Alongside the celebration of women’s achievement and progress this International Women’s Day, we want to acknowledge the role that men and allies play in challenging beliefs and attitudes that prevent equality for all women. Here Dale Larden, laboratory manager with The School of Optometry and Vision Science at UNSW, talks about how UNSW has been implementing the MATE Bystander leadership program.
UNSW provides MATE (Motivation Action Through Empowerment) Bystander leadership programs for staff and students to create respectful and equal communities. This came as a response to students and staff suggesting bystander workshops would provide essential skills to the UNSW community to be able to understand, recognise and respond to various disrespectful behaviours. MATE was developed by Griffith University. In November 2023, with the support and encouragement of our Head of School, Professor Lisa Keay, I enrolled in the MATE Bystander Train the Trainer to facilitate workshops.
The programs empower individuals to recognise problematic situations in a relationship or in a workplace, whether it be family and domestic violence, sexual violence, racism, discrimination, bullying or harassment, and provides strategies to intervene when it’s safe to do so. The goal is to raise awareness about the cultural roots of abusive behaviour and address subtler issues contributing to a potentially harmful environment. We discuss the role of the bystander and how they might facilitate change by challenging beliefs and attitudes that can lead to violence when normalised by society.
Since completion of the course, I have run several workshops for both staff and students at UNSW. These are focused on the prevention of violence and the creation of respectful workplaces, with much crossover between the two. One of the key messages, which I found most useful, is that ‘The Bystander’ doesn’t always need to be present in the moment, nor do they need to act in the moment. The rising rates of family and domestic violence are apparent to all. It is tempting to intervene directly and passionately when we observe disrespectful behaviour. The program teaches methods for intervening indirectly and encourages us to be ‘curious rather than furious’. Questioning the behaviour provides space for a conversation, which helps to change attitudes.
Each of these sessions is generally facilitated by two people. The topics covered can be triggering and it is useful to have a second facilitator in case one of the participants needs some time out.
One of the helpful messages from the program is that ‘we don’t know what we don’t know’. Some of our past actions may not have contributed to a safe and respectful environment. Moving forward, now that we are aware, we can be part of the solution.
I think the key message of this program is that we can all contribute to a safer and more respectful world. Even a small positive contribution can ripple out to create positive changes and foster a positive attitude in others.
Generally, we try to run workshops with mixed gendered facilitators. Occasionally we will run with two female facilitators. It is important to try and run it with at least one male presenter. It helps to send the message that domestic and family violence and disrespectful behaviour affect everyone. Men have a critical role to play in challenging the attitudes from which this behaviour stems.