This week on All The Best, stories about fighting violence against women.
Content Warning: These stories contain references to gendered violence, including those of a domestic, family or sexual nature. Please listen with care.
The Park (4.35)
In our first story, Jasmyn, on a wet rainy night, investigates after hearing someone in distress at a local park.
Produced by Jasmyn as part of an audio walking tour collaboration between Outloud Arts Bankstown and All The Best.
You can complete the audio walking tour at: https://outloud.org.au/projects/stories-from-here-an-audio-tour-of-bankstown/
We Stand Surviving (7.40)
In our second story, Sarah shares a suite of poems about patriarchy and sisterhood.
Content Warning: This work includes references to sexual assault.
This story was written and read by Sarah Dee with production support from Phoebe Adler-Ryan and sound design by Tala Issaoui.
Find more of Sarah’s writing on instagram where she’s @detailednoodle.
And more of Tala’s sounds, she can be found at @tala.the.creative on instagram.
Helen, and the Spirit of Woman (11.33)
In our third story, Helen Oxenham, speaks about her experience fighting against violence since she was a child.
Produced by Tiarne Cook with the support of Transom and the Community Media Training Organisation. To learn more about the trailblazing life and work of Helen Oxenham, visit spiritofwoman.com.au/.
If these stories raise any concerns or distress, support is available to you:
- 1800 RESPECT – that’s 1800 737 732.
- Men’s Referral Service – 1300 766 491
- Kids Helpline – 1800 55 1800
- Lifeline – 131 114
- 13 YARN – 13 92 76 (First Nations 24/7 helpline)
- Qlife – 1800 184 527 (LGBTQIA+ 24/7 phone line)
All The Best Credits
Executive Producer: Phoebe Adler-Ryan
Editorial Producer: Melanie Bakewell
Host: Madhuraa Prakash
Image Credit: Sarah Dee
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
[00:00:00] Intro: Stories from around the corner and around the country. You’re listening to All The Best. Proudly supported by the Art Gallery of New South Wales.
[00:00:13] Madhuraa: You’re listening to All The Best from FBi Radio 94. 5. I’m Madhuraa Prakash. Before we get into this week’s stories, I’d like to take a moment to acknowledge that I’m recording from stolen Gadigal land and pay my respect to Gadigal Elders past and present. And also recognize that the area where FBi radio is situated, Redfern, has long been a place of storytelling, strength, resistance, and resilience for First Nations communities.
You’re listening to All The Best from FBi Radio 94.5. I’m Madhuraa Prakash. The stories on our program today contain references to gendered violence, including those of a domestic, family, or sexual nature. Please listen with care. Earlier this year, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese declared a National Crisis after reports that 26 women had been killed by a current or former partner in the first four months of this year.
Data from the Australian Institute of Criminology shows that in 2022 to 23, there was a 30 percent increase in intimate partner violence. With 60 women being killed by men. And according to the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, one in six women have experienced physical and or sexual violence by a current or previous partner since the age of 15.
One in six also experienced financial abuse. And one in four experienced emotional abuse. These statistics are frankly appalling. But, people aren’t staying quiet. Recently, demonstrations against domestic, family and sexual violence took place around the country, with more organised for the future. This includes in Alice Springs, where funding to counter intimate partner violence has fallen short, despite homicides occurring seven times the national average.
The government has made moves towards enacting policy that addresses gendered violence, and we can’t forget it’s come from the ceaseless work of advocates from around the country. People who are victims of misogyny will continue to do what they can to speak out, not just on the national stage. Local communities and personal circles are also places where you can see people advocating for themselves and for others.
We hear an example of this in our first story, when Jasmyn hears someone in distress in a public park.
[00:03:19] Jasmyn: It was a night unlike any other. The sky was a canvas of dark clouds and the moon hid behind them, casting an eerie glow. Rain was pouring down, a soothing symphony against the leaves of the restless trees. The city was quiet, cocooned in its rainy shroud as we exited the library. I stood beside my best friend, my sister, after we had just spent the day studying.
As we stepped into the rain, I watched her face light up with glee. The rain seemed to dance on her face, tracing the lines time had drawn. She looked at me, and for a moment, I saw the mischief igniting behind her eyes. We began walking straight, in silence, letting the rhythm of the rain fill the spaces between us. It was as if each drop was a note in the melody of our shared past.
