A recent event in Australia has sparked a huge amount of debate on what can be done to stop domestic violence against women and sometimes children.

Can't we all agree killing women and children is wrong?

This is about that powerless feeling.

And before certain male members of the Mudcat community start to make flippant comments or to try to deflect the conversation away from this topic, take a moment to think about why those flippant or deflective comments were more often made by males and not females.

If this topic was about Donald Trump, or Brexit, or a myriad other topics which pop up in the BS/Breeze Shooting section below the line, then the topic would probably not be hijacked by people saying that the topic is not worth discussing. There may be angry denials or arguments about the topic, there may be people erroneously (or not) taking generic comments personally and going off in a huff but staying to make their personal perceived affronts heard, but the topic would continue to be discussed or argued until it reached a logical end.

The sense of powerlessness felt, not only by the victims of domestic violence, but also by witnesses to the events, or even members of the general public who are shocked to the core by the actions of some people, (statistically most often men) against members of their families, (most often women and sometimes also children) is a real emotional response. Sometimes a victim's sense of powerlessness becomes the trap which enables the perpetration of violence and possibly murder, because the victim believes that s/he can do nothing to break the cycle, or that no one will believe her/him, or the system is against her/him.

But that sense of powerless also pervades media coverage. Why does this still keep happening? What can we do to prevent this? What is the government doing about this? Why has major funding been cut to essential domestic violence support organisations?

It's all about powerlessness. The focus somehow needs to be shifted to facilitating a sense of power to take control of our lives when we are potentially in danger, and a lot of theat starts, in my opinion, by being able to recognise that danger, recognise the signs in time to avert disaster.