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October 2021 / 20 minutes
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This paper provides a summary of a webinar and online discussion forum hosted by Our Watch as part of the National Primary Prevention Hub (the Hub) in April 2021.
The forum focused on two key methods that can increase the effectiveness of work focused on the prevention of violence against women:
The forum examined these themes through two case studies:
The forum was designed to be interactive. Participants engaged in breakout rooms following the first case study and were invited to ask questions of presenters following the second case study.
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Local, placed-based work is a key part of efforts to prevent violence against women. Working across organisations at local levels to build effective collaborations maximises the impact of this work – it increases the reach of programs, reduces isolation and improves strategic responses to needs in the local community.
Effectively working with different stakeholder groups across a setting increases the reach and impact of efforts to promote gender equality and prevent violence against women. The establishment of a rigorous evidence base that informs strategic planning and taking time to build a network of relationships is critical to this approach.
Communicating effectively about primary prevention of violence against women work can be difficult to navigate. Having a strategic approach based on the aim and audience of this work and how best to engage particular communities and audiences is critical to successful engagement.
In April 2021, the National Primary Prevention Hub (the Hub) held an online, interactive promising practice forum exploring effective collaborative practice to prevent violence against women. This paper provides a summary of the forum.
The Hub is led by Our Watch and funded by the Department of Social Services under the Fourth Action Plan of the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children. The project supports information-sharing, enables connection and collaboration, and facilitates coordination among organisations designing and delivering primary prevention policies, programs and campaigns.
The delivery of a series of webinars, forums and online discussions is a key activity of the Hub. Findings from feedback surveys from Hub events prior to the April forum identified that participants appreciated the case studies profiled in Hub events. Stakeholders also made clear that they wanted opportunities to connect with other participants and presenters in order to learn from the experience and expertise of others. As a result, the Hub team designed the April forum to combine these two threads of feedback, with case studies, breakout room discussions, and time for questions for presenters from participants.
Following the event, participants at this forum again communicated that they appreciated the case studies and overall, the interactive nature of the forum was rated highly. However, we received mixed feedback about the experience of breakout room discussions. The Hub team will continue to listen to participant experiences from the feedback surveys to inform event adaptation and determine the best ways to engage participants in online events.
The interactive promising practice forum, held in April 2021, explored methods to improve the effectiveness of work focused on the prevention of violence against women. The forum focused on two key methods:
2. Effective collaborative practice to prevent violence against women.
Evidence shows that initiatives to prevent violence against women will be most effective if done in collaboration and across multiple levels in a community or setting. This ensures efforts are consistent and mutually reinforcing. The forum also highlighted how working in partnership and utilising others’ strengths and skills forms the basis for effective prevention activity.
The forum heard presentations from two projects working in different contexts that have utilised a combination of these approaches:
The presentations provided an overview to participants of:
The participatory forum was aimed at practitioners working to prevent violence against women (directly or indirectly), policy makers, and other professionals interested in this work.
Women’s Health Victoria (WHV) works collaboratively with individuals, health professionals, policy makers and community organisations to inform and improve policy and service delivery for women. WHV’s Gender Equality in Advertising project seeks to end violence against women through work in the advertising setting.
Despite the well-established consequences of promoting traditional gender roles, the Australian advertising industry still relies heavily on these stereotypes. The hyper- feminisation, sexualisation and objectification of women; depictions of ideal masculinity that promote stoicism, dominance, and even violence; and an underrepresentation of diverse gender identities remain key themes in contemporary advertisements. Exposure to this imagery has been shown to perpetuate gendered behaviours and career aspirations among children, and negative health outcomes for young women, including disordered eating and low self-esteem. More broadly, the perpetuation of gender stereotypes inhibits the achievement of gender equality, thereby maintaining a context in which violence against women can and will occur.1
To address this, the shEqual project works with researchers, advertising agencies and regulatory bodies to establish a robust evidence base and enact meaningful change at multiple levels in the advertising industry. shEqual’s aim is to ensure advertising reflects the diversity and multidimensionality of Australian communities and contributes to creating a society in which all people are viewed and treated as equal and live free from violence. As such it adopts an intersectional approach, by attending to the ways in which gendered representations intersect with disability, race, Indigeneity and sexuality.