A mere few steps onward, the comfort in the air was squashed by a shriek in the bushes to our right. We shared a look containing the understanding of people who’d learned of this place together. We’d grown up together, with this park. We’d found a certain peace in understanding the temperament of the park.
It would teach, protect, and care when we needed it, but were scattered with brief moments of trenchcoat warfare. We had learned to dodge the crossfire early on, a strategy that was tried and true. We knew the sound of freshly straightened hair being ruined by Mother Nature, and normally a scream wouldn’t be anything to worry us.
But we knew something was different. Maybe it was the fact that it was a single voice, or maybe it was the fact that it happened multiple times. Enough times for us to pin the location. I felt her tense up beside me, and knew our minds were sifting through the same terrifying array of questions. How many people were there? What was happening? Would we be in danger if we approached?
We briefly discussed and decided that we had to at least walk by and see what was happening. We hope it’s just someone fooling around in Bankstown, as usual. As two females, we were aware the chances of the situation being one we’d be able to intervene in immediately, was slim.
In such a case, we would stay out of sight and call the authorities. We turned and began walking right, headed to the stairs. We heard a man’s voice bellowing as we passed, and a woman’s cries. Still unable to visualize the situation, we descended the stairs, eyes straining in the darkness. Through the foliage, we spotted only two figures, which was all we needed.
The decision to intervene was prompt and unquestionable. There were two of us, and a police station within running distance, against one man. We understood the decision was reckless, but felt it was our duty. We turned left at the bottom of the stairs, around the corner, and catch the full scene. A woman was sat on a ledge to the left, curled so far into herself she almost blended into the bush.
In the darkness, we couldn’t see much, but we saw him reach out to her, and her body jolt from the force.
We were not heroes in any grand sense, but we were friends who knew right from wrong. We approached them. Our steps, a series of resolute splashes under the pouring rain. I called out, my voice shockingly steady against the rain’s relentless patter. His stance was frightening in itself, fists balled up, breathing heavy and brow furrowed.
He made a brief attempt to excuse his actions, however, upon realizing that it was useless and there was no excuse, he fled into the shadow-kissed night. Not before lobbing a small object at the woman, which missed her and disappeared into the brush. It was that night my childhood friend and I came to the realisation that the crossfire we had spent our entire lives avoiding, was necessary. If not for our own protection, lessons and care, then for that of others.
We are no longer small enough to avoid the park’s crossfire. Nowadays, we don our holster belts everywhere we go.
[00:07:37] Madhuraa: That story was produced by Jasmine as part of an audio walking tour collaboration between Outloud Arts Bankstown and All The Best. Our next piece is a suite of poems about patriarchy and sisterhood. Just a heads up, the first poem contains references to sexual assault. So please listen with care and tune out if you need to.
[00:08:04] Sarah: Why didn’t you tell anyone?
On the night when she came home, she tried to wash his fingertips away. She showered her skin with water and tears. She threw away the underwear. She doused her skin in fire, thinking it would burn away the memory of being unable to fight back. She tried to comprehend the map of all the places his hands gripped and stained.
She tried to stop the blood.
The second day after the fire, she smiled good morning to her father. She sat down at the table and ate breakfast, and laughed hard, and fed the dog, and packed her lunch for school, and kept going, and kept walking, and kept walking, and kept crying, and kept crying, and kept crying, and kept crying, and kept still.
Unable to fight back. Resisting. Not sure what.
The 50th day after the fire, she wanted to ruin his life. A stain on his reputation, daydreaming about him admitting the burns, in the mirror, in the dark when he’s about to sleep, to the co-workers he left with before the incident. She wanted him to feel guilty and admit it to himself, so people wouldn’t believe her trauma is just an act if she told them. So, she didn’t have to carry the hatred by herself, so she could believe it wasn’t her fault.
The 189th day after the fire, she continued to keep it to herself. She didn’t tell anyone, so she wrote about it. About the red, continuous, open wounded blood. She didn’t need anyone to question or investigate whose blood it was. She knew it was all hers. And I’m sure he knew too.
The 220th day after the fire, she told her mother. Why didn’t you tell anyone? Because no one else could change the memory of a man she didn’t know holding her down and staining her body. The memory of tears and snot rolling down her face, but he wouldn’t know that. Because she was facedown. The memory of being dead.
The 283rd day after the fire, she lives on. She shows the world the constant fire because she speaks up for those who can’t, who won’t. She speaks up for Sarah. And here she keeps going, she keeps walking, and walking, and
What if Mona Lisa could speak?
