On the back fo several excellent (and in two cases, utterly heartbreaking) diaries discussing the impacts of misogyny and violence against women, I woke up this morning to a report on yet another piece of research that highlights just how f*cked up right wing "values" are when it comes to women.
From The Age (the best mainstream Australian paper for all those who make the mistake of heading to the right-wing Murdoch rag The Australian):
The long-lasting impact of violent relationships on women has been illustrated in research showing that young women abused by their partners are more than twice as likely to have an abortion as those who have not....
Published in this week's Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health, the study also found women from poorer backgrounds were more likely to terminate their pregnancies.
Now, these are hardly surprising results, as the researchers themselves note, yet certainly in my country there has been very little notice or funding being to tackling domestic violence - in fact the neo-conservative government of John Howard has - surprise - significantly slashed funding and support for organisations and programs aimed at trying to reduce domestic violence and provide safety and assistance to victims.
In fact, having successfully courted key aspects of the women's vote in Australia to win the 1996 election with a strong stance against domestic violence, backed up by decent funding, Howard then promptly backflipped in 1997, 'controversially' shelving a globally ground-breaking, evidence-based advertising campaign aimed at reducing spirallig domestic violence in youth relationships
It was eventually released 7 years later, drastically watered down, and with the matching funding for additional support services removed.
In the meantime, extreme religious elements within and backing the Howard government began a campaign to restrict access to abortion in Australia - led by none other than our rigidly Catholic Minister for Health, Tony Abbott (yes, really). Luckily, all the campaign succeeded in doing was getting women from all 4 major political parties in Australia to band together and take action via a private members bill that removed his control of RU486 (in the above link).
Over its 10 year tenure, the Howard government has quietly dropped the ball on domestic violence, reducing funding for studies and vital government organisations such as the Office for the Status of Women. Such organisations reacted very intelligently, funnelling what resources they had into studies of the economic impact of domestic violence. This resulted in the groundbreaking 2004 independent assessment by the highly regarded Access Economics. In its shocking report The Cost of Domestic Violence to the Australian Economy, Access Economics reported:
- in 2002–03 the total number of Australian victims of domestic violence may have been of the order of 408,100, of which 87% were women.
- It is also estimated that there were a similar number of perpetrators of domestic violence, 98% of which were male, and that around 263,800 children were living with victims of domestic violence and 181,200 children witnessed domestic violence in 2002–03.
- These findings support the overwhelming international research that women and children are the main victims of domestic violence.
- domestic violence was the single biggest health risk to women aged 2-44, and was commonest amongst young women.
- the cost of domestic violence to the Australian economy was estimated at $8.1 billion annually, with half that cost born by the victims
Is it little wonder, then, that this new research finds (although I'd argue confirms) that women who have experienced violence, particularly if they are economically disadvantaged, choose abortion? As one of the researchers, Dr Angela Taft of La Trobe University concluded [emphasis mine] -
"People providing pregnancy counselling and abortion providers should be asking about abuse, but I think that we see this as an issue of unwanted pregnancies and as I'm a public health researcher my argument would be there should be a sexual and reproductive health strategy at a national level with a focus on reducing unwanted pregnancies,....There's a whole raft of things that you'd want to consider there but certainly reducing violence against women should be a part of it."
Of course, none of this kind of research has stopped the Howard government doing everything they can to undermine sensible women's policy - cost to the country be damned. Just last year they 'reformed'
Family Law, responding the lobbying of "fathers rights" groups to enshrine a presumption of access to children and not only making it harder to presume a reasonable fear of violence or abuse, but applying penalties for 'false' claims. This in the face of research that shows that women are often most at risk of serious violence after separation.
Cumulatively, this research demonstrates just how morally bankrupt the 'values' of 'pro-life' and similar right-wing lobbyists are. They want less abortion, but they'll happily ignore that their policies favouring "father's rights" significantly contribute to the number of abortions every year. Marriage is sacred and women have to be brought to heel on this, even if it costs them their life. Children are utterly precious, yet must be kept in relationships with their father even if it means they are abused, or killed.
But perhaps more than anything else, this research shows how damaging misogynistic patriarchial values and policies are in our society. While women and children suffer the brunt of that damage, they clearly damage men too, by creating a culture that promotes male violence against each other, and a deep emotional alientation amongst families in favour of power-over. Even this lil "man-hatin' lesbian" firmly believes that the vast majority of men would much rather be loved than feared, and the rest are called sociopaths and psychopaths.
The challenge for progressives is to dismantle this damaging cycle and remake our society. The good news is that if we can do it, there'll be less abortions, dramatic savings to the economy, and most importantly, a significantly less violent society for all.