In its initial phases, WHV partnered with RMIT to develop an evidence base to guide and inform the rest of the project. This partnership published reports that examined the impact of sexist advertising (2018); community responses to gender stereotypes in advertising (2019); and promising practice in addressing problematic gender portrayals (2019).
The Seeing is Believing National Strategic Framework was released in late in 2020. The framework is based on research and consultation with the advertising industry, industry regulators, and the prevention sector. It establishes the impetus for change and highlights the importance of doing so via a whole-of-community approach that includes: cultural change in the industry, community engagement and empowerment, and more effective regulation and policy.
Though the advertising industry has a young workforce, most industry leaders are older and male. This, alongside the significant levels of attrition among women (particularly associated with parental leave), suggests the existence of a glass ceiling. As such, the shEqual project has been strategic in how it approaches working with the industry. These strategies include:
Upcoming work includes:
shEqual acknowledges that consumer action feeds into industry change, and aims to educate and empower consumers to help end sexist advertising through:
Affecting regulatory change in the advertising industry is challenging as it is largely self- regulated. shEqual aims to overcome this by:
Take the Lead is a primary prevention consortium that delivers placed-based programs across the Parramatta and Cumberland Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Sydney’s western suburbs. The City of Parramatta Council created the consortium in 2018 to:
The Council continues to facilitate the consortium, and provide primary prevention training, advice, and support where needed. Other consortium members include Cumberland Women’s Health Centre, Hope Connect, and Boronia Multicultural Services. In line with the evidence set out in Change the story, each consortium member delivers a different set of programs according to their unique expertise, ranging from targeted, one-on-one support through to broader community-level initiatives.
In line with Change the story essential action ‘Promote women’s independence and decision- making in public life and relationships’, Cumberland Women’s Health Centre delivers the Employment Boost program: a medium-term program for victim survivors of family violence, that seeks to reduce unemployment and promote women’s independence by:
In line with Change the story essential action ‘Strengthen positive, equal and respectful relations between and among women and men, girls and boys’, Hope Connect delivers three programs as part of the consortium, with a focus on promoting equal and respectful relationships:
In line with Change the story essential action ‘Strengthen positive, equal and respectful relations between and among women and men, girls and boys’, Hope Connect delivers three programs as part of the consortium, with a focus on promoting equal and respectful relationships:
In line with Change the story essential action ‘Foster positive personal identities and challenge gender stereotypes and roles’, Boronia Multicultural Service delivers programs aimed at challenging gender stereotypes:
Common challenges faced by consortium members include:
Strengths identified by the consortium include:
Forum participants were allocated to breakout rooms for discussion of issues relevant to the case studies presented during the event. Questions for this session fell under two themes and groups decided which theme to focus on.
Key themes that emerged in discussion groups that focused on theme 1 included:
Key themes that emerged in discussion groups that focused on theme 2 included:
This promising practice forum provided an opportunity for people working towards the primary prevention of violence against women to connect and hear from others working in the area. The case studies of the shEqual project, which takes a multi-pronged approach to working with the advertising industry to achieve gender equality, and the collaborative and placed-based work of the Take the Lead consortium provided an avenue to enable connection and exploration of practice ideas. Participants also provided their own insights and expertise on two key topics: working across multiple levels and communicating about primary prevention.
Feedback from this forum will inform future events through the Hub.
1
McKenzie M, Bugden M, Webster A, Barr M. (2018). Advertising (in)equality: the impacts of sexist advertising on women’s health and wellbeing. Melbourne: Women’s Health Victoria. (Women’s Health Issues Paper; 14).
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