# IMPERFIX: Believing Women with Tarang Chawla

An episode of [The Imperfects](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1476501557), 24 May 2024, 18 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/ctlsdu3comiqbkbpsxsdtan1.mp3

After his sister, Niki, was murdered by her ex-partner, Tarang Chawla made a decision - that he wouldn’t allow Niki to be remembered as just another statistic. Since then, Tarang has become an activist, working to reduce incidents of all forms of violence and abuse towards women in Australian. In this episode of the IMPERFIX, we reflect on a conversation we had with Tarang back in 2022. Here, Tarang discusses the importance of believing and supporting women when they disclose abuse, and understanding the role of power, control, and gender inequality in such scenarios. Tarang also emphasises the need to separate individuals from their potentially abusive behaviour, underscoring the collective responsibility of men in combating violence against women. Here are some important links from this episode. 🎧 Previous episodes of The Imperfects • Tarang Chawla - Men Talking About Mens Violence https://apple.co/3APcuGi • An imperfect chat about men - https://apple.co/4e2vQpP 📱 Things to follow • Tarang Chawla’s Instagram - https://bit.ly/4bQa8Up 🎧 Things to listen to • There’s no place like home, with Tarang Chawla https://bit.ly/3yst5Oq 🚨 For support • Our watch https://bit.ly/3w0BQhV • White Ribbon https://bit.ly/3W6nMhs • No To Violence https://bit.ly/3UlyiA5 If you feel like you are in immediate danger please call 000. If you need someone to talk to we recommend calling the national 24-hour sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling line 1800 RESPECT on 1800 732 732. The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] My name's George, and I edit The Imperfects.
[0:02] I grew up on Ngunnawal country, studied on Bundjalung country, and am now living and working on Wurundjeri country.
[0:08] On behalf of The Imperfects, we acknowledge the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation as the traditional owners of the land on which this podcast was recorded, and we extend our respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.
[0:20] The rich storytelling history of the world's oldest living culture is what we proudly pay homage to when we share stories on The Imperfects.
[0:27] Hi there!
[0:29] I'm like the imperfects.
[0:31] Oh yeah, sort of.
[0:32] But I'm a quick fix.
[0:33] Yeah, if you're in a hurry or something.
[0:34] I'm a helpful mix of archival tips from episodes past.
[0:38] You can listen to me fast.
[0:39] Da-da-da-da-da!
[0:40] Get ready for this.
[0:41] Yeah, why not?
[0:42] It won't take long.
[0:42] I'm an episode of the imperfects.
[0:45] Hi, it's just Ryan here for The Imperfects, where we go back into the archives and find an episode that we'd like to revisit in a shorter form.
[0:53] And in this episode, we revisit an episode with Tarang Chawler.
[0:57] He's a writer and he's also an advocate spreading awareness of men's violence against women after his sister was murdered by a man.
[1:06] We wanted to replay this episode because we thought this was a really interesting and helpful conversation.
[1:13] Terang talks about why we should believe women, what to do if you hear misogyny spoken about with friends or in a group, what to say, what not to say, but also why it's simply just not about shaming men.
[1:24] Yeah.
[1:25] Like always, we will put a link to this full episode in the show notes if you want to hear the full chat.
[1:31] And also a recent episode we did called An Imperfect Chat About Men, which was just me, Hugh and Josh.
[1:37] So we will be back with Tarang Chawler after this break.
[1:45] So, I mean, I came to do this work, to do this activism, advocacy, whatever you want to call it, a little over seven years ago now.
[1:53] You know, my family, we moved here when I was 18 months of age and, you know, a couple of suitcases, some old paper money.
[2:02] And then three years after that, my mum gave birth to my little sister, Nikki.
[2:07] And in many ways, you know, like coming from that migrant background, Nikki's birth kind of completed our family, right?
[2:14] Like kind of made it feel, made Melbourne in particular feel like home.
[2:19] And life was swell, right?
[2:21] And then, you know, Nikki got older, I got older.
[2:24] And when she was 23 in 2015, she tried to break up with her then partner.
[2:33] and things hadn't been working out for her for a while with him.
[2:37] And there was this kind of background of abuse that we didn't fully comprehend.
[2:43] We didn't fully understand it, to be honest.
[2:45] I think we've made a lot of progress as a society in terms of understanding the issue.
[2:49] But then...
[2:51] Nikki tried to break up with him and a lot of women who lose their lives to men's violence lose their life in the context of separation, you know, when they're trying to end the relationship.
[3:01] And so what happens like at like a fundamental level is that these men who are violent towards women have this kind of attitude of entitlement, right?
