The things that matter

About a decade ago, the Aus­tralian For­eign Min­is­ter Alexan­der Downer went into dam­age con­trol mode after a gaffe he made when speak­ing at an event rais­ing aware­ness for female vic­tims of domes­tic violence.

He had thought it witty on the occa­sion to coin the phrase “the things that bat­ter” for the event, gig­gling proudly for a good cou­ple of hours before the fall­out and sub­se­quent pres­sured apology.

Well, he knows now that domes­tic vio­lence is no laugh­ing mat­ter, and UNIFEM’s con­cert and bazaar at Clarke Quay yes­ter­day, com­mem­o­rat­ing the Inter­na­tional Day for the Elim­i­na­tion of Vio­lence Against Women, was meant to raise aware­ness of this seri­ous issue, although the turnout was a lit­tle dis­ap­point­ing because of the weather.

Regard­less of your gen­der or ori­en­ta­tion, you should sup­port UNIFEM’s con­cerns, which range from human traf­fick­ing to vio­lence against women. At the very least, you should be aware of the gender-biasness (among other biases) of some of our society’s reg­u­la­tory frame­works. You may not be able to do any­thing about it directly, but you shouldn’t say you didn’t know.

Just as I didn’t know until recently that there was such a thing as mar­i­tal immu­nity as a defence against the crime of rape within a mar­i­tal rela­tion­ship. Now that I am aware of it, I am con­cerned that the legal reform com­mis­sion or sim­i­lar body has not removed this immu­nity com­pletely, as it should.

So, don’t wait for per­son­al­i­ties like Nadya Huta­galung and Andrea de Cruz to tell you their expe­ri­ences (as they did in press inter­views this week) before you do some­thing about it.

Surf stop: UNIFEM Sin­ga­pore

iTunes is play­ing an ille­gal copy of A Mat­ter Of Trust from the album “Great­est Hits Vol. III” by Billy Joel of which I have the orig­i­nal CD.

Tech­no­rati Tags: domes­tic vio­lence, Sin­ga­pore, unifem, vio­lence against women