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Salient. Official Newspaper of the Victoria University Students' Association. Vol 44 No. 11. June 2 1981

Violence Against Women

Violence Against Women

Philomena gave us some examples of women who had retaliated against violence. One woman who had been bashed by her husband for twenty years, killed him when he launched an attack on her and she was sentenced to life imprisonment. After four years of intensive lobbying by women's groups she was released - but only to die. She had severe heart problems and the prison authorities were too embarassed to have her die in prison. There were several similar cases throughout Australia, around which women were mobilising.

On campus some of the key problems she identified were sexual harassment ("an A for a lay"), and lack of security and adequate lighting on campus which meant that women were restricted in the time they could safely spend there.

Photo of Philomena Horsley

Australian feminist Philomena Horsley a! NZUSA May Council

She noted that on campuses where women were actively organising, and posing a threat to entrenched sexist attitudes, there was often a backlash in the form of men's groups set up to harass women. Correspondingly, racist and anti-gay sentiment was on the rise too. Racist attitudes often stemmed from the idea that migrant workers were threatening white Australians' job security.

In reply to questions, Philomena outlined the nature of the AUS women's department. It is a semi-autonomous group, organised on collective as opposed to hierarchical principles. There is one women's officer whose work is dictated by the national policy directive - a body of elected delegates from various states. There is a sharing of all information and consensus decisionmaking. According to Philomena there has never been an issue where consensus could not be reached.

One speaker from the audience suggested that maybe this was because the views of the national policy directive were those of a small group of dedicated activists who were not necessarily representative of all campus