[3:10] They've got this attitude of like ownership over the women that they claim to love or that they, you know,
[3:16] that they're in relationships with.
[3:18] And the man who perpetrated violence against Nikki was no different.
[3:23] His final message to her was, well, if you don't want to be with me, then you can't be with anyone.
[3:30] And so he killed her.
[3:32] And that was the beginning of 2015.
[3:36] That was like the 9th of January 2015.
[3:38] And I just, yeah, I remember that sometimes so vividly like it was yesterday.
[3:45] And often when we talk about, you know, when you talk about those four women, we talk about the statistics, you know, like one in four women from the age of 15 experiencing violence.
[3:54] It's sort of like this strange thing where it's like, wow, that's something that happened to my sister.
[3:59] That's someone that I know that I grew up side by side with.
[4:04] And then, yeah, like that's how I sort of came to do this work.
[4:08] That following her murder, I was like, you know, I have the benefit of a university education.
[4:13] My parents moved here.
[4:14] So they, you know, like a lot of migrant families do.
[4:17] So they could give their kids a better life.
[4:19] And then...
[4:21] Yeah, she lost her life to that violence and I just thought...
[4:25] fuck, I've got to do something.
[4:27] I've got to say something.
[4:28] I can't just sit there and be quiet.
[4:30] I think there's this thing, right, where like whether it's Nikki or whoever it is, particularly women who've lost their lives, you know, had their lives taken from them, there's this perception that, you know, particularly in the way the media reports on their death, is that all they were or all they are is a statistic or a victim, but they have whole lives, right?
[4:49] Like really they become known by the, you know, the mode of their death.
[4:55] Right.
[4:55] But, you know, they're more than that.
[4:57] You know, like if someone loses their life to cancer, we don't remember them just because of the cancer.
[5:02] We remember who they were as a person.
[5:05] And I think we could do the same to women who do find themselves as statistics, that they're not just viewed in that way as a victim.
[5:14] Yeah.
[5:14] And I think it also comes down to the way that we, particularly men, respond, right?
[5:18] Like if a woman discloses abuse or violence, whether institutional or in a domestic setting or in a workplace setting, whatever it is, right?
[5:28] I think we have a duty to believe them.
[5:31] And that doesn't... And I think people get really funny about that.
[5:33] They're like, oh, but people lie and, you know, and some people do lie, right?
[5:38] But what we should do is not disbelieve them immediately.
[5:43] And I think we shouldn't gaslight them straight away.
[5:45] You know, I think what happens straight away is that people say, oh, no, that can't be true.
[5:50] You know what?
[5:50] Tim is a great guy.
[5:52] He would never do that.
[5:53] If that's the default response...
[5:56] to a woman disclosing that she's been abused, then what does that say about our society and what does that say about ourselves?
[6:05] You know, like if, Josh, you said something to me and the first thing I said to you is, no, that can't be true or that's not true, I'm effectively just saying you lied to me.
[6:15] Yeah, or you have to prove it.
[6:16] Yeah, and sometimes it's difficult to prove, right?
[6:20] Of course, yeah.
[6:21] But that's not enough.
[6:22] Leave that for the courts.
[6:24] Leave that for law enforcement.
[6:25] Leave that for someone else, right?
[6:27] In the moment, the most supportive thing we can do is actually just say, like, I believe you and I hear you and I'm here for you.
[6:37] What do you need?
[6:38] You know, what do you need from me right now?
[6:41] And there's some of those powerful words in the English language is just being like, what do you need from me right now?
[6:46] What would help you in this moment?
[6:49] And sometimes for some women, that's all it is, is just, you know, or men or whoever, right, is just feeling heard, not feeling alone and feeling seen.
[7:00] But too many of us, you know, and I mean, I'm guilty of that, right, is just thinking, oh, no, I'm not sure.
[7:07] Yeah, I wonder if it comes from, it's not always such a bad intent to not believe that it comes from a position of, oh, this is way too intense for me to deal with, so I'm just going to try and avoid it and shut it down.
[7:20] And in the act of doing that, you're actually gaslighting and continuing the behaviour that they're suffering from.
[7:26] Because they haven't felt seen or felt heard.
[7:28] So I think this kind of helps to allow that to...
[7:33] To not be the case.
[7:34] It helps women to feel seen and heard and supported.
[7:37] And that's what they've needed, you know.
[7:39] And the rest of it, the healing journey, for lack of a better term, is long and drawn out, you know.
[7:46] And I think it would be better if more men in particular listened to the voices and stories of women.
