People are donning red lipstick to add their support for the ‘Red My Lips‘ campaign to fight sexual violence against women. This includes male teachers and students of Curtin University, who are standing up in solidarity as allies to women, and saying that things need to change.
Red My Lips is a US organisation created by Danielle Tansino, after she was sexually assaulted on a night out, then told by a female district attorney that they would not prosecute because “jurors don’t like girls that drink.” Shortly after this in 2012, Danielle created the campaign to gain awareness and visibility for women who face sexual assault, and start the conversation to instigate change.
ABC spoke to a university lecturer taking part in the campaign, Glynn Greensmith, who said,
“I thought it was a terrific message but it was being done by women and I thought ‘Hang on, men are the problem here. Should men be doing more to be part of the solution?’ 126,000 cases of sexual violence in Australia last year is an extraordinary number, we need to do something to start fixing that.”
Charlie Domville-Lewis, a student of Curtin University, said that many men might feel foolish wearing lipstick, but they need to put things into perspective:
“If there’s a certain potential for embarrassment or looking slightly undignified by doing this, it kind of shrinks in comparison to the shame that we should feel that we’ve lost 30 women in 15 weeks to domestic violence,” he said. “I feel like that’s more of an affront to anyone’s dignity than putting on some makeup.”
Greensmith also said that it was not as simple as wanting sexual violence should stop – we should begin with stopping victim-blaming. “We’re asking men to stand up, we’re asking men to be part of the people who say ‘don’t teach your girls what to wear, teach your boys not to rape’.”
