While Shepherds Watched

If people came into this world with appropriate health warning labels, *Jack’s birthday suit would've been olive green, with a gruesome set of teeth, diseased heart and blackened soul tattooed onto it. *Not his real name
 

Could that unaddressed need for more appropriate labelling be subject to a legislative review?

A lot of people are unable to accept rejection, but he couldn't fathom it at all - it turned out, he was a corporate psychopath - a pompous one at that, who spoke like he had a mouthful of marbles though he came from a tiny, unremarkable sheep-farming town. Daniel Craig, he was not.

I was a young student when I met him and I did not know that there was a clearly defined and recognizable label for his brand of heavy-handedness, until asked to make disclosures about him five years later, when his professional misdeeds became public knowledge.

Knowing the extent of his grasp, and the lack of boundaries on what he would stoop to, I politely declined - "thank you very much...but I have to research the mating cycle of the blue-spotted gnat in far north Timbuktu - indefinitely."

Nonetheless in the complete absence of willing witnesses, he went on to enjoy even more elevated status and unimpinged authority.

Upright, suit and tie, and 25 years my senior, he certainly wasn't my usual type, at all - thank goodness for small mercies. He was meant to be a healthy deviation from the usual mentally-adrift artists I grew up around and matured beyond. Capable of holding a  coherent conversation beyond 7pm, he was marvellously quick-witted, I thought, especially in comparison to the string of immature and irresponsible distractions on the reject pile. "Bound to work out better." Famous last words?

His upper-body strength and body mass, and his brutish will, under his boring, grey, faceless-man suit, skipped right past the Magnet's Self-Preservation Radar. So did his constant need to watch and control everything that all his friends, peers, lovers and family members did, all day, every day - to my young eyes, it seemed more of a protective habit than an omen.

Even as a totally green youngster, I began to sense that there was something wrong when the violent interrogations began, the myriad of other women became evident and he regularly intercepted me on my journeys away from my home. The local calls when I went bush and mysterious ghost-like appearances in unexpected locations, even when out-of-town, to his mind, bypassed threatening, and constituted an all-encompassing but cute familiarity between lovers. Me? Well, I still call it stalking - I am fairly sure the law does too, if he wasn't above it. They say there’s no fool like an old one – but I think his momentum hit its peak early and plateaued at terrifying.

It was interesting that this area was his field of expertise - I have often wondered which existed first, the watching or the watcher. Had his hyper-vigilance occurred as a result of a high-stress job that empowered him with too much free reign to violate people's civil liberties and privacy? Was he just a weirdo who found a job for which his particular obsession set him apart from his peers?

Jack's still the watcher and still watching - dominating and intimidating, and considerably more senior in his position than he was when I was with him as a young student. And still, years on, there have been repeated intrusions from this poisonous, pasty toad.

Back then, I was just absolutely exasperated with my gorgeous, but egotistical, McGoo.  As a teen, I had fallen for him hook, line and sinker, instantly - which is, invariably, an entirely disempowering thing. He was an extremely vague and obsessed, high-performance model - one of those stereotypical musos you read about, with little capability to communicate without a pair of sticks or a guitar pick in his hands. Even with his milk-bottle bottomed glasses he could still walk straight into things. He had a few extra pounds, no style, no bling (+ no hair), but he played like he was tapped in to another plane of existence where words were redundant, and his spirit wasn't that much different - sort of ethereal and a bit above the mundane rabble of everyday life.

However, with conscientious grooming from prospective, Jack, I steadily became more resistant to McGoo's amicable philandering and his subtle and endearing SNAG charms. In both cases, I was also quite clearly blinded by my 16-hour uni days, filled with the grey glare of practice rooms and fluorescent lights, and hence, "Jack" and pear-shaped fate, slipped surreptitiously into my life, rendering chaos where there had been such strict order, and blissful peace.

