![Men get no pats on the back for basic human decency Men get no pats on the back for basic human decency](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/rdPnbxNSt95RbDXSGgzrdz/835e9000-4b9b-421f-8046-99e74d9899a6.jpg/r0_769_7360_4907_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
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On Saturday, catching up with a friend I hadn’t seen for a while, talk turned to our mutual friends.
Two women we both know have been in abusive relationships where their partners have either hit them or repeatedly issued threats about how they're going to.
Sighing as we talked about how our friends were going, my friend looked across the table at our two blokes who were drinking beer, eating tacos and discussing pitfalls of quiet carriages on trains and said “Aren't we lucky”. It was an offhand statement, but it made me think twice.
Yes, I answered. We’re lucky to be sitting across from two lovely humans who are good company, can cook excellent tacos, and make hilarious, intelligent conversation from the mundane parts of their daily commute. But surely we don't need to be filled with gratitude because they don't hit us?
For the past few days, I've been turning this around in my head, wondering how we ended up with such a low bar.
In 2015, an analysis of ABS statistics found one in four Australian women has experienced physical or sexual violence by an intimate partner. Take a look around at the couples you know and think about that.
That doesn't include the women - more than 300,000 each year - who experience violence from someone other than a partner, and all the women (eight in 10, apparently) who are harassed while out in public.
With these numbers it does start to seem like my friend and I should be thanking our lucky stars, statistically, to live with men who don't make us feel small and powerless.
But I refuse to say I'm grateful. Instead, I’ll say I want the men I know to be a lot better than that. Because I refuse to believe a human should be congratulated or thanked or considered to be a nice guy just because he doesn't bash up his partner. If that's what “lucky” amounts to – or what men aspire to - we’re a long way from changing our national domestic violence problem.