Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As we celebrate International Women's Day, we must acknowledge the global backlash against feminism and gender equality. Sadly, Australia is no exception. Research out last week found that over a third of young men agree with misogynistic attitudes and 40 per cent believe that women lie about domestic and sexual violence. We rightly point to the manosphere of rising online misogyny, but we cannot pretend that these attitudes only fester in the dark corners of the internet. We cannot ignore what happens every day to normalise gender inequality.

When a local footballer is convicted of rape and the town shuns his victim while writing character references for her rapist, when many women complain about a doctor and the hospital does nothing, when the Prime Minister calls a powerful advocate for women's rights 'difficult', when police tell a terrified woman to cool off and to give her estranged husband a break days before he burns her to death, when Aboriginal women report violence to police and are misidentified as the perpetrator, when women stay in violent relationships rather than risk homelessness and poverty because the government has failed to invest in affordable housing, when more than 70 per cent of workplaces still have a gender pay gap favouring men, when we can't find the money for women's refuges, legal services, sexual assault counsellors and recovery centres but we can always find money for war, when bombing a girls school does not cause outrage but speaking against it does, when my colleague Senator Faruqi speaks against racism and sexism and causes a barrage of hateful comments not only online but from members in this place, fighting back against rape culture and gender inequality requires a collective effort. We must tackle online misogyny, change police and judicial attitudes, close the pay gap, model equality in this place and fully fund frontline support services. (Time expired)