Changing cultural norms is important – but it’s not a panacea for eliminating violence against women
It has been a massive step for Australian policy to recognise that domestic and family violence is underpinned by social norms, and there is an attendant increase in government programs aiming to change the narrative. In today’s analysis, Ella Kuskoff (@EllaKuskoff) and Cameron Parsell (@CameronParsell), both of University of Queensland (@HASSUQ), explain how such initiatives, while important, will ultimately come up short if they do not also address embedded structural inequalities. This analysis draws on their recently-published article, Preventing Domestic Violence by Changing Australian Gender Relations: Issues and Considerations.
In today’s society, one need not look hard nor far to find a media campaign in which an Australian federal or state government condemns domestic and family violence (DFV). From the national Stop it at the Start, to Queensland’s Do Something and Victoria’s Call it Out, these media campaigns are part of a nation-wide effort to educate the community about domestic and family violence and encourage us to proactively engage in preventative behaviour. The steady increase in such campaigns reflects an important development in governments’ understanding of DFV and the factors that contribute to it. Where Australian governments once understood DFV as a private problem borne from couples’ own relationship problems, they are now increasingly viewing the issue as one that is deeply embedded within broader cultural attitudes and behaviours—particularly as they relate to gender. As Prime Minister Scott Morrison said on the issue, "A culture of disrespect towards women is a precursor to violence, and anyone who doesn't see that is kidding themselves.” This view is reflected in Australian policies’ current focus on encouraging communities to change the culture that enables DFV to persist. Australian now understands that DFV is both a public issue and a policy problem that governments must confront.
Structural inequalities continue to make women more vulnerable to experiencing domestic and family violence. Image by Manfred Antranias Zimmer from Pixabay
Why target culture?
The view that DFV is a gendered and cultural issue is grounded in the understanding that men’s use of DFV against women is enabled by the values, norms, and behaviours of broader society. Indeed, research demonstrates that cultural gender roles and stereotypes and derogatory attitudes towards women play important roles in facilitating men’s use of DFV against women and preventing it from being reported and addressed. Recent literature therefore highlights the benefits of adopting gendered and cultural understandings of DFV in government policy, demonstrating that policies which fail to account for and address cultural gender inequality are based on a flawed belief of the problem, which acts as a barrier preventing DFV from being adequately addressed in practice.
Where Australia’s previous DFV policy approaches have been criticised for this very reason, Australia’s current focus on changing culture to prevent DFV represents important progress towards addressing the issue. One prime example of this progress is Australia’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The National Plan explicitly acknowledges the gendered nature of domestic violence, and focuses on using early intervention and prevention techniques to promote respectful relationships, create safer communities, strengthen service provision, and administer effective judicial responses. According to the National Plan, this policy approach is unprecedented in focus on cultural change as a form of violence prevention in Australia.
What does a cultural focus miss?
Although it represents significant progress, the National Plan’s focus on changing culture may not be the panacea that many hope it will be. Indeed, some researchers, without necessarily discounting the worth of changing culture, point to how contemporary DFV policy aiming to alter culture does not give sufficient focus to other important parts of the story. One such significant area is structural inequality, including issues such as the gender pay gap, the unequal division of paid and unpaid labour, and a lack of affordable housing. Although the literature highlights structural inequality as a significant contributor to DFV, Australian policies rarely have strong strategies for structural change to complement their strategies for cultural change.
The National Plan, for example, acknowledges the structural factors that contribute to DFV, yet provides few opportunities to facilitate structural change. One important example is in the Plan’s focus on enabling opportunities for women to participate more equally in society, rather than upholding women’s rights. This is a significant difference as, according to the United Nations, rights are the fundamental entitlements of each individual, such as “the right of everyone to the enjoyment of just and favourable conditions of work” and “the equal right of men and women to the enjoyment of all economic, social and cultural rights.” Opportunities, on the other hand, are the chances for participation afforded to individuals. They are not entitlements, but rather must be actively sought out and taken up by individuals. Simply improving opportunities for women’s participation does little to address the barriers that may prevent women from taking up these opportunities, including sexism, parenting responsibilities, lack of access to education and training, and comparatively low wages. As such, acknowledging the need for women to have greater opportunities is not equivalent to addressing the structural and cultural barriers that may prevent women from fully participating in society. Australian policies’ lack of strategies to address social structures is problematic as culture is a product of structures, and structures are a product of culture; one cannot be changed independently of the other. The effectiveness of worthy policy efforts to address cultural gender inequalities are therefore likely to be hampered by an absence of well-resourced complementary policy change to disrupt structural gender inequality.
Why is structural change overlooked?
Existing research points to several explanations as to why strategies to address structural issues of DFV remain largely absent from contemporary policy. Some researchers argue that DFV policies are increasingly reflecting broader neoliberal policy changes. Such neoliberal changes shift policy discourses away from the government’s responsibility to its citizens and toward an emphasis on individual and community responsibility for dealing with issues such as domestic violence. Through this lens, changing culture is something that costs the government little. Other researchers point to a lack of understanding of how best to address structural issues. According to a structural approach, the gendered nature of domestic violence is predominantly due to the oppression and inequality women have routinely faced throughout history, both in the home and in wider society. There is currently a lack of understanding surrounding the different aspects of structural gender equality, and the role of these aspects in contributing to and preventing DFV. As such, little is known about which aspects of gender equality should be foregrounded in policy, or how structural change should be approached. As a result, cultural aspects such as attitudes, norms, and beliefs remain the focus of contemporary policy.
How do we move forward?
Although the Australian policy shift toward changing culture has been applauded, policy specifically aimed at changing cultural attitudes and behaviours may not be the panacea advocates hope. Against the backdrop of the centrality of changing culture to address domestic violence in Australian policy—but similarly recognising the value of public policy efforts to address oppressive cultural practices that condone violence against women—we argue that new ways of orienting policy are needed if we are to create effective and long-term solutions to address domestic violence. Specifically, Australian policies must take greater care to address both cultural inequalities as well as the structural inequalities that have historically forced women into positions of subordination. To achieve this, efforts to change culture must be accompanied by changes to the structures and systems in which sex, gender, and broader social inequalities are located. This move forward recognises that culture and societal structures cannot be neatly decoupled, and efforts to alter the former while keeping intact the latter will invariably fail.
Expanding policy efforts to address structural gender inequalities would help mitigate some of the limitations of Australia’s current approach to preventing DFV and disrupt the highly pervasive and gendered social structures that prevent women from participating fully in society and increase their dependence on men. In the meantime, it is important that we continue to interrogate and challenge the previously unquestioned assumptions of policy approaches, and contribute to debates surrounding the future improvement of domestic and family violence policy in Australia. Such improvement is critical for women across Australia—and indeed the world—whose lives, safety, and human rights are continuously threatened by men’s ongoing use of violence.
This post is part of the Women's Policy Action Tank initiative to analyse government policy using a gendered lens. View our other policy analysis pieces here.
Posted by @SusanMaury