Waleed Aly has questioned the widespread belief among politicians and activists that male violence against women is rooted in disrespect. Instead, he suggests that the desire to hurt women actually stems from attackers feeling ashamed and humiliated.
The project’s presenter discussed Australia’s domestic violence crisis in an opinion piece following shocking statistics showing a woman is murdered every four days.
Aly, who is also a lecturer in politics at Monash University, said he had put off writing the piece for almost a decade.
He referred to words from former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, who said in 2015: ‘Disrespecting women does not always lead to violence against women. But all violence against women starts with disrespecting women.”
Aly said he always thought Mr Turnbull’s comment was incorrect but had never said anything publicly until now.
“I couldn’t suppress a simple thought when I heard Turnbull’s comment: I just don’t think that’s right,” Aly wrote for The Sydney Morning Herald.
‘That’s because my academic work has looked at the roots of violence, with research overwhelmingly identifying factors such as humiliation, shame and guilt as motivators, not disrespect.’
Waleed Aly has questioned the idea that the root of male violence against women is a lack of respect, suggesting instead that the violence stems from attackers feeling ashamed and humiliated.
Aly said research showed that perpetrators of violent crimes often felt that they themselves were disrespected.
He referred to US prison psychiatrist James Gilligan, who said he had yet to see an act of violence that was “not provoked by the experience of feeling ashamed or humiliated, disrespected and ridiculed”.
Mr Gilligan claimed that the most dangerous men are ‘those who are afraid they are wimps’.
The issue of domestic violence in Australia has been put in the spotlight in recent weeks after 28 women were reported to have been murdered this year alone.
Men are encouraged to talk to each other about domestic violence, and in Aly’s words ‘that the ‘good’ men straighten out the ‘bad’ men’.
Aly’s comments come a day after the funeral of Molly Ticehurst, 28, who was allegedly murdered by her ex-boyfriend Daniel Billings
“This produces a conventional wisdom that this is ultimately a man’s problem, and one that each of us must recognize and solve,” he said.
He said it makes “little sense” to treat every man as violent when a minority is to blame.
Aly added that associating all men with violence could lead them to “retreat and defend an identity they believe is unfairly maligned.”
But he said there is still hope for Australia’s domestic violence problem.
He said tackling the minority responsible for violence by tackling their risk factors, rather than looking at all men in general, was the way forward.
‘It accepts the enormous size of the task, but does not drown in it. It makes the invincible understandable. It is intense, but subdued. In short, it deserves respect for the next ten years,” he said.
Aly’s comments come a day after the funeral of Molly Ticehurst, 28, who was allegedly murdered by her ex-boyfriend Daniel Billings.