ADDRESSING students in Limerick Institute of Technology on Monday, Tom Meagher, White Ribbon activist and widower of Irishwoman Jill Meagher who was murdered in Melbourne in 2012, encouraged them to bring the campaign onto their own campus to help tackle the social roots of violence against women.
Mr Meagher visited the college to deliver a presentation entitled ‘Gender-based violence and our patriarchal legacy’, alongside domestic abuse survivor Avril D’Arcy who shared her experiences of living in an abusive relationship.
“Colleges have been a lot of the main focus of our work over the past year. A lot of violence, particularly sexual violence happens on campus. A lot of the time it goes unreported.
“It’s important because these people are young; they’re navigating young relationships, but they’re also activists; they’re keen to change things and learn new things. Because this issue is often swept under the carpet, it’s something that really needs to be put to the foreground. What we really want is students and the colleges themselves to take the campaign on board and carry it with them as well,” Mr Meagher told the Limerick Post.
According to Mr Meagher, violence against women “has its roots in gender inequality”.
He explained: “I think society is set up in such a way that embeds inequality and therefore embeds violence against women, because that’s where its roots are. You see it in a structural way, in a really high level way. In a recession the first things to get cut are women’s services. This is a real problem that goes to the heart of all sorts of inequality, economic inequality, the idea of homelessness – a lot of women are homeless as a result of domestic violence.”
Mr Meagher believes that gender inequality “runs through society” but that everyone can help to make small changes in their own communities.
“It’s important to educate people on this and to ask them to challenge themselves, and to self-examine as well as talk to others in your peer group.”
Ms D’Arcy added: “I think it’s important as well to remind girls, teenagers and women that if they’re feeling uncomfortable about something, they don’t have to put up with it. They do have the right to speak up.
“There’s a lot of times men and boys will make really bad jokes, and men will just accuse women of not having a sense of humour. But you don’t have to brush it off; you don’t have to pretend to laugh. It’s a very small starting point to changing perceptions of gender in society.”