[7:53] you've touched on a little bit why do you think it is so prevalent like what causes this to happen that's a very that's a very big question yeah look it's I mean there's there's different schools of thought you know in terms of what causes it and in there's no place like home because we've done this podcast and
[8:14] you know, over 100 hours of raw audio kind of condensed into just like gems of wisdom from experts and obviously centred around the stories of 10 unique victim survivors, there are some clear patterns around inequality and power and control.
[8:31] And they sort of
[8:33] they're a theme that every survivor shares, you know, that they were in a relationship where, whether there was physical violence or not, that there was this kind of need to exert dominance and power and control.
[8:47] So there were some, you know, there were some survivors for whom there was a lot of financial abuse, you know, like keeping someone on an allowance, like a grown adult person on an allowance and ensuring that they didn't go over that and
[9:04] never raising so much as a finger, never leaving a mark, but making this person live kind of in this shell of a human body, like that they were not free to be themselves, to express themselves, to spend time with the people that they wanted to spend time with.
[9:21] That's a form of control.
[9:22] Yeah, right, and that's a form of exerting dominance.
[9:25] So when we talk about like emotional abuse,
[9:28] we're not really talking about like the kind of, you know, once-off argument that you might have, right?
[9:33] Conflict happens in even the healthiest of relationships.
[9:36] Conflict itself is just any disagreement, right?
[9:38] It's really about how you handle it.
[9:41] And if one person is like belittling the other person and name-calling them, then yeah, I mean, you could make the argument that they're abusing them, right?
[9:48] But when that becomes a pattern,
[9:51] then it becomes an abusive relationship.
[9:53] And I think it's really important for people to learn that, you know, and know that distinction that like a one soft kind of argument is not an abusive relationship, right?
[10:02] Cause I know a lot of men get worried, right?
[10:04] They're like, Oh, am I, am I an abuser?
[10:08] Um,
[10:09] And if they're worried about that behavior, then, you know, there's so many things that they can do to seek help.
[10:14] But at its core, like it's that power and control.
[10:17] And then also because of how much it disproportionately impacts on women, there's gender inequality.
[10:24] And I mean, there are people who think, and we touch on it a little in the podcast, with some experts who think that gender inequality isn't as big a driver, you know, and they think that other factors might be at play.
[10:36] And my argument sort of, you know, particularly as a man, is that like equality isn't going to hurt men.
[10:44] You know, like if we think about how women are seen as being nurturing, empathetic, caring, and men are seen as like stoic and strong and dominant, that doesn't give us space, I think, as men.
[10:57] I don't think that gives us space to be free and experience the whole range of human emotion.
[11:02] I don't think it's necessarily like we talk about toxic masculinity, right, Hugh?
[11:06] I don't think it's toxic to have those traits of stoicism, et cetera.
[11:12] But if that's all that you have, I think that's – and for some reason I find the term toxic masculinity sometimes limiting.
[11:20] I think it's –
[11:21] in its own form, it's like oppressive masculinity, you know, because if you can't experience the full range of human emotion because, you know, of some like unwritten rule about what men and boys are supposed to be, then in its own way, that's oppressing you from being your full self.
[11:38] Mm-hmm.
[11:39] To get kind of specific, if I'm in a situation with a group of guys, like my mates or whatever, I know them or I've met some guys and I feel like I reckon something's not right in that relationship and I know the guy.
[11:58] I don't think shame is the right way to go because it's just going to push him further down that path.
[12:03] A, what responsibility do I have if I'm mate to this guy and I'm concerned?
[12:09] And then B, what are some sort of...
[12:12] What do you do?
[12:13] Like, how do you begin that process?
[12:14] Because I feel like there must be a responsibility on us to be the men to try and fix this problem.
[12:19] Yeah.
[12:20] Okay.
[12:20] So, firstly, I just want to say a very good question.
[12:23] I think it has to be...
[12:24] Isn't it?
[12:25] Yeah.
[12:26] Like, firstly, right, and I think this has to be said, and it's not talked about enough among men, is...
[12:34] Don't be a hero that puts yourself into a situation where you also, you know, potentially could get hurt physically.
[12:40] Yeah.
[12:41] Right?
[12:41] Like, there is a risk of, you know, men thinking that they need to be the, you know, knight in shining armor.
[12:48] You know, particularly if you're out over drinks, it's a heated situation and you think, oh, I'm going to step in and fix all of this.
[12:56] Kind of keep your wits about yourself.
[12:57] You know, you don't want to escalate a situation.
[13:00] You always want to de-escalate a situation.
[13:03] I think what you touched on in your question is so important as well around shame, right?
[13:07] Like if you make someone feel less than, then you're not going to get the end outcome that you want, right?
[13:13] They're going to retreat into themselves.
[13:15] They're probably going to go into like those patterns of behavior that they know feel safe to them, which might cause harm to other people, which is exactly what