in the face of transphobic hate and violence from Scotland to Brazil. Delhi is one of the most unsafe cities in the world for women but also a site of creative resistance: on Day Nine, Meenakshi Nair shared three stories of young women speaking out against gender-based violence and harassment through challenging impunity, spoken word videos and public dance performances. In Australia, two academics turned their park orange, in support of the 16 Days campaign, creating a safer public space for residents and paving the way for future social change campaigns. And the Zero Tolerance Unseen Violence Campaign projected powerful images on public buildings in Scotland. Meanwhile a group at UNSW School of Public Health are campaigning to establish of a Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre, the first of its kind in Australia. In South Africa – where criminalisation of sex workers increases their vulnerability to gender-based violence, a small advocacy group literally ‘played politics’ – intervening in the presidential elections to put the rights of sex workers on the agenda (Day Fifteen).
The voices of survivors have been central to the blogathon and their stories of courage and creative agency have been inspiring: from the Scottish young survivors (Day Six) to Australian Musician Jack Colwell’s haunting new work aired on Day Five which addresses the childhood trauma of domestic abuse from the vantage point of a young man. In conversation with award-winning photographer Alicia Bruce, the Scotland-Gambia anti-FGM campaigner Fatou Badeh talks about the image they co-created: “That year was one of the most difficult years in my life. But that picture for me shows; I see a defiant woman who refuses to give up, who refuses to be defined by her experience.” (Day 10) And as Fatima Ishiaku, author and founder of a shelter for sexually-abused girls, describes her act of memoire: “My pain became my beautiful testimony.” (Day Ten).
The blog posts in a nut shell
Every #16daysblogathon post is summarised below. While there is a long way to go before gender-based violence becomes an abuse of the past, there are many powerful and effective initiatives underway designed to protect, empower and centre the survivors of gender-based violence. This gives us reason to hope.
By Jo Clifford, Scottish playwright, performer and activist
In Brazil – a country that kills more trans women than anywhere else – performing trans art as resistance can be a matter of life and death. Jo Clifford, acclaimed author of plays and internationally known trans performer and activist, shares the story of actress Renato Carvalho’s experience performing in Brazil.
By Megan Bellatrix Archibald, interdisciplinary artist and Masters student at Edinburgh College of Art
Megan gives a powerful personal account of being threatened online after speaking out about the laws on hysterectomies in the UK, and being faced with an unhelpful police force when she sought help. She discusses the lag in progress between technology and the law in Scotland, and the difficulties faced by someone who experiences online abuse.
By Isha Yadav, Founder and Curator of Museum of Rape Threats and Sexism and PhD candidate in Women and Gender Studies at Ambedkar University Delhi
Isha Yadav introduces her curated art installation, The Museum of Rape Threats and Sexism, and her experience creating it with crowd-sourced screenshots of rape threats and sexist comments that women have received online for raising their voices for social justice. The installation brings the digital artifact (screenshot) into the physical space of the exhibition, making something normally experienced privately, public.
By Rukmini Sen, Professor of Sociology, Ambedkar University Delhi
What does the home mean to us? Rukmini focuses on India in her post, and while engaging with some of the reasons around the rise of domestic violence, she looks into the multiple meanings and metaphors associated with home that the pandemic has made us confront. In her writing she covers increased gender-based household work, access to technology, space, privacy, domestic violence, the implications for migrant workers and students.
By Natasha Chandhock, graduate student at the School of Design, Ambedkar University, Delhi
Natasha explores the ways in which dialogue-based design, or discursive design, can create safe spaces for Trans Binary and Trans Non-Binary identities – a need which has been significantly worsened in the Covid-19 pandemic. She suggests design has the capacity to produce triggers or nudges to make individuals reflect or realign their thinking, that journey mapping exercises could encourage empathetic ways of engaging with others, and design can be key in bringing the concept of non-binary into the everyday life.
By Karen Ingala Smith, co-founder and Director of the UK Femicide Census
This week the Femicide Census released a ground-breaking report analysing ten years of men’s fatal violence against women and girls in the UK. Karen Ingala Smith, co-founder and Director of the UK Femicide Census, gives an in-depth discussion of the report’s findings.
By Jack Colwell, Australian singer/composer and activist
Singer/composer Jack Colwell’s new work The Sound of Music addresses the childhood trauma of domestic abuse. It is ‘a dialogue between three people: myself at 28, myself as a child and the idea of my father.’ In his moving piece, Jack shares his experience of domestic abuse while growing up, and how he used music to work through childhood trauma.
By Ruth Friskney and Claire Houghton, University of Edinburgh.
This piece shares a range of innovative and creative projects young survivors in Scotland have organised to reach out to others experiencing domestic violence while mobilising support for domestic violence survivors, including websites, films, training videos and resources for professionals.
By Shwetha Gopalakrishnan, National Law University Delhi
Shwetha, a member of the Zanana Ensemble, tells the story of the Ensemble’s performance of ‘Zanana ka Zamana’ (The Era is Feminine), a collective act of resistance against the Citizenship Amendment Act in India through expressions of solidarity using songs, poetry and conversations.