 "Love will cover a multitude of sins," my religious education told me. Never a truer word was spoken. Even stalking by a high-level executive will turn people gooey on both sides of the victimization, just so long as he uses that precious "L" word. And, even more readily, if he uses the "C" word. Cash. Everybody has his price, his former employer, used to tell him and it became his ethos. When confronted with non-compliance, he was prone to using the "t" word - threat, or the "I" word - intimidation, and, as a frequent last resort, the "v" word - violence.

I guess, really, the thing that sent Jack over the edge, was rejection. His ego, clinging to the alpha-male notion he loved to tout, completely raged against it. His constant need for validation and the subsequent problems that ensued, all stemmed from that dirty, little word.

I often come into contact with news of this or that victim who has fallen foul of the less appealing side of man's ego, with tragic consequences. There are key times of year when this gets worse - Valentine's Day is really quite notable for some fairly awful violent offences against women, and annually, these play out in ugly and defensive scenes in the Magistrate's Courts for months thereafter.

During the Christmas season, the rate of domestic violence escalates by 30% - so really the whole "season to be jolly" caper is a bit of a slap in the face with some blunt-force sales spin. It is also the time where isolated perpetrators of domestic violence, often fuelled by alcohol, want to engage in heated discussions.
 

65% of homicides were committed in the home(AIC 2010) and for female victims, those deaths were almost five times as likely to be perpetrated by a current or past intimate partner. 54% of women killed had a close relationship with the people who ultimately, became their killers.

"Violence against women does not limit itself to one particular form, nor does it discriminate between contexts, circumstances and locations. But its most common manifestation globally is intimate partner/family-related violence, which at its most extreme ends in homicide." p.13

Over half the homicide rate of female victims in Australia, annually, is perpetrated by someone because of "love," by some person who lives with a female victim, or who is or was, in some kind of relationship with them.

Past research has identified that alcohol, drugs and mental illness were an underlying component in the brutal murder of women, steeped in gender-oriented oppression that is enshrined in our inequitable laws, and perpetuated by the popular mainstream media which objectifies women and girls to generate more revenue and keenly shouts down opponents. What's love got to do with it?

Despite the rate of homicides by women's lovers past and present, puzzlingly, the propagandized angle on love and the ill effects of it via unrealistic and unhealthy societal expectations on relationships, as promulgated by the media, remains unscrutinized. In contrast, the motives for other untimely deaths are heavily scrutinized at the pinnacle of political debate in Parliament and even re-spun, eg. killings that occur during war or by suicide bombers - but these deaths are far less frequent(especially here, in Australia) than the daily, seemingly unnewsworthy, occurrence of domestic homicide.
 

Where are the anti-association orders for the far more prevalent and serious, recidivist offending that DV comprises? Parliament even baulks at putting electronic tags on serious, repeat DV offenders, but would that be the case if there were more women in positions of power? Where are their priorities?

The barrage of fatally skewed, "L" words in the media and by society, does nothing to stem the propensity for Australian males to perpetrate fatal violence against women. Moreover, women are reportedly in danger just walking down the street, looking attractive, or being out late, or being anywhere other than chained to a kitchen sink. Thanks very much mainstream news media for not correcting that sexist myth.

Ironically, it is that very same kitchen sink that puts them squarely in harm's way at a far higher rate than the news media would lead the populous to believe. ###

This Christmas give your partner and your family the gift of getting help - Men's Helpline  is anonymous and can offer counselling for free to men experiencing problems with violent thoughts and there is the domestic violence national helpline available as well - 1800 200 526.

Sad stories from Abbott's Camp in Alice Springs,
NT Acting Chief Minister, Robyn Lambley, today said she was deeply shocked and saddened by the death of  a young woman, after she was attacked at Abbott’s Camp on Christmas Day. She said despite mandatory DV reporting in the Territory, "women are still being savagely beaten and murdered in domestic disputes." Family and friends of the victim said they knew the victim was being subjected to extreme violence and abuse by her husband prior to her death, Lambley said.