Why We Need To Keep Marching For Justice

On Sunday 27th February 2022, we held our own local March4Justice event in Princes Park, Caulfield South, as was encouraged by the March4Justice organisation. Here is my speech and why we need to keep marching for justice.

When the news story about Brittany Higgins broke on 15 February 2021, it also broke the dam walls of all that pent-up rage and fury many felt around the scourge of gendered violence, misogyny, sexism, and inequality that has plagued our society for decades, if not centuries.

Like many, I lay awake that night, unable to sleep, thinking about all the times me, my friends, work colleagues and countless others have endured all manner of attacks and insults because of our gender, our differences, and our position on the totem pole of power in society.

It brought back triggered memories of those times when I had to talk or, literally, fight my way out of at least 7 sexual assaults, the first one when I was 13 years old.

For years I questioned ‘Was it just me? Was I too sensitive, unlucky?’ But when I saw many of my fellow Tweeps unable to sleep that night, I knew I wasn’t alone, so I re-released an article called ‘No more Harvey Weinsteins please’. This was picked up by Radio 2CC Canberra where I did a radio interview calling out the Prime Minister’s pathetic response to the injustices committed in the highest office in the land.

One thing led to another. So on 28 February 2021 when Janine Hendry tweeted ‘How many people will it take to surround parliament house Canberra to express our disgust?’ The answer came back ‘4,000’ and the genesis of March4Justice was ignited.

Twitter allowed us to mobilise initially hundreds then tens of thousands of people to throw our talents behind this movement demanding...

#Enough is Enough!

The speed with which March4Justice took off was at warp!

Essential to March4Justice’s success was highlighting that gendered violence and inequality is a human issue not just a women’s issue.

Within 14 days on 15 March 2021 over 110,000 people, 25% who were men, turned up to over 200 events across Australia to say...

#EnoughisEnough!

Many others who couldn’t attend showed their support with over 1,000,000 website hits on the day of the march alone. March4Justice received over 7,000 unique media impressions around the world with interviews and articles across all the mainstream Australian media as well as the BBC, NBC, Time Magazine, New York Times, the Washington post to name a few.

Something had shifted.

Many people from communities across Australia lit a fuse that day and created a moment in history that continues to build momentum and is now unstoppable.

Building on the ground-breaking work of the Suffragettes including our electorate’s name sake Vida Goldstein, to the women’s movement of the 60s & 70s, to our modern trail blazers like Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins and everyone in between...

our collective voices ARE now being heard and they won’t be silenced.

And what we are saying is this:

We don’t want more of the same inaction on gender equality.

We don’t want more platitudes and broken promises.

We don’t want more divisiveness, threats and gaslighting.

We don’t want more violence and death.

Instead, we want to enforce gender equality now.

We want to make respect normal.

We want to transform social attitudes so that every person is safe in their homes, their communities, and their workplaces.

We want to amplify the voices of women in Australia.

We want to support safe and fair workplace practices for women.

We want to advocate for systemic change that encourages the creation of a society that is built upon equality, respect, and fairness.

And ultimately, we want justice because #EnoughisEnough!

Other relevant articles

The Phenomenon that is March4Justice

International Women's Day 2022: Changing Climates