We are all presented with opportunities every day in myriads of ways. Whether we choose to pursue an opportunity is dependent upon many things. When an opportunity of a lifetime presented itself to me on Monday 1 March I decided to jump in boots and all. Definitely a sliding door moment for me.
This once in a lifetime opportunity was joining the March 4 Justice organising team at its inception.
How did #March4JusticeAU burst onto the scene so quickly and how did it capture the attention of the nation as well as the international media?
It started on Sunday 28 February 2021, when Janine Hendry put out a tweet asking how many people it would take to surround Parliament House Canberra to protest against the sexual abuse and misogyny that was exposed two weeks prior when Brittany Higgins spoke up about her experience of sexual assault. 4,000 was the number that came back.
Then a twitter request went out for a website build on 1st March which my husband and I said we could do. That led to a few people getting together on 2nd March to see if we could muster 4,000 people to Canberra on 15th March when parliament resumed sitting.
A website was built, messaging created, brand image & artwork developed, media team put in place, socials and events teams started to coordinate and take action, and it took off from there. Key to getting traction was to be clear about our central purpose: #March4JusticeAU is focused on achieving equality, justice, fairness and respect in Australian Society and putting an end to gendered violence. We were also very clear that we needed to create an inclusive human-centred community seeking the support of all genders to help us in our quest. We know as women that we can’t do this alone and by all genders working together we can achieve more. We also used the hashtag #EnoughIsEnough which really took off. All of this was communicated on our website and all socials.
#March4JusticeAU is not unique in its purpose or as a movement, as there are hundreds of movements across the globe seeking the same thing. It’s just that the timing was right for #March4JusticeAU to galvanise hundreds of thousands of people across Australia. In late January, Grace Tame became Australian of the Year which took the issue of sexual abuse and assault to the national stage. All of us in some way, shape or form were being presented with the brutal facts. As Grace keeps on saying it’s time for a conversation. We must talk about this in the open for everyone to hear. We must raise awareness and promote transparency so we can stop this from happening in the future.
We seem to have reached a tipping point where women and their supporters are demanding change NOW.
#March4JusticeAU managed to raise awareness at national and international level – especially if the huge mainstream media coverage here and internationally is an indication.
While #March4JusticeAU emerged off the back of a tweet in just 14 days it didn’t happen by accident. Enough people got together, most of them strangers, and decided that we’d all had enough and it was time to do something about it and so #March4JusticeAU became a thing. A decision was made to run an event on 15 March. This brought together a team of 50+ talented volunteers across the country within days who acted quickly, coordinated themselves to end up creating the space for tens of thousands of people around Australia to attend events in metropolitan, regional and rural locations.
We also presented 4 specific demands we want immediate action on:
- Full independent investigations into all cases of gendered violence and timely referrals to appropriate authorities. Full public accountability for findings.
- Fully implement the 55 recommendations in the Australian Human Rights Commission’s Respect@Work report of the National Inquiry into Sexual Harassment in Australian Workplaces 2020.
- Lift public funding for gendered violence prevention to world’s best practice.
- The enactment of a federal Gender Equality Act to promote gender equality. It should include a gender equity audit of Parliamentary practices.
Clearly #March4JusticeAU had ignited something that was bigger than politics and ideologies. It tapped into the foundations of human decency and respect for others.
#March4JusticeAU’s message clearly resonated with many as some of the numbers show:
- 200 peaceful events across Australia with around 110,000 people in attendance that also focused on intersectionality, inclusivity and diversity of the speakers across events
- A well-engineered and informative website that, as an example of traffic, received over 800,000 hits from Australia, 40,000 hit from the US and many other hits from countries such as UK, Germany, Singapore on Saturday 13 March in a 24 hour period alone.
- A Socials strategy that saw for example the @march4justiceAU twitter handle go from zero to 15,200 followers; and an FB reach 520,500 people with 496,000 engagements the week of the events alone
- A media strategy that saw Janine and the #March4JusticeAU brand in every mainstream media outlet – print, tv, radio – across Australia as well as international coverage on the BBC, Time Magazine, The Washington Post and other international media outlets – to date M4J has been included in over 7,000 media impressions around the world
These stats alone are pretty impressive for a grass roots movement that started only 14 days earlier.
I have to say that #March4JusticeAU has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. What an experiment. We believe that it must keep going along with all the 100s of movements that are demanding equality and justice for women everywhere because #EnoughIsEnough.
It is time for open and transparent conversations.
It is time for equality, justice, fairness and respect for all in our workplaces, homes and society in general.
#March4JusticeAU
@March4JusticeAU
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