We all just want to be looked at, don’t we?
Noticed. A yearning to be seen, so that somebody can remember the fingerprints we leave behind.
But there she is. The dreamy woman so beautiful that her face was framed as a reminder of heaven. Strangers passing and leaving after capturing a photo, or analyzing the texture of the oil paint on her nose, or how she should have been painted with a happier smile. But she is not. And so, she does not look genuine with us.
She does not look genuine with the way her tongue is trapped shut and silent. But we all just want to be looked at, don’t we? I am not a muse.
I hear her whisper through her woeful eyes, and my urge to touch her is too strong. Maybe a caress through her hair with my fingers, or a wipe on her cheek with my thumb, telling her she doesn’t deserve to be trapped behind a frame, to become eye candy from the past. She doesn’t exist for our examinations or analysis, just a timely painting observed by critics and strangers that question why she’s so famous.
But we’re the ones who made her face well known, aren’t we? Because in the end, even if it is at the cost of someone else’s expense, we all just want to be noticed, don’t we?
We are rooted to be united as women.
Dear Women of the Past, I hope you are proud of us. When we stand up against things we don’t like or want to do. When we stand up to be heard, declaring our ideas to the angry red sky, loud and clear. When we stand up against a corrupt society, to fight for equality. When we stand up, together, to fight. When I walk down the street alone at night, riled up with bravery, without holding my keys between my fingers and knuckles, because, I know that I know how to throw a punch, and I will if I have to.
When I am overspilling with so much courage and independence that it seems like masculine energy. When I am talking in a class discussion on a Monday, and my male classmate cuts me off to interrupt me, but I talk louder because women teach me how to stride through the days with my chin up and shoulders back.
Because why must I stay quiet? Because I raise my voice for all the women. When my mother, sister, and I are watching Barbie, which is about how patriarchy hurts women and men, and besides us sits a group of elderly women smiling from start to end. It was like a girls night, but their hair frizzed winter white, and they sat there, beside us, smiling through the credits that played the Barbie song made by Nicki Minaj and Ice Spice
When every sunrise I feel how beautiful love is from a woman to a woman. Motherhood, friendships, relationships, familial. Like how mother nature simply exists and heals earth and like a miracle, women do too. From authority and honesty to perseverance and willpower. Dear women of the past, I hope you hear us.
[00:15:40] Madhuraa: We Stand Surviving was written and read by Sarah Dee, with sound design by Tala Issaoui. The audio story was produced with support from Phoebe Adler-Ryan. For our final story, an interview with Helen Oxenham, a woman who fought against gendered violence since she was a child.
[00:16:05] Tiarne: Helen Oxenham was about to give a speech.She was a special guest. The speaker before her held the floor.
[00:16:12] Helen: I’m sitting there and I was shaking. I was just shaking all over, I can’t tell you.
[00:16:17] Tiarne: Helen was there to talk about the women’s shelter she started in Christie’s Beach. It was one of the first in South Australia. A sanctuary for women and children fleeing violent men.Everyone had come to mark its 40 year anniversary. It was her turn to speak.
[00:16:32] Helen: And I opened my mouth to give my speech and nothing came out. Nothing came out of that voice and I’m going. And I thought, I have to talk. I have to talk.
[00:16:42] Tiarne: But this was not nerves. Back in the 1970s, Helen worked in her husband’s watch repair shop. It was in Christie’s Beach, a little beachside suburb south of Adelaide.
[00:16:54] Helen: I used to take on the repairs, or give out the repairs, or do some sellings or something. I’m hopeless at it.
[00:16:59] Tiarne: But Helen was great at chatting with customers. One day, a customer told her about some local women struggling in violent marriages.
[00:17:07] Helen: There was one woman that came in, her name was Peggy Robinson, it was, that came in. And she would tell me about the women that went to the Christie’s Beach with, um, problems in their marriage. She would see them come out of the social work department and she would be typing away and the women were crying and upset. And they, and I’d said, “Don’t, doesn’t anybody ever do anything about that?” And she said, “I don’t know, but nothing seems to happen.”
[00:17:36] Tiarne: Helen wanted to help. She needed a space. But where at this point, Helen and her husband were living out the back of the shop. Helen proposed they move. The space was too cramped for their growing family, she argued. This left it vacant for her project.
