Family Violence: Opening up the Silence
![handle is hein.journals/mulr18 and id is 879 raw text is: FAMILY VIOLENCE: OPENING UP THE SILENCE
BY JOHN TOBIN*
[This article discusses and evaluates the main legal remedies available to victims of family
violence in Victoria. Its objective is to locate the law within the context of this issue from a feminist
perspective, and determine whether it acts to regulate and eliminate family violence and its
underlying ideology, or to sustain it. Upon examining the Family Law Act 1975 (Cth) and the
Crimes (Family Violence) Act 1987 (Vic.), the conclusion drawn is that despite advancements in
the protection of women victims, the law remains an institution which legitimizes family violence.]
Last night I heard the screaming,
Loud voices behind the walls,
Another sleepless night for me,
It won't do no good to call,
The police,
Always come late,
If they come at all.'
Tracy Chapman's voice in Behind the Wall exposes the silence that
surrounds society's response to family violence. This song establishes a
space in which to challenge such violence.2 Within this space, I intend to
open up a discussion and evaluation of the main legal remedies available to
victims of family violence3 in Victoria, by locating this issue within its social
context. That is, a context in which women are oppressed by and subordi-
nate to men,4 where violence exists as the primary and legitimate means of
maintaining the hegemonic hold of patriarchy5 and the family remains the
basic unit of this regime.6
Traditionally the law was reluctant to intervene in the area of family
violence because it occurred in the private sphere and was considered to be
* B.Comm. (Melb); Student of Arts/Law, University of Melbourne.
1 Chapman, T., 'Behind the Wall' on Tracy Chapman, Elektra/Asylum Records Inc. (1988).
2 Minow, M., 'Words and the Door to the Land of Change: Law, Language, and Family
Violence' (1990) 43 Vanderbilt Law Review 1665, 1697-8.
3 1 have chosen to use the term 'family violence' as opposed to 'domestic violence', 'wife
battering' or 'criminal assault in the home' as it best represents this phenomenon. The alternative
definitions tend to either trivialize, sensationalize or confine its incidence to solely criminal
matters. The term 'family violence' identifies the location in which such violence occurs and
recognizes the threat it represents to the idealized and sacred institution of the family in society.
4 This is my starting point and it is not within the scope of this project to argue in detail
why or how this is the situation in contemporary society. This is not to suggest that women's
oppression is universally homogeneous, because such an approach runs the risk of denying the
cultural and historical specificities of women's struggles throughout the world.
5 This is to appropriate the idea of Susan Brownmiller in Brownmiller, S., Against Our Will:
Men, Women and Rape (1975) 14.
6 The notion of the family as an institution of patriarchy has been explored in great detail
within feminist discourse. E.g. Kate Millet identifies patriarchy's chief institution as being the
family through its socialization and reproduction of the young with respect to its ideology of
subordination: Millet, K., Sexual Politics (1971) 33-6.
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Family Violence: Opening up the Silence
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