Mary Crawford ... Gender and the Australian Parliament

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Mary Crawford
Queensland University of Technology



Re: Gender and the Australian Parliament & Australian Children and Women Trapped Overseas by Domestic Violence and Systemic and Judicial Abuse

Dear Ms Crawford,

Thank you for the interest you expressed in receiving information further to my recent phone call regarding the connection between your work on Gender and the Australian Parliament and my personal issue of how to gain assistance, advocacy and support for Australian children and women trapped overseas by domestic violence and systemic and judicial abuse.

I am continually amazed and horrified at my experience of how these power and patriarchy realities affect the “ethical gap” between what is said and what is done in regards to issues such as human rights, equity, and violence that disproportionately affect children and women and the difficulty/seeming impossibility of creating, facilitating and enabling change.

The online resource I created in the form of a blog www.womenwhowant2gohome.blogspot.com contains information about some of my efforts on our behalf (see posts “The Perils of Indifference … ”, “Waiting and hoping …”, “ Further out of view … further out of mind ….”, “Letter to our new prime minister …” , “Dear Mr Prime Minister …” and “When women won the vote what was the prize?” )

The following letters to the new National Council to Reduce Violence Against Women and Children (mailed Tuesday, 3rd May, 2008 with dvd “How Then Shall We Live: A Process for Developing a Plan to Escape Abusive Relationships” – no response from any council members) and Julia Burns, Executive Director, Office for Women, reflect the “trickle down” effect of power and patriarchy’s resistance to real and meaningful change and my experience of how these gender specific issues are “seen” to be dealt with, when the reality is quiet different and many people are involved in “keeping the secret” of these unethical inequities and human rights abuses.

Any assistance, support or advocacy would be greatly appreciated.

Sincerely,
….

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To read Mary's Online Opinion article "Gender and the Australian Parliament
www.onlineopinion.com.au/view.asp?article=5808
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It meant so much to me that yesterday morning, Monday 30th June, Mary phoned and left me a message saying she had received my fax and material I had mailed to her and although she was very busy with her PhD work and some upcoming conferences she would be getting in contact with me in the next few weeks … it really meant a lot that although she was so busy with her own important work she didn’t ignore me or these issues, unlike most people - including those whose job, research, portfolio or political publicity would lead you to believe they are supposedly concerned with issues of violence against children and women.

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