Focus must be on men as we try to stop abuse

Female experts, however, will be in attendance.

The decision to make it male-focused was one I wrestled with. So did my staff. Did it send the wrong message? Would it be offensive not to open it up to everyone?

The decision was not based on some condescending assumption that men can solve this themselves. And it's certainly not because I think male voices are more authoritative.

The reason I did it is simple: I wanted to aggressively fill the vacuum of male voices. I did it because historically, most men have been silent on this issue - it's women who have carried the burden of advocacy.

I did it because a third of women have been physically assaulted and 20 per cent have been sexually assaulted and blokes haven't been talking about why.

I did it because we need to try to bend our cultural focus a little more on the men.

Last week in the NSW Supreme Court, a man called Simon Gittany was found guilty of murdering his 30-year-old fiancee. It found that Gittany - abusive, angry, jealous and controlling - hurled Lisa Harnum from the balcony of his 15th floor apartment. On the pavement below, the former ballerina's body was fatally shattered.

Each week, on average, one woman is murdered by her partner or former partner, which is to say that each week there's a story like Lisa Harnum's.

Last year in Victoria, 29 people were killed in domestic circumstances. Two thirds of those victims were female, while no male victim was murdered by a woman.

What's more, in the same year, women were assaulted five times more than men. Think of that: five times more.

What does that tell you? As a former homicide detective said in my office the other day, you go where the evidence is. The evidence is that violence is overwhelmingly committed by men and that women are disproportionately targeted.

And it's not just domestic violence. Twenty per cent of Australian women have been sexually assaulted, which means you probably know a woman who has suffered a sexual crime.

So the idea of today's forum is to ask powerful men to readjust their focus, to speak up and try to change their culture.

Specifically what, though? Well, we have a culture that is swollen with vulgar, entitled attitudes towards women. A culture in which too many women are degraded, mocked, jeered and groped. A culture in which most women will make silent, furious calculations before they go out to prevent themselves from being raped.

A culture ripe with immature masculinity.

Let's return to Simon Gittany. The trial was a media spectacle and after the verdict came there was a great deal of comment. Study those words. Often the emphasis was on the women - the victim and Gittany's current girlfriend, who attended every day of the trial.

The media comment focused on things like:

What did this mean for women in abusive relationships?

What signs of danger should women look for in men?

Why didn't she leave him?

That annoys me because we were in danger of ignoring the big questions, such as:

Why was Gittany so angry, so violent, so controlling and entitled?

Did his friends or family know how dangerous he was - and did they try to intervene?

Somehow in our culture we have come to the point where it seems to be solely the woman's role not to be victimised, rather than the bloke's job not to be a perpetrator.

It is not for women not to be abused - it is for men not to be abusive.

This is what today's forum is about. I hope it can start something.

Ken Lay is Chief Commissioner of Victoria Police

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