How Australia’s domestic violence issue is inseparable from our ‘corrosive’ masculinity culture

So far this year nine* women have been killed in Australia by violence at the hands of men.

So far today police in Australia would have dealt with on average
396domestic violence matters

Learn more about these numbers.Share

Artist Paulette Hayes wept when she saw yet another death and felt compelled to honour these women in her artwork ‘Control. Abuse. Kill. She’ll be right mate’.

Comprised of 79 houses intricately crafted out of scrapbooking paper, the series honours the 79 women who died over the course of one year in Australia from a violent crime.

“The thing about paper is it’s very fragile,” Ms Hayes said.

Motioning to one of her small, picket-fenced houses, the Lismore artist said, “I could just hit that with one fist, and it’s destroyed”.

Ms Hayes carefully researched each death that occurred throughout the year 2013, the lives of the victims and the circumstances of their deaths, and built each paper house as a memorial to those women, incorporating symbols inspired by their story of life and death.

“What I’ve done in each of them is to try and put the story inside of them,” she said.

“Because they’re mainly a memorial, I want them to be beautiful.”

Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-24/domestic-violence-and-issue-of-male-fragility-explored-in-art/11992600