- All smiles during a women’s empowerment group in Southern Bangladesh, 2009.
Sydney too violent for women - SMH reveals
It was a Saturday, around midday, and I was catching the train into the city with a girlfriend. We were excited - I was on my way to a photo shoot for Cosmopolitan magazine’s “Real Women” project, and that was something different for me back then.
I was 20, I was from Blacktown - only rich, thin, pretty girls got into the pages of a magazine, not short, pudgy, plain girls like me. I was going to get my makeup done professionally, and Kristy and I were chatting away, lost in our own worlds when he leant over the back of the train seat and pulled out a blood-filled syringe.
It all happened so quickly. The syringe, the demand for our money and mobile phones. The promise that he would stab me in the foot with it because he’d just got out of jail, and that’s where he’d be going back to, and he didn’t care if he made us sick, he just wanted his next hit, and “you’re just some dumb girl.”
We were scared. This was Sydney! It was the middle of the day! There were other people in the carriage! Not that they came to help.
We were lucky though. All we lost was some money, our phones, and a big bucket of naivety. In the nine years between then and now, I have gathered more stories like this, but none have had quite the same impact.
There is something about a ‘first time’ in this, but I’m not going to say it.
Instead, I’m going to track the stories about violence against women that hit the papers in Sydney and Melbourne for the next few weeks.
Thank you (!?), Sydney Morning Herald, for making this first post so easy with FIVE stories about violence and sexual harassment of women.
Monday 27th September brings us:
- League star accused of assaulting pregnant girlfriend
- Stewart charge absolutely totally unbelievable
- Sex assault on babysitter
- Home invader attacks woman with crowbar
- DJ $37m claim publicity-induced psychiatric illness in Kristy Freser0Kirk court told
Related posts:
- Think violence against women is something that happens ‘over there’ - think again.
- How unsafe should you feel?
On not being Angelina - Trespass Magazine
As I shoved the last few things into my pack, pointedly ignoring the zipper which was strained to bursting, I was worrying about whether or not I would be able to find a taxi. Early mornings are unusually quiet in Dhaka, one of the most populous capital cities in the world, and you never know your luck. I had a plane to catch, and it was with mixed feelings I was preparing to say goodbye to the country I had called home for the past year. And what a home Bangladesh had been.
I first arrived in Bangladesh in October 2008 as an Australian Youth Ambassador for Development (AYAD). The plan was to work as a volunteer for twelve months for an international development organisation and then see some more of the world. I quit my great job in Sydney, boxed-up my high heels, and tried to conjure up my very best interpretation of Earth Mother. I had images of becoming the next Angelina Jolie looking effortless-yet-earnest in head to toe linen in Cambodia, or unruffled-but-concerned in sub-Saharan Africa… read on
