MORE than 1000 people are expected to attend the Newcastle Women's March 4 Justice, calling on the government to act against gendered violence in Parliament and for an overdue culture change in the nation's homes, workplaces and streets.
One of the members of the organising collective, Jenny Tarran, said almost every woman had a story about gendered violence.
"You look at a woman, you can't judge her and say 'Oh she's never had any gendered violence' because gendered violence is in the workplace, it's in the home, it's when we walk down the streets," Ms Tarran said.
"There's so many different types of gendered violence, so you've got domestic, you've got financial, you've got emotional, you've got physical and you've got sexual and there's probably a few more extra gendered violence things coming through that people haven't spoken about before.
"So it's everyone, it's the woman who works in the office, it's the supermarket girl, it's the mum at home, it's the teacher... it's not just white women violence, or young girls at the pub violence, or in the political halls."
Ms Tarran said she expected to see women from all walks of life at Monday's event, which she said had already spawned connections between strangers.
She said some were saying it would be their first protest.
"It seems the women I've met and am working with, we go from anger, to sorrow, back to anger and there's a lot of rage that needs to be let out," she said.
"We're going to yell with rage, let that scream out.
"Nothing has changed. It seems it's a lot of tokenism.
"Where there has been some changes we turn around and find out that realistically things haven't changed, as we've seen in Parliament House, as we've seen within world debating championships in Sydney 20 years ago and yet it was raised last year but nothing was really done about it, it wasn't pushed through the process."
Ms Tarran said many women had been motivated to act after the alleged rape of former Liberal staffer Brittany Higgins, the historic rape allegation against Attorney-General Christian Porter and Sydney schoolgirl Chanel Contos' gathering of testimonies of harassment and sexual assault.
The Newcastle event - to be held at 12noon on Monday in Civic Park - is one of more than 40 across the country tied to a petition that makes 10 demands of the government.
These include full independent investigations into all cases of gendered violence and timely referrals to appropriate authorities; fully implementing the 55 recommendations in the Australian Human Rights Commission's Respect@Work report of the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces 2020; lifting public funding for gendered violence prevention to world's best practice; and enacting a federal Gender Equality Act.
Ms Tarran said the Newcastle event was also calling for broader cultural changes and gender equity across society.
"There's very few of us here who actually walk those halls of Parliament, who get to get into that building and talk to the lawmakers," she said.
"It's about the cultural change in our community, because we're not Canberra, this is Newcastle. We have a different culture, we have different economies.
"We want women to walk down the street and not have to look at the ground to see if a shadow is suddenly moving quickly towards us in broad daylight when we might have headphones on.
"We're trying to not just change what's happening to women out there in workplaces, we're trying to change the narrative.
"We want some hope from this, we need hope for our children, whether they're boys or girls or non-binary."
Ms Tarran said attendees were asked to wear black and red to the event, which will include a Welcome To Country, guest speakers including from Warlga Ngurra Women and Children's Refuge, founder of Survivor's R Us Ann-Maria Martin, survivor Helen Cummings and Lynda-June Coe. An open mic segment will allow survivors to share their stories. Safe spaces will be dotted throughout the park. She said the event would also include a minute's silence in memory of women who had lost their lives and performances from a cellist, rappers and band Boycott.
"We're also hoping there will be some hope and joy come through this as well, that women can talk about what they're trying to do within their community or their circle, little changes they can see have happened or they're working towards."
1800 RESPECT
Details: facebook.com/groups/newcastlemarch