ByMaria Adela Diaz, Guatemalan native and international performance artist
Performance Artist Maria Adela Diaz discusses her performance piece tackling psychological abuse of women during Covid-19. She gives an insight into what prompted her to create, and how she hopes the work will inspire women who may be trapped in an abusive situation to speak up.
By Eliza Garnsey, British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow in International Relations, University of Cambridge.
In this post, Eliza Garnsey explores how the powerful South African artworks ‘The Blue Dress’ provide an alternative record of women’s experiences of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV)
By Maria Alina Asavei, Assistant Professor at the Institute of International Studies, Charles University Prague.
Maria’s piece focuses on women survivors of violence from war and conflict, centring artist Alketa Xhafa-Mripa’s Kosova installation, Thinking of You. She asks how the experiences of women affected by sexual violence from war can be highlighted through art, without further reproducing and perpetuating trauma.
By Meenakshi Nair, a student at SOAS, University of London
Delhi as one of the most unsafe cities in the world for women but it is also a site of creative resistance. In this piece, Meenakshi explores three acts of resistance by young women in Dehli against gender-based violence, including by filing police complaints, through spoken word videos, and performing in public spaces.
By Anisha Palat, PhD student at the Edinburgh College of Art
Anisha’s post focuses on the India artist-activist Sujatro Ghosh’s recent project Cow Mask project which highlights that, in India, women are seemingly less safe and less protected than cows.
This post shares a conversation between photographer Alice Bruce and Fatou Baldeh, an FGM campaigner providing space spaces for survivors of Female Genital Mutilation (FGM). Alicia photographed Fatou as part of the Zero Tolerance ‘Violence Unseen’ campaign launched in 2018. They reflect on the image they created together.
By Claire Mitchell QC , Scottish lawyer and author Zoe Venditozzi
The Witches of Scotland Campaign, set up in 2020 by Scottish lawyer Claire Mitchell QC, seeks pardons, memorials and apologies for the women who died in witch trials in Scotland between the 16th and 18th century. It is hoped that this campaign can shed also light on allegations of witchcraft and gender-based persecution that still occur in communities around the world.
By Jo Zawadzka, Campaigns and Engagement Office for Zero Tolerance
When the pandemic curtailed the travelling exhibition Violence Unseen, the organisers had to reassess. And they re-imagined and ‘digitally painted’ the images onto cityscapes.
By Effie Karageorgos and Kcasey McLoughlin, University of Newcastle
To mark 2020 16 Days of Activism theme ‘Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!’ Australian academics worked with local authorities to turn the city of Newcastle orange for the 16 days.
By Patricia Cullen, Research Fellow, National Health and Medical Research Council Population Health, UNSW, and Sally Stevenson, General Manager of the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre.
While domestic and family violence is prevalent across Australia with a murder rate of one woman per week, there remains an absence of centres that offer support to women survivors over the long term. This post focuses on the campaign to establish a Women’s Trauma Recovery Centre, by the UNSW School of Public Health and the Illawarra Women’s Health Centre and their partners.
By Qri Kim, PhD candidate at Edinburgh College of Art
How do we encapsulate the experiences and voices of those who occupy liminal spaces in society? Qri Kim writes about her project ‘Due To’, and the reconceptualisation of the Nomadian in her art.
By Zelda Solomon, History of Art student at Edinburgh College of Art
Zelda Solomon discusses the problems of digital discrimination and the racist underpinnings of algorithms, through the incident with An Nguyen, a Vietnamese curator due to exhibit at the Affordable Arts Fair, only to be rejected because of the Covid-19 pandemic and its associations with ‘Asianness’.
By Ishtar Lakhani, feminist and activist, South Africa
On day fifteen, this piece from Ishtar Lakhani outlines how she, and SWEAT, an advocate group for the health & human rights of sex workers and the Decriminalisation of Sex Work in South Africa, used politics to bring sex worker issues to the public stage, by running for president.
Silencing and censoring women’s free expression date back to ancient times. In this piece, Margie examines the impact of the PEN International Women’s Manifesto in the struggle for women to speak and write freely without censorship or violence.
The Hummingsong Choirs in New South Wales build “community”, bringing together women of all backgrounds and stages in life to sing, laugh, nourish their souls and build close-knit connections. The other important purpose is to extend support to those most vulnerable in the community, women and children escaping domestic violence.
It’s a wrap!
That’s the end of the blogathon to honour the 16 Days of Activism campaign for another year – but the struggle for women’s human rights and the end to all gender-based violence continues. Thanks to our wonderful contributors and to all of you who have read and shared these stories. Please keep reading and sharing, and we will be back in 2021!
The 16 Days Blogathon team:
Fiona Mackay, co-curator, Director of genderED, University of Edinburgh
Louise Chappell, co-curator, Director of the Australian Human Rights Institute, University of New South Wales
Rukmini Sen, co-curator, Director of the Centre for Publishing, Dr B.R. Ambedkar University Delhi
To mark 2020 16 Days of Activism theme ‘Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!’ Australian academics worked with local authorities to turn their City orange.
