Jane Gilmore

Rape Is Rape

In 1912, Louis Sullivan was convicted in a Perth court of ‘carnal knowledge of a girl under 16’ after Ila Collins told a court that he raped her. The conviction was overturned on appeal because the primary witnesses were Ila and her mother. At the…

How Netflix's Maid gets to the heart of women's experiences of poverty and domestic violence

I've been writing about men's violence against women, particularly the way it is often poorly depicted in media, for too many years now. So on the rare occasions when mainstream media tells women's stories well, I get dozens of messages telling me…

Calculating the cost of womanhood

Impact by Jane Gilmore I first wrote this piece in 2017. I had been writing a lot about the gender pay gap and how the official figure was not just underestimating the problem, it was actually misleading in how little it described the realities of…

Jane Gilmore: No, Prime Minister. Women don’t need another national plan. We need action

Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email Scott Morrison hijacked the National Women’s Safety Summit to brag about his government’s achievements on sexual harassment law. This despite the fact that less than a week ago his government passed legislation…

Jane Gilmore: All the things that carry more risk than the AstraZeneca vaccine

Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email Melbourne is still recovering from the lockdowns that turned most of 2020 into a lonely, panic-stricken haze. And yet, as we’re facing another potential COVID outbreak, vaccine hesitancy is still a problem for…

Scott Morrison’s sermon was a carefully planned speech, not a moment of unguarded sincerity

Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email The man who earned the moniker “Scotty from Marketing” by his near obsession with spin over substance has apparently had a moment of deep sincerity. One conveniently recorded and uploaded to YouTube for all to…

Counter-terrorism gets a bigger political focus than domestic violence – with far fewer victims

Photo: TND Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email Two women and a baby girl were killed last week, allegedly by violent, abusive men. Amid all the grief and rage we had politicians holding press conferences about how awful it is, and police…

The worst thing about that consent video? It’s believable our government made it

After failing so comprehensively to understand women’s experience of rape that nearly 100,000 women felt compelled to march in protest, you might think the government would take consent education seriously. Not only because it would be the…

Jane Gilmore: The numbers Scott Morrison just can’t seem to comprehend

Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email There are very few women in Australia who haven’t experienced bad behaviour from men. Put a group of women in a room and almost all have at least one story to tell – ranging from sleazy or uncomfortable through…

Jane Gilmore: PM’s inaction on men’s violence inflicts even more damage

Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email Scott Morrison’s responses to allegations of rape and sexual harassment in Parliament House have been described as “fumbled” or “mishandled”, as if the past month has been a series of unconnected minor…

Jane Gilmore: Scott Morrison has ignored women. It shows in the streets, and it will show at the polls

Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email Across the country on Monday, tens of thousands of women marched to protest against gendered injustice. They left the jobs that don’t pay them enough. They left their unequal burden of unpaid work. They left…

Jane Gilmore: What does a rapist look like? You’d be surprised

Photo: TND/Getty Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email What does a rapist look like? A few years ago, I was talking to a professional football player about men’s violence against women. He told me that no man he knew had ever been violent to a…

Jane Gilmore: We tell women to report rape, sexual assault. Then we make it impossible to do

Twitter Facebook Reddit Pinterest Email Last week the AFP sent a stern warning to federal MPs about the dangers of failing to report crimes – such as rape – to police. Parliamentarians and the worst elements of the social media swill latched onto…

The Good news, the bad news and then the statistics

Violence in Australia has been steadily decreasing for the last 20 years. The homicide rate, for example, has dropped by more than 60 percent since 1993. Kidnapping and abductions have halved over the same time. National data on assault is more…

This is not a “sex scandal”

Despite claims from certain sections of the media, last night’s Four Corners report on the toxic culture of the Canberra bubble’s is not a “sex scandal”. Labelling it as such erases the report’s disturbing revelations and frames them as a grubby…

‘Shocking findings’ on domestic violence are worth questioning

White Ribbon failed miserably in its first iteration in Australia and only recently started up again under new leadership. The name retains enormous goodwill. It is one of the few organisations that encourages men to be part of the solution to…

Tinder may be the facilitator, but predatory men are the threat

Imagine a dating app that asked you to review your dates. After every encounter you’d get a request for feedback, just as you do with so many other apps. You could rate your date out of five and add a comment. There would also be a rating for how…

Men and women lose when gendered stereotypes inform Government policy

Expecting either of the major political parties to ride a white horse into budget night and lay the severed head of the patriarchy at the feet of Australian women is a wildly unrealistic (albeit entertaining) fantasy. It does seem reasonable,…

Violence, poverty and a male dominated government

There’s a connection between poverty and violence. Not necessarily a causal link, but certainly a correlation. Poverty makes women more vulnerable to the coercive control that so often leads to violence. It also makes leaving dangerous relationships…

How the media and the law have made sex and rape interchangeable words

Last week The Sydney Morning Herald reported on a man’s sentencing for the crime of attempting to have sexual intercourse with a woman without her consent. In the headline he was a “sex attacker”. In the article what he did was a “sex attack”. The…