I WILL MARCH THIS WEEKEND WITH AUSTRALIANS CALLING FOR AN END TO VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN. HAVEN'T WE MARCHED ENOUGH?

Why do I have to march? Haven't I marched enough?

I march almost every single day. When I get off my tram after dark, I march with my keys projecting between my fingers in an attempt to keep me safe that I've never tested but I suspect would be as useless as it sounds.

I march into situations I shouldn't need to, like that one on a different tram on Monday, when a bloke simply would not leave a young woman alone, leaning over her, pinning her to her seat, insisting on her engagement, refusing to accept her cues of discomfort. I leapt up and stood between them and made the "Are you OK?" sign. She was so rattled by then that it took her a long moment even to nod her head.

I have marched for decades into discussions, interviews, symposia and national hand-wringing conversations, written articles and even books about what can be done to prevent intimate partner violence against women, about why some men do it, about how men can become allies and I've done it ad nauseum – because it really does make you sick. Sick of the discussion, sick of the lack of change, sick of the burden that is repeatedly placed on women to provide a solution for a problem they didn't create.

Tens of thousands of Australians will march this weekend in rallies around the country calling for No More violence against women.

I'm marching on Sunday, along with others who feel as I do: distraught, bewildered, furious and no longer able to cope with the national crisis that is the rising number of targeted violent acts against women.

Those attacks, according to two organisations that collate the figures, have risen from an average of one woman a week killed in known offender incidents last year, to almost one woman murdered every four days in 2024. And it's only April.

In my home state of Victoria, the number of family violence intervention orders have risen by 60 per cent — almost 4,500 offences — in just three years.

And so I will march — but like so many I know, including all the pissed-off women down the decades, there was never any chance to stop marching. 

This is not some new or contemporary crisis

Given the rise in this violence, with some incidents so shocking and so deeply affecting that they change the soul of a city, has something changed?

Are we being subjected to the last, thrashing death throes of a persistent version of masculinity that refuses to relinquish the control it believes it should be able to exert over women?

Is this what happens when a concept of masculinity that's defined by a toxic power imbalance is allowed to persist and is not properly confronted and shattered? Either by parents, fathers, teachers, legislators, judges, politicians, business figures, sports idols or rock stars?

Let's be clear — this is not some new or contemporary crisis. This stuff, this insistence on control and coercion and the violent resentment caused by a resistant woman, is millennia-old, and it was as toxic then as it is now.

It was toxic for our great-grandmothers when they had to give up the work they wanted and remain at home, financially isolated and dependent; it was toxic for our grandmothers when there was no such concept as "rape in marriage"; it was toxic for our mothers when the church forbade contraception and prevented control over their own fertility.

It's toxic right now for our sisters, as their dates insist on knowing their "body count" and form a view about their desirability and their status as a "good" woman based on how many people they've slept with.

I know of too many men who refuse to see the link between a culture that normalises binge-drinking and an increase of violent acts against women, even though police are in no doubt. I hear of too many men who tie themselves in knots attempting to find some kind of "consent" for incidents of rape — and yes, those excuses still include: "So why did she wear that dress?"

(In case you're wondering, that last observation comes from one of the most senior female non-executive directors in the country — and it's the conversation she had with her male peers just last week.)

It is exhausting. It never seems to end.

So, I am going to march, and I'm taking all this frustration and anger with me. But I better see blokes there.

And I better see fathers there – ones who are asking for the help they need to educate their sons and their daughters about the dangers of outdated and dangerous gender expectations and formulations. Men who want to call out the macho sh-t they still hear their friends saying. Men who don't immediately ask "but why did she get in the cab with him?" Men who are working to properly understand what consent is. Men who understand the connection between normalised over-drinking, normalised porn use, financial dependence and violence against women.

They better be there. We are sick of marching on our own.

This weekend we take you deep under the Nullarbor, deep into a royal's working life, and further than you might like into the algorithms of social media.

Have a safe and happy weekend, do catch up with a wonderful few days I spent with the actor and producer Marta Dusseldorp for my series, Creative Types and read about her intriguing suggestion for how to bring back the beloved Janet King. You can stream all the episodes you have missed, too.

And if you remember my/Taylor Swift's Patti Smith reference from last week, then please meet Patti's true musical daughter and heir.

Melbourne singer Grace Cummings has just released her third album, Ramona, and it's a powerhouse: gorgeous strings and bass and that luscious voice. It has all the feelings you need for this Saturday morning — and well into the night.

Go well.