[00:17:55] Helen: I went and got a hammer and knocked down the window, made it a door. Terrible job. Done a dreadful job. I thought it was going to break nice and even and it broke all around that way, so I plastered it all with my hands-together.. And, um, lo and behold, I’d done it up and we had a drop in centre for women to come and children to come, especially if they couldn’t stick it anymore at home.There was somewhere to go and you’d be out of it.
[00:18:25] Tiarne: The Drop-in Centre became a place of refuge – of connection, and, of healing. Helen says women were able to share their stories and be heard, finally. To be heard and to be seen and to be understood.
[00:18:43] Helen: Then we started talking. Well, when you get a whole bunch of women talking together and somebody has the guts to say, this is what’s happening in my life, then somebody else says, yeah, this is what’s happening in my life, too.
[00:18:54] Helen: Or, yes, I went through that when I was younger. And then you all felt sisters. Yeah, you all became sisters overnight.
[00:19:01] Tiarne: But it was a constant battle. There were disgruntled husbands, run ins with the council, and even the men in blue.
[00:19:08] Helen: The police didn’t like us at all. The police thought, would say to, if the customers would come and say, our wives, our wives are missing.
[00:19:18] Helen: The police would say, “Did you go down to Beach Road, Christie’s Beach? There’s a mad Irish woman down there. And, uh, she’s, she’s definitely got something to do with it.”
[00:19:28] Tiarne: But Helen wasn’t bothered by that. She played by her own rules.
[00:19:33] Helen: No men were allowed. Absolutely no men. When the police would come down, I would say, “Sorry you can’t come in there”. “Oh it’s only the police. We’re the police!” I don’t care who you are, darling. You’re a man. You can’t come in here.
[00:19:43] Tiarne: Helen’s duty was always to the women in her centre. And to one other woman. Her mother.
[00:19:50] Helen: And nobody even, we didn’t even, oh, I don’t know. She just had a terrible life.
I was born in Ireland, and, um, we had a very hard life as younger, as young people. My father was a bit of a tyrant. And my mother was a very beautiful woman, and she was a very kind mother, and she turned herself inside out and upside down for to keep us safe. And he would, he would like to have rows with her, but he couldn’t because she was too nice, and so he would pick on us. So that she would then come to our rescue. And then he could, he could hit her. And he usually hit her. So my earliest memories as a young child is standing between my mother and father knocking his legs with my fists because he was beating my mother. And then he would throw us, he would pick us up by the scruff of the neck and just throw us somewhere and we would get up again and go back and hit him again because it’s terrifying to see your mother getting beaten.
He was, what we used to call in those days, a house devil and a street angel. I’m sure that our neighbours heard us scream. I’m sure about it because you, you know, three kids screaming in terror but nobody ever, nobody ever talked about it. Nobody said anything and we didn’t say anything. We thought we were the only ones and we had to hide it.
I would have liked to be able to say my father drank and it wasn’t his problem, it was the drink. But I couldn’t because he didn’t drink.
[00:21:36] Tiarne: Fast forward to the early 1980s. The shelter had been running for about five years. Helen worked from morning till night to help women like her mother. She was never home, her younger son barely knew her, she lived on cigarettes, and it was taking its toll. So, she decided to take a step back.
[00:21:55] Helen: I got sick, and I thought, I’ve done my bit. And I said to the spirit of my mother, and I would talk to her and say, Now, Mum, I’m doing this for you. I’m doing this for you now. I wasn’t much of a help when you were stuck at home, but I’m doing this for you now. And, um, I decided I’d had enough.
[00:22:16] Tiarne: Helen passed the baton on to the next wave of capable women, and in the years that followed, she fought cancer and heart problems. She nursed her husband until he died and she helped bring up a grandson. And of course she stayed interested in women’s issues. But she’d done her bit. She was at peace. And then, about five years ago, she was invited back to give a talk at the 40-year anniversary of the women’s shelter.
[00:22:42] Helen: And I wrote out something and I went to the shelter. Tried to learn it off by heart, but couldn’t. And tried to keep the swear words out of it. And tried to keep it, you know, nice and happy. And, uh, I went and I was, it was in the middle of their, it was their annual general meeting and it was in the middle of an engine. They had some, um, very important woman giving a talk first and she was talking about now the shelters have to amalgamate and I’m sitting there thinking.
The shelters have to amalgamate. But they were saying, “well, you know…” and I could tell they wanted the shelters. There wasn’t enough money for shelters. There wasn’t enough. But everybody knows about domestic violence now. Then I found out one woman a week was dying from domestic violence. And nobody I didn’t know it.
I didn’t read it in the papers. So I got goosebumps. And my heart broke. My heart just broke. Bang! I’m sitting there and I was shaking. I was just shaking. All over, I can’t tell you. And I got up to give a speech and this is as true as my mother’s in her grave. And I opened my mouth to give my speech and nothing came out.
Nothing came out of that voice and I’m going… [SILENCE].
[00:24:03] Tiarne: Helen had some friends in the audience that day, so she called on them.
Helen: So I said to Molly, And, uh, Please help me. And I started to sing A very old feminist song. I wanted the women to have courage. I wanted the women to feel like I felt that we needed to stand up for each other again. And I sang, don’t be too polite girls, don’t be too polite.
Show a little fight girls, show a little fight. Don’t be fearful of offending in case you get the sack. Just recognize your value and you won’t look back. We sang it. And those two women beside me sang it and they thought I was going crazy, but they did it. They did it. And then I started to, wanted to cry.
And then I said, if one woman a week is dying, this is terrible. This is shocking. We shouldn’t be standing here. There never was money for women and children. In my day, there wasn’t any money for children, that that was bloody years ago. And I’m swearing like a trooper. That was bloody years ago. This is now, this is now we’re in another world.
Do we, do our young women have to go through this still? Still are we going through this? What is happening to the laws? Why can’t we keep our women safe? Why are we burying one woman a week? What about those children? What, how are they going to be brought up? What are we doing? This isn’t good enough.
[00:25:41] Tiarne: Helen’s 88, but she can’t rest. There’s more work to be done. The women who have died at the hands of men still need to be recognised. There needs to be a place for them and others affected by domestic violence.
[00:25:56] Helen: And we got women to write, to fill out surveys. 500 women or 600 women filled out a big, big survey.
I wanted really to have a statue for the women that died and so that people could go there and mourn their dead. The place is full of statues of men with guns that died. But they died in a war. Our women died looking after their children, trying to keep their children together. (To herself) Let me see, is that a survey? Yes, that’s the survey.
[00:26:28] Tiarne: For three years now, she’s been working on the sculpture project with her daughter.
[00:26:33] Helen: (to someone) Look, I have to file all these things. So we’re having, this is the the ripples, we had artists, they went out and they got artists, and these young artists said this is the ripples because it goes through one generation to the next, because that’s what I’m saying.
If we don’t stop it somewhere, it’s going to keep going, and we’ll never get over it. So this is, they’re doing it in granite, and that’s the ripples, and then we’re asking people to donate.(Aside) That’s what we’re up to, yeah? And it’s called a ‘Place of Courage’.
[00:27:04] Tiarne: There’s no end in sight.
[00:27:08] Helen: (aside) I’ll give you one of them. That’s how you get it done. Nothing comes to you. If you’re a woman, you have to work for it. We have to do that in our lives. But we can do that. We can do that. We can change it. We can change it. Together we can change it.
[00:27:26] Tiarne: For the CMTO and the Transom Travelling Workshop, this is Tiarne Cook.
[00:27:36] Madhuraa: You can learn more about the trailblazing life and work of Helen Oxenham and donate to her vision for a memorial and healing space at spiritofwoman.com.au. If these stories raised anything for you, support is available. If it’s safe to do so, call 1 800 RESPECT. That’s 1 800 737 732
All the best would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands on which we make these stories and pay our respects to elders past and present. All the Best is made at FBi Radio on Gadigal land, in association with SYN and 3RRR, on Wurundjeri Woiwurrung and Boon Wurrung lands, and 8CCC, on Arrernte and Warumungu land.
The All the Best editorial producer is Mel Bakewell, and Phoebe Adler-Ryan is our executive producer. Our social media producer is Isabella Lee, and our social media assistant is Seth Emmerich. [00:29:00] Patrick McKenzie is our community coordinator, and Janaye Madden is our content assistant. Shining Bird composed our theme music, and Annie Hamilton designed the artwork.
We’re heard across Australia on the Community Radio Network, and we’re made possible by the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the Community Broadcasting Foundation. You can find our full archive of more than 500 episodes on our website. at allthebestradio.com. I’m Madhuraa Prakash. Thanks for listening.