Trigger warning: Domestic violence, mental health, drug/alcohol use
It looked like garbage, carelessly dumped on her front lawn.
She approached to inspect, and then she heard the groan.
Up close, it was clear that there was blood. That there was a woman, lying unconscious.
Macarthur resident Nina Surplice rang an ambulance and the woman on her lawn sat up, muttering; ‘I’ll be alright, I’ll be alright.’
Half an hour later, Ms Surplice’s heart broke.
“I heard a car and it was obviously her boyfriend, and as she got up, all her face was bloody…whatever happened was [so] violent that there [was] shoving or jumping out of a car,” Ms Surplice said.
“I told her that there was an ambulance coming but she decided to go.”
The woman was just one of many who have suffered from Australia’s national crisis of violence against women – a crisis that is directly related to the notable increase in alcohol and drug use among Australian women, as seen in the graph below.
Young women who took an illicit drug in past year by UOWTV
According to experts, this increase is partially due to women self-medicating.
Senior lecturer in social work at the University of Wollongong Dr Alankaar Sharma said the core of this issue is how male violence against women is a social norm.
“We live in a society that is defined by a patriarchy, and what that means is that sexist violence is operating at multiple levels on an everyday basis,” Dr Sharma said.
“Violence becomes a tool for men and boys to maintain the patriarchal social order.”
‘Boys will be boys’
It is common in situations of family, domestic and sexual abuse for male perpetrators to supply their female victims with alcohol to sedate them, according to a study on ‘Sexual Violence Victimization of Youth and Health Risk Behaviours’.
This contextualises why only one per cent of male drinkers received their usual supply of alcohol from a spouse or partner in 2023, compared to 7.3 per cent of female drinkers who had their alcohol supplied by their spouse or partner, according to AIHW.
When women refuse sexual advances from their partners while under the influence of drugs, it increases the likelihood of violence.
In 2022-23, the rate of women murdered by a partner had risen by 30 per cent from the year before, according to the Australian Institute of Criminology.
This data helps explain why a higher percentage of women have consumed alcohol and drugs in the last few years than men, as seen in the graph below.
Recent alcohol consumption by UOWTV
This rise in consumption also represents the victims and survivors who use drugs to manage their mental health and trauma.
“Alcohol can be used as a coping mechanism to deal with violence by survivors and victims and there is this other thing, this problematic use of alcohol as a masculine norm,’ Dr Sharma said.
“A common perception in my practice experience was ‘he hits me because he drinks’.
“But at the same time, they are not going out and hitting a cop or another man who is more powerful than them, so there is a clear misuse of that patriarchal privilege.”
This ‘patriarchal privilege’ helps explain why the ratio of female domestic-violence related sexual assaults by a partner is 2.7 times higher than it is for males, according to AIHW.
‘Take care’
Ms Surplice said she takes precautions to protect herself and others from gender-based violence.
“You could have a best friend who’s got an [abusive] boyfriend, you could say to your friend to come over and spend the night here until he cools off,” Ms Surplice said.
“Then he comes over, knocks on the door and you’re both dead because he’s not right.
“You can only protect yourself so much, a lot of it is luck.”
These precautions are common for women to prevent the anxiety of being attacked, as the average Australian woman is also more likely to suffer violence from somebody they know than from a stranger, according to Our Watch.
Domestic violence offender-victim relationship by UOWTV
Victims who were close to their perpetrators are more likely to adopt harmful habits to cope with the trauma, including smoking, illicit drug use and high-risk alcohol consumption, according to the Australian Longitudinal Study of Women’s Health.
Dr Sharma said the trauma of what might have already happened to a woman, or the fear that it will happen to her later in life, is a crippling feeling embedded in patriarchal society.
“The threat of violence is just as oppressive as acts of violence,” Dr Sharma said.
“When a woman walks alone at night and is sexually assaulted, it doesn’t impact just that one woman, it impacts other women who are not out at night as well.
“It’s not just her who is diminished and violated and oppressed, it’s all women who are diminished, violated and oppressed, because it curtails their opportunities for being safe all the time, everywhere.”
This shared violation is known among researchers as collective trauma, where a group of oppressed people experience a sense of suffering, prompting some to seek coping strategies such as consuming drugs and alcohol.
The AIHW identified that the percentage of women who used cannabis and were at high risk of harm in the last 12 months stood at 4.8 per cent in 2022-2023, a jump from 1.8 per cent from 2019, while the percentage of men remained the same.
This increase aligns with a list of sexist and traumatic events for women which have contributed to this sense of collective suffering in the past five years alone.
Events harming women by UOWTV
The Federal Government has commited more than $900 million to combating violence against women and has created $5000 grants for victims fleeing domestic violence.