Picture above: Civic Park in Newcastle, New South Wales being lit orange to mark 16 Days of Activism. Photo by Eddie O’Reilly, UON Marketing and Communications. Reproduced with permission.
Effie Karageorgos and Kcasey McLoughlin
In 1991 the Center for Women’s Global Leadership instituted the 16 Days of Activism against Gender-Based Violence, which has now spread to over 187 countries. It begins on 25 November, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, and ends on 10 December, Human Rights Day. In 2020, the University of Newcastle’s Gender Research Network has responded to the 2020 16 Days of Activism theme ‘Orange the World: Fund, Respond, Prevent, Collect!’ by turning Newcastle orange.
The Gender Research Network, established and led by Associate Professor Trisha Pender, has embarked on a Program in Gender-Based Violence research and activism in 2020, aided by a $70,000 University of Newcastle Faculty of Education and Arts Pilot Grant. Spanning sociology, history, law, literary, gender and cultural studies, the Gender Research Network aims to collaborate with local frontline services to tackle the urgent issue of gender-based violence.
The academic research funded by the project will cover legal conceptualisations of family violence, male clergy perpetration of sexual violence, media presentations of gendered and sexual violence in mainstream television and French and Australian media, the #MeToo movement and the relationship between historical Australian archetypes of masculinity and media representations of male violence.
Associate Professor Trisha Pender at the launch of the Newcastle 16 Days of Activism campaign to end violence against women, held in Civic Park, Wednesday 25 November 2020. Photo by Eddie O’Reilly. Reproduced with permission.
The impetus for this program has emerged from the alarming scale of gendered violence in Australia, with one woman murdered each week by an intimate partner. Gender-based violence is a pressing social and human rights issue that causes long-term physical and psychological effects and costs the Federal Government billions of dollars every year.
It is also a contentious issue in Australian society, with proposed legal reforms such as Victoria’s move to ban the public disclosure of names of sexual violence victims and New South Wales Labor’s push to criminalise coercive control causing widespread and impassioned debate from victims, victim advocates and researchers. The Program in Gender-Based Violence will not only address male perpetrators of violence against women, but also violence affecting LGBTIQ communities and children. It seeks to define how gender-based violence is reported and conceptualised within society.
A central facet of the Gender Research Network’s program in gender-based violence is the 16 Days of Activism to End Violence Against Women campaign. The Network was awarded a Newcastle City Council SBR (Special Business Rates) grant for ‘City Lights for Social Change’, which has created a permanent lighting infrastructure for Civic Park. This turned the park orange for the 16 Days in 2020, but will also create a safer public space at night for Newcastle residents and will be available for use by other social change campaigns in the future. In 2020, the University of Newcastle also committed to turning the NUspace building on its city campus orange, and the Newcastle City Hall’s Clock Tower will also turn orange for the 16 Days of Activism from 25 November to 10 December.
NUspace at University of Newcastle being lit orange to mark 16 Days of Activism, a campaign focusing on preventing violence against women. Photo by Eddie O’Reilly. Reproduced with permission.
The launch and vigil of 25 November took place at 8-9pm, featuring Associate Professor Trisha Pender, with the support of the New South Wales Police Force. Pender was joined by a range of speakers from community organisations, including ACON Health and Warlga Ngurra Women and Children’s Refuge, as well as Federal Member for Newcastle Sharon Claydon and City of Newcastle Councillor Carol Duncan. During the vigil, the names of the 45 women killed by violence in Australia in 2020 was read out by a group of domestic violence researchers and activists.
Image from the Newcastle launch of 16 Days of Activism campaign to end violence against women, held in Civic Park, Wednesday 25 November 2020. Photo by Eddie O’Reilly. Reproduced with permission.
The Gender Research Network’s contribution to the 16 Days campaign also included a webinar on the current push to criminalise coercive control in New South Wales. The session was facilitated by Dr Kcasey McLoughlin, Senior Lecturer in Law, and featured Laura Richards, prominent activist and behavioural analyst from the United Kingdom, Hayley Foster, Chief Executive of Women’s Safety NSW, and State Member for Shellharbour Anna Watson, who was responsible for introducing the bill to criminalise coercive control to the New South Wales Parliament.
Effie Karageorgos is a historian and member of the Gender Research Network at the University of Newcastle. Her research is in the social history of war, and specifically histories of masculinity and trauma. Her monograph Australian Soldiers in South Africa and Vietnam: Words from the Battlefield was published in March 2016.
Kcasey McLoughlin is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Newcastle Law School and a member of Gender Research Network at the University of Newcastle. She is currently a visiting Scholar at the Australian Human Rights Institute (UNSW). Her research, broadly defined, concerns the gendered values that shape political and legal institutions and the extent to which law can be used as a tool for achieving equality.
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