Raffy Edis is an undergraduate at the Australian National University and co-founder of peer-led violence prevention initiative, connect2prevent. He is the director of connect2prevent’s education portfolio and has previously been involved with ANU’s violence prevention unit as a peer education and engagement officer, as well as a volunteer for the STOP Campaign.
Do you have any examples of practices that have been transformative for the student experience to address gendered violence?
Approaches which de-emphasis the role that cultural constructions of masculinity and femininity play in students’ lives (by perhaps playing up the idea of being a good person, for example) risk obfuscating our very real and entrenched patriarchal conditioning. To borrow from Tema Okun, our conditioning into these systems is ‘relentless and unavoidable.’ It is my view that we need to do the less glamorous work of considering how this patriarchal conditioning structures our relationships (e.g. through contests for power and domination, the burden of emotional labour, gendered scripts) and our world (e.g. naturalisation of housework and reproductive labour, devaluation of femininity, the institutionalisation of patriarchal interests). Consciousness-raising is a powerful tool in this regard. Even integrating one consciousness-raising question into an in-person session could, with the right supports, tone-setting and contingencies in place, be highly impactful.
Some other considerations I would like to highlight:
- Knowing doesn't necessarily translate into doing. Students will often say the socially scripted thing (“only yes means yes”) but this may not reflect in their attitudes and behaviours. This is something to be mindful of when it comes to program evaluation in particular.
- Prevention can sometimes be framed in punitive terms that evoke fear of punishment or social sanction as a reason for engaging in sexual practices intended to prevent harm, like consent. I think it’s really important to go beyond the logic of deterrence and to consider how this may actually be counterproductive.
- Acknowledging men as potential victims is a contentious thing to do. But there are several reasons I do so, one of which is that men pick up on the subtext that they are the problem and then become defensive and harder to reach. I often say “men are the primary perpetrators of violence against people of all genders, including other men. But there are still a significant number of men who experience violence and do not come forward.” This does not need to come at the expense of centring those who disproportionately experience harm (which is women and queer folx), nor should it. In addition, this acknowledgement can serve to interrupt gendered scripts which position men as ‘sexual initiators’ and women as ‘sexual gatekeepers,’ who are implicitly responsible for tempering men’s sexualities, rather than positioned as sexual subjects in their own right.
- I have seen myth-busting exercises offer students ‘light-bulb moments’ when well-facilitated. I think it’s important to approach it with humility and create a space for honest and open discussion to get the most out of this, and to tease out harmful ideas in a non-shaming way (by offering up alternative perspectives, for example).
- Moving away from didactic modes of delivery offers transformative potential because how participants are treated in this space has been a recurring critique that I have heard from my peers. Respecting students’ maturity, intellect and lived experience can be a really powerful way of recognising them as agents in violence prevention. I understand this carries greater risk but with the appropriate safeguards in place, this can be done safely.
From your perspective as a student, what would show you that prevention of gender-based violence is genuinely part of everyday university life?
It’s so important that tertiary education institutions start by examining how they contribute to cultures of domination and harm, which make any prevention initiatives they undertake hard pressed to succeed. This may show up through hostile competition, institutional hierarchies, and even the transient nature of student communities. As mentioned earlier, we are all enmeshed in cultures of domination and harm, which is why it’s not a question of if, but rather a question of how. By looking at harm through this lens, my hope is that we can take some of the moralism out of it, through recognising that, at different times, in different ways, and to different extents, we have all enacted and been inflicted with harm.
On another note, bystander intervention is good insofar as it equips people with practical skills and soft scripts for communication when it comes to responding to incidents where harm may be occurring. But these initiatives can sometimes create a culture of suspicion and hypervigilance, rather than promoting communities of care. This is the logic of deterrence at play, which motivates people to act for the wrong reasons, if at all. I think a ‘communities of care’ model would see greater community cohesion and a sense that no one is disposable, genuine and meaningful discussions about power and privilege, and a recognition that harm can be repaired if people are willing to put in the work of accountability and ‘setting relations right’ (whatever that may look like in a particular context).
I can attest to the transformative potential of education within my own life. Prior to my move to a metropolitan university, I had spent all my life in a small rural town of 500 people. It was here that I first learnt the value of community. But I was also often exposed to patriarchal violence (even if I didn’t recognise it as such at the time) and came to accept harmful beliefs that I am still working through. Education, to my mind, is transformative when it teaches people how to think, as opposed to what to think. It can help us look outside our current modalities of seeing, knowing, and doing which serve to perpetuate deeply embedded cultures of domination and harm. It can help us reflect on our own enmeshment (and investment) within these cultures.
I often feel overwhelmed by the enormity of violence, both on our campuses and beyond, and have been reflecting on the importance of two things that sustain me: hope and vision. Hope, for me, is not a passive belief that things will get better, but an active choice I make because it is coupled with action as I work within my sphere of influence. Vision sustains me in the face of heavier feelings. Visionary feminism has given me a sense of how things could be different. It has helped me to connect with others in ways I hadn’t been able to before, and it also entails sacrifice. But with vision, these are sacrifices I willingly make. In conversation with other men, this is particularly important because they aren’t likely to make these sacrifices out of altruism (even if those things they are ‘sacrificing’ are actively harming them, as well as affording them benefits).
I want to add that practitioners can’t always see the impact they have. That’s why care is integral (because it is possible for prevention initiatives themselves to cause direct harm), but it also means that lessons about gender, relationships and intimacy may not land in the moment but be something participants return to and reflect on at a later time, whether that be a week later or 10 years later. Finally, I would encourage practitioners to engage with students to co-design material that will have an even greater impact and resonance.
