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• Most women whose partners are violent live in fear before, during and after separation 42 .
However, male victims are far less likely to be afraid or intimidated and are more likely to
be angry 43 .
3. COMMUNITY RESPONSES TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
The Australian Family Law Act, 1975 defines a family violence order as:
an order (including an interim order) made under a prescribed law of a State or Territory to
protect a person from family violence. 44
For more than a decade in Australia the focus of law reform in the area of domestic violence
has been to introduce new or amended forms of protection orders 45 with breaches of orders
being a criminal offence. Criminal charges punish past actions and protection orders seek to
establish a range of conditions that will prevent violence. However there is concern with the
lack of enforcement of existing law, with unsatisfactory procedures and a lack of consistency
across states and territories. There is also concern that some states and territories have
adopted narrow definitions of domestic violence and exclude certain relationships from being
eligible for protection, such as same sex relationships. 46
As early as 1992, the National Strategy on Violence Against Women stressed that violence
against women in Australia should not be allowed to continue 47 . However, others have
suggested that it may take at least two generations before attitudes towards domestic
violence can be changed.
Abuse of women’s rights, be it domestic violence or blatant discriminatory customs or
religious laws, are more often than not, simply tolerated or accepted as the norm 48 .
42 Bagshaw, D., Chung, D., Couch, M., Lilburn, S., & Wadham, B. (2000). Reshaping Responses to Domestic
Violence . Office for the Status of Women, Partnerships Against Domestic Violence, Pirie Printers: Canberra.
43 Ibid..
Campbell, A. (1993). Out of Control: Men, Women and Aggression. London: Pandora.
Jacobsen, N., Gottman, J., Waltz, J., Rushe, R., Babcock, J., & Holdsworth-Munroe, A. (1994). Affect, Verbal
Content, Psychophysiology in the Arguments of Couples with a Violent Husband. Journal of Consulting and
Clinical Psychology, 62(5), 982-988. Heady, B., Scott, D., & de Vaus, D. (1999). Domestic violence in
Australia: Are women and men equally violent? Melbourne: Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and
Social Research. Stanko, E., & Hobdell, K. (Summer 1993). Assault on Men. Masculinity and Male
Victimisation. British Journal of Criminology, 33 (3), 400-415.
44 Australian Family Law Act, 1975 with Regulations and Rules, Consolidated to 11 th June 1996, CHC Australia
Ltd: North Ryde, 18 th edition, page 1,324.
45 Australian Family Law Act, 1975 with Regulations and Rules, Consolidated to 11 th June 1996, CHC Australia
Ltd: North Ryde, 18 th edition.
46 Ibid, page 5.
47 National Committee on Violence Against Women (1992) National Strategy on Violence Against Women.
Commonwealth of Australia, page vii
48 Jones, Michelle (1994). Violence Against Women in the Family: From International Year of the Family to the
World Conference on Women and Beyond. Australian National Internship Program, page 10
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