Or: Why the Australian ‘Men’s violence against women’ is not the same as the German ‘Gewalt Gegen Frauen’.

31.05.2024

By Ann Biedermann

The origin of the saying „Call a spade a spade“ is a deliberate mistranslation of the Greek saying: “Call a trough a trough”- meaning that we shouldn’t shy away from naming uncomfortable things. Ironically, the translator felt uncomfortable by translating the object as trough (the Greek word means both trough and female urinal) and chose instead the tool used to dig the urinal, a spade.

In Australia, this ‘spade’ dominates the news: men’s violence against women. It started in April 2024 with reports on how teenage boys in schools use Andrew Tate’s videos to torment their female teachers and how the schools did not adequately respond to support their staff, leading the women to quit the profession and seek mental health treatment[1]. Men’s violence against women stayed in the news after the horrendous murder of the 25th woman by a man in her life this year alone, 11 more than at the same time in April 2023[2]. And lastly, a mass stabbing in a Sydney mall occurred where a male perpetrator spared men but hunted down women, resulting in 5 women and one male security guard dead as well as 12 wounded, also mostly women[3]. This was the last drop to make the cup run over.

In all major Australian cities, women and men rallied, protested and marched for awareness for men’s violence against women, calling for governmental action. The public protest became so ‘loud’ that even German news started to cover this issue. But with one subtle difference: In Australia, the main problem is identified as ‘men’s violence against women’. The German coverage, however, spoke of ‘violence against women’.

One might ask: what difference does this make? When we talk men’s violence against women, the discussion centres around gender norms that promote male domination, we talk about structures that enable men to use violence without prosecution, we take into account the individual man’s choice to blame women for feeling lonely. When we talk violence against women, the discussion easily puts what women do in centre stage, although we all agree that victim-blaming does not prevent violence. If we cannot be precise about the nature of the violent crime, how precise can we discuss measures to prevent it?

On the social media plattform of one big German media outlet, one female commentator wrote: “I didn’t know that violence against women is so bad in Australia, one every four days a woman is killed”[4]. Well, let’s put that into perspective: in Germany, a man kills a woman every three days[5]. Maybe it is time to approach this issue differently in Germany. Let’s call a spade a spade.

[1] https://theconversation.com/andrew-tates-extreme-views-about-women-are-infiltrating-australian-schools-we-need-a-zero-tolerance-response-229603

[2] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-04-24/eleven-more-women-have-died-violently-compared-to-last-year/103759450

[3] https://apnews.com/article/stabbing-sydney-mall-australia-bondi-junction-ad40e483aead58e7982d647dec3c7732

[4] https://www.smh.com.au/national/a-woman-is-being-violently-killed-in-australia-every-four-days-this-year-20240424-p5fmcb.html

[5] https://www.frauenrat.de/gewalt-gegen-frauen-und-maedchen-bekaempfen-und-verhindern/