The recent Quarterly Essay on Australia’s approach to primary prevention, authored by journalist Jess Hill, raises critiques of the national prevention framework that warrant clarification. While debate is important, it’s also important that we clarify misconceptions, and continue to strengthen our collective efforts to end gender-based violence.
Primary prevention work is about stopping violence before it starts, and is underpinned by decades of research, scholarship and the voices of victim-survivors, which have together built a strong evidence base.
Innovation and new evidence have always been a core principle of prevention work and thinking. When developed by experts, new approaches ensure that prevention efforts remain responsive to evolving needs, emerging data and trends, and changing social dynamics.
And our current social dynamic is one where the rights of women and girls are under threat.
We have seen a sharp rise in online movements that condone and even celebrate misogyny and disrespect towards women. We’ve seen international political movements hinged upon reversing and repealing women’s rights. We’ve seen an increase in the quantity and availability of online pornography that depicts disrespect and violence towards women.
This social dynamic provides the enabling environment for women to be harmed and killed by men’s violence. The actions of violent men are an individual response to a deep social problem. Now is not the time to reduce focus on gender equality and the rights of women. The stakes are too high to be distracted by debates that undermine evidence-based solutions. Rather it is a time for us to work together to both prevent and respond to violence against women.
Change the story, Australia’s national framework for primary prevention, was developed through extensive consultation with victim-survivors, community organisations, all levels of government, and leading primary prevention experts. It draws on decades of national and international research and was designed to provide a strategic, whole-of-population approach to ending violence before it starts. The updated second edition was based on a systematic review of over 500 pieces of new evidence published between 2015 and 2021.
At the time of its first publication, no other country had attempted a whole-of-society approach to primary prevention. Traditionally, national efforts had focused almost exclusively on responding to violence after it occurred, rather than addressing the underlying causes to prevent it from happening in the first place. Change the story expanded that approach, making it clear that violence against women is not just an individual issue—it is also a social issue that requires a cultural shift.
Critics of Change the story, including the recent Quarterly Essay, have mischaracterised the framework as addressing only gendered drivers of violence against women, at the exclusion of other factors. This is incorrect.
The framework clearly identifies both gendered drivers of violence and reinforcing factors (such as alcohol abuse, childhood trauma, and gambling-induced economic stress) that can intensify violence. Importantly, the framework clearly calls for action on both.
Change the story focuses primarily (but not exclusively) on the gendered drivers of violence because these are the factors that the evidence shows to be most consistently predictive of violence against women across the population.
This is not just Our Watch’s position—it is widely recognised by Australian and international bodies such as the United Nations, the World Health Organisation and the Australian Human Rights Commission.
But violence is complex, and reinforcing factors such as alcohol, gambling and intergenerational trauma are also explicitly highlighted in Change the story, which dedicates four of its twelve action areas to addressing them. For example, the framework explicitly recommends:
Improving alcohol regulation to disrupt harmful social norms around drinking and violence.
Addressing harmful drinking cultures, particularly in male-dominated spaces.
Strengthening early intervention, healing and trauma-informed responses to support children, young people and adults who have experienced violence.
Tackling the social stressors that contribute to heavy gambling, which can intensify the frequency and severity of intimate partner violence against women.
Primary prevention organisations and individuals have been instrumental in promoting the need to adopt a multi-pronged approach to addressing violence, rather than look for single-issue explanations or one-dimensional solutions.
That's why Our Watch’s approach is explicitly intersectional. Change the story names numerous intersecting forms of oppression that influence the dynamics of violence, including colonialism, racism and ableism. These are carefully explored in our dedicated frameworks to prevent violence against First Nations women and violence against women with disabilities.
We share Ms Hill’s concerns about many of the issues raised in the Quarterly Essay and the action required to address the complex range of factors that drive violence, both gendered and not gendered. But these are not new issues for anyone working in prevention, and they are described exhaustively in Change the story and our many other frameworks.
Our Watch continues to advocate for strategies to address childhood trauma, healing strategies to help people recover from its impacts, and early intervention work to interrupt cycles of violence.
While these valuable approaches can prevent further violence and harm, they are not an alternative to prevention.
Their effects will be most powerful when coupled with changes in the social norms, structures and attitudes that drive violence in the first place, and that continue to characterise the society in which both perpetrators and victim/survivors live.
Social change at this scale does not happen overnight. History has shown that shifting deep-seated social norms—whether it be attitudes towards smoking, seatbelt use, or sun protection—takes time. We all want change to happen faster, but abandoning an evidence-based approach now would be a serious mistake.
Primary prevention efforts have not yet reached enough communities, workplaces, or institutions to have the widespread impact needed to turn the tide on gender-based violence. To achieve lasting change, prevention efforts must be scaled up—not down.
This is not an issue of removing funding from one area of work and moving it to another – more funding is required across the spectrum. The pie needs to get bigger, not be split into smaller pieces.
Primary prevention is not just the work of Our Watch. It is the work of thousands of people across Australia at all levels of the community who have dedicated their careers to solving one of the most complex social issues of our time.
Primary prevention seeks to:
Create school communities that embed respect towards women and girls
Counter the online misogyny and radicalisation which are fuelling harmful attitudes and increasing the risk of violence.
Ensure that employers give men and women equal opportunities and create safe and respectful workplace cultures free of abuse and harassment
Create the social conditions for women to be more economically and socially independent – which also helps women leave abusive relationships
Engage with men and boys about masculinity and positive, respectful ways of being a man in the places they are, and with the systems and organisations that support them. Make public spaces, workplaces and social venues safer for women
Challenge attitudes that excuse or justify violence against women.
Challenge harmful gender stereotypes that normalise men’s aggression, disrespect, control and coercion.
Change policies and laws that might be contributing to the social conditions that give rise to violence.
Addressing these factors is essential. But this is not an either/or equation—we need a comprehensive response that includes prevention, early intervention, response, recovery and healing, including frontline services and justice reform. Each of these efforts strengthens and reinforces the others.
Our Watch joins the recent call from Australia’s Domestic and Family Violence Commissioner, Micaela Cronin, for unity and coordination in the sector. We are committed to working alongside governments, researchers, educators, and community leaders to strengthen prevention efforts and ensure that every part of the system is working together. This will continue to be our focus.
Australia is facing increasing challenges from online movements that radicalise men and boys, and sow division and disrespect towards women. Internationally, we are seeing rising attacks on women’s rights and opportunities in public and private life. And young people have unprecedented access to online pornography that depicts disrespect and violence towards women. Primary prevention is uniquely designed to respond to these challenges.
Now is not the time to retreat. Now is the time to scale-up what works.
We cannot afford to lose momentum. Women’s lives depend on us staying the course.
Please contact media@ourwatch.org.au or call 0448 844 930.
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1800RESPECT is the national domestic, family, and sexual violence counselling, information and support service. If you or someone you know is experiencing, or at risk of experiencing, domestic, family or sexual violence, call 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732, chat online via www.1800RESPECT.org.au, or text 0458 737 732. Men’s Referral Service: 1300 766 491.
Access guides for reporting about violence against women and their children.
Our Watch is Australia’s leader in the primary prevention of violence against women. The organisation was created to drive nation-wide change in the practices, norms, and structures that lead to violence against women and children. Read more about Our Watch here.