Why Australian women have had enough

Speakers lined up to address the parliament, ending with an all-night session where a final vote took place about 5am. It was all a political game where the wellbeing, mental health and care for children was sacrificed for the sake of a desperate government attempting to wedge the opposition for political gain.

I do not feel like being politically polite. I call this heartless and sick. I am not smiling either.

When was the last time you remember the federal government introduced legislation which was given a similar priority, that addressed the safety of women and children from family violence, sexual abuse, coercive control, stalking, harassment, intimidation?

Can you remember the politicians lining up to speak about their stories of traumatised childhoods, the fate of their mothers in family violence situations, the constant living in fear and shame? No I don't either.

If you spoke to the politicians personally on both sides of the Parliament, they may disclose such stories. However, it seems taboo for this to be publicly aired.

Instead, we have a government who tried to slip through an announcement of a new Family, Domestic and Sexual Violence Commission and a new 10-year plan in January this year in the middle of the Omicron outbreak and with the community given two weeks to respond.

There was an outcry from the family, domestic and sexual violence sectors at this "pretend " consultation and was only extended when a public letter of eminent women, workers and survivors called the government to account.

The verdict from these specialist bodies and agencies; the whole document was full of grand statements and no substance and would need much more serious work to render it useful to survivors.

However, it gave the impression the government was doing something to address the epidemic of violence towards women and children in our families and communities. It is smoke and mirrors.

Pretending you care when actually you don't. Statements to placate voters, but no action or follow-through.

Women are sick of being an afterthought in government policy and priorities. Not only do we have concerns about our own personal safety, but many are also trying to keep children and elders safe.

I am reading a contribution to the On Series, On Reckoning, by Amy Remeikis, The Guardian's political reporter.

She writes as both a reporter and a woman who has experienced sexual assault and harassment through various stages of her life, as has Brittany Higgins, Grace Tame, Saxon Mullins and millions of other women and children across the planet.

She sees the events of 2021 as a "reckoning" when women decided they had had enough and that the day of accounting or judgement had arrived and they would no longer be silent or polite.

As I have been reading it, it has brought back flashes of memory from my young life as well as adult years, where a relative and various other older men had crossed the boundary of appropriate behaviour in physical contact. The relative continuing for all his life, touching and making crude comments, with none of us knowing he was doing it to us all, until one day as adults we broached the subject together.

Young, ashamed, confused and to blame! Nowhere to go for help or support, because we knew we would be not believed.

Remeikis talks about the nature of rage. "Rage is taught, the product of thousands of micro-cuts, of all those times being ignored, dismissed, being patted on the head and told to be a good girl. To hold the scream in, even as you're being told to speak up, Until one day, one moment, you can't."

For many of us 2021 was that "moment" and we will no longer suck it up, grin and bear it, smile and be polite, for that only abuses us more.

How many times did you hear about, see or read that Tame did not smile at the PM? Big bloody deal!

My generation was well schooled in being nice and polite and to avoid conflict.

I am so relieved this generation of young women are setting us the appropriate example of standing up and saying it just as it is.

No more pandering to polite society which has abused and silenced us for centuries.

And so to the growing number of strong women independents standing in federal seats in the coming federal election, and the state ones to follow.

They too have had enough and so have the women who will vote for them.

Women in party politics are often muzzled. You must learn to speak up and out for their sisters, because the blokes will dump you as soon as it suits them.

Let's hope there is a true reckoning in May. Women, use your vote wisely!