Many angry women
It’s been a week of highs and lows: boiling anger; frustration and despair; solidarity with like-minded strangers; support from unexpected sources. Two dear friends from my early days in Melbourne walked peacefully yet purposefully with me through the heart of the city at a now-or-never moment for women’s rights in Australia.
First, I’ll leave this here.
On Monday, 15 March, the focus of March 4 Justice was always going to be Canberra, at the resumption of Parliament. Thousands of women converged on the nation’s capital, in whose corridors of power – in reality, a minister’s office – a young intern was sexually assaulted in March 2019. She feared to tell her story until she was inspired by Australian of the Year Grace Tame earlier this year. Following on from that news, we learned that a senior member of the Coalition Cabinet [later identified as the attorney general] had allegedly raped a 16-year-old, 30 years ago. The victim took her own life last year, after attempting to bring the rapist to justice but losing the will to do so.
Despite thousands upon thousands of angry women (and some men) marching in every state and territory capital and in smaller towns throughout regional Australia, the Prime Minister still didn’t ‘read the room’. His arrogance and sense of impunity allowed him to believe the brouhaha would blow over. At first he stuck to the letter of the law, seemingly unable to make the leap to more nuanced subject matter: is his Attorney General a fit and proper person for the job?
The PM ruled out an enquiry of any sort: the AG refused to step down, even temporarily, although he took ‘mental health leave’. Sooner or later he would have to return to Canberra. This was before he announced he was suing the ABC (as publisher) and the journalist who exposed Canberra’s toxic culture in 4Corners, for defamation.
But back to March 4 Justice. We learned Melbourne’s ‘event’ had been downgraded from a march less than 24 hours beforehand. A thousand protestors only would be allowed into Treasury Gardens – with its terrible acoustics – for a ‘rally’.
By the time we reached Spring Street, we each knew we were not for Gardening. We stood waiting for a friend opposite the Old Treasury Building as a broad and constant stream of thousands flowed into the Gardens.
We held aloft our differently themed signs: they attracted a lot of attention. Many photographs were taken; many women smiled with their eyes above masks; others shook their heads in disbelief as they calculated how many decades they’d been fighting this fight.
An hour passed, maybe longer. Some people started to leave. We’d been interviewed by a freelance hack and a student of journalism, and lost count of how many pictures had been taken. Quick off the mark to leave was a group of red-flag carrying young people who wanted folks to join them marching down Collins Street to Liberal Party HQ. We desperately wanted to march, but were not happy to become shouty and political on this occasion. Soon they moved off into Collins, as police closed in.
There was no more time for dithering. We had to follow the only march there was going to be in Melbourne that day. We maintained a discreet distance from the red flags, and walked in serious silence down the centre of Collins. [The trams had long since been stopped.] Several junctions later, a policewoman asked us to close the gap. I explained that we were not of the same persuasion as the flag-wavers, but felt very strongly that women should have been allowed to march in Melbourne’s streets. She let us be. There had been a few police shadowing us: then two police vans took their place.
It will be to my eternal regret that I don’t have a photo of the three of us walking in front of those flashing vans. A woman did snap us, but I wasn’t thinking beyond the moment. I doubt she’ll read this blog post. A friend gave me 11 seconds of phone footage.
The red-flag wavers’ chants were raucous and frenzied when they reached the Libs’ HQ. We stopped when they stopped, and eventually turned around because they did. So we were leading them, which was surreal. At Swanston they turned left: we three continued along Collins, which now felt quiet and empty. Inevitably, a cop car drew alongside after a few minutes: the trams were starting up, and they needed us to be on the pavement. I checked behind me: a tram was half a block away.
We wandered back to Treasury Gardens: people were still pouring out. There were more photographs; more sharing of thoughts with women of different ages and lives but like minds. There was unanimity that this battle was ongoing.
Forward a week from the 15th and women are even more incensed. The PM was AWOL for too long, until more revelations of depravity among Coalition staffers forced him to call a press conference. He donned a seriously dark suit and talked with quivering lip about his wife and daughters, but this time added a widowed mother. He then blew this performance by sniding – I made up that verb – a News Ltd journalist. And the question on a million lips following this presser was, if he’d been ‘informed’ about an alleged sexual assault in a media company, how come he didn’t know about a similar incident down the corridor from his office?
A bit of context: the Dicks in my friend’s poster refers to a name the inner sanctum of the Cabinet are rumoured to call themselves – the Big Swinging Dicks.
