
"There are a number of significant challenges. There are still many stories that aren't being told," writes Moo Baulch. Photo: Stocksy
What would a Sunday morning be without at bit of coffee-spitting over the Telegraph's opinion pages?
Miranda Devine - who just last week was handed her fourth Ernie Award for enabling sexism - has done it again with a column that's sure to make her a contender for a fifth award next year. In it, she denies that sexism or disrespect plays any role in violence against women (despite referring to male 'emasculation' as a factor...). Rather, poverty is the cause. But not just poverty. It's poverty and women abusing welfare that causes this cycle of violence.
"If you want to break the cycle of violence," Devine writes, "end the welfare incentive for unsuitable women to keep having children to a string of feckless men."
Ah. So simple. Why didn't we think of that?
The truth is, poverty, disempowerment, mental illness and drug abuse are always going to be a exacerbating factors in these sorts of crimes. But while domestic violence is often concentrated in the most disadvantaged communities, it exists across the spectrum. That's a fact.
People who actually work on the frontlines all agree that the one common factor across the board in domestic violence is men who see themselves as the head of the family, seeking to control women through a whole variety of abuse.
Devine is right about one thing: simply focussing on raising awareness is not enough to stop the violence that men are inflicting on women right now.
But to suggest that it's the victims' fault for having the audacity to fall in love and raise a family while poor? That financial assistance to families in need should be taken away, as if that would fix this issue? It's not just offensive - it's extraordinarily damaging.
Damage aside, there was one positive to come out of this column: the response it sparked on social media.
Many women who are survivors of domestic and family violence have been prompted to speak out, sharing their stories to refute the harmful claims about who and what is to blame for this scourge.
This is my mother. A domestic violence SURVIVOR. This is not an unsuitable woman #ThisIsNotAnUnsuitableWoman #auspol pic.twitter.com/9TN6APrO18
— Nakkiah Lui (@nakkiahlui)
September 27, 2015
@nakkiahlui I must be unsuitable, & the 2 other women who were his girlfriends after me. #domesticviolence #thisisnotanunsuitablewoman
— Sir Prince Julie L. (@ellinjaa)
September 27, 2015
@nakkiahlui @JointDestroyer an old photo of me and Mum - survivors of family violence. #ThisIsNotAnUnsuitableWoman pic.twitter.com/63Cds03WW7
— Sarah Holloway (@SarahEHoll)
September 27, 2015
#thisisnotanunsuitablewoman @mirandadevine I am #universityeducated a #socialwprker you're owe #survivors an #apology pic.twitter.com/h03F7u0sMG
— troupie trakka (@allyallyoup)
September 27, 2015
.@mirandadevine here I stand with my mother, a university educated survivor of DV #ThisIsNotAnUnsuitableWoman pic.twitter.com/oZww4SODkP
— Ellana Costa (@ellanacosta)
September 27, 2015
.@nakkiahlui I wrote about my aunt surviving intimate-partner violence: http://t.co/2dZkFsx7lt #ThisIsNotAnUnsuitableWoman
— Danielle Binks (@danielle_binks)
September 27, 2015
I was married to a while collar worker, was not on welfare and no previous marriages. I have two degrees. I was abused #UnsuitableWomen
— Kate Emerson (@kateemerson88)
September 27, 2015
If having dealt with violent men makes me 1 of the #unsuitablewomen I'll wear it with pride. Certain columnists can kiss my unsuitable arse.
— Sharna Bremner (@sharnatweets)
September 27, 2015
I'm a middle-class, PhD-getting, childfree, employed person who has never been on the dole. Guess I'm not one of "those" #unsuitablewomen.
— Sharna Bremner (@sharnatweets)
September 27, 2015
Ken Lay once said that @VictoriaPolice receive DV reports from Doveton to Toorak. This is not isolated to socioeconomics. #UnsuitableWomen
— Clementine Ford (@clementine_ford)
September 27, 2015
Good to know women are safe from violence by rich men, it's only the poor ones. #UnsuitableWomen #MirandaDevine pic.twitter.com/Fxn3A5mNx3
— Kon Karapanagiotidis (@Kon__K)
September 27, 2015