Charlie Pickering Tackled Rape, Consent And Blame With A Song And Dance On Last Night’s ‘The Weekly’
"If I complain, don't say I'm dumb / Hashtag #not-all-men, but definitely some!"
Last year, the National Community Attitudes towards Violence Against Women Survey — a poll of 17,500 Australians — released some fairly horrific results: they found that one in five Australians agree that if a woman has been drinking, she’s partially to blame for her own rape; and one in six Australians supported the notion that when women say ‘no’, they actually mean ‘yes’.
It’s a nation-wide sentiment that gets bolstered every day by some of Australia’s most read commentators and most trusted institutions, and as Charlie Pickering pointed out on last night’s The Weekly, “this twisted mindset of blame is a worldwide problem”, and it’s not going away.
“When a convenience store is robbed, we don’t say, ‘a 7/11 went and got itself robbed — but you know, it was out in the open all night, and did have its goodies on display. And you know, I don’t like to say this but convenience stores really shouldn’t be hanging around on street corners at all hours,'” he says. “And yet public awareness campaigns on rape prevention constantly focus on what women should do.”
“And yes #notallmen and #notallrapistsaremenandnotallvictimsarewomen, but #allofthemenwhorapewomenaremen, so how about #DONTRAPE,” he says. “Now some would say that we don’t need to make a big song and dance about it, but maybe that’s exactly what we should do.”
And so they did, with Miranda Tapsell, from Love Child and the Sapphires, taking the lead.
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1800 RESPECT (1800 737 732) offers counselling, support or assistance for anyone who has experienced sexual assault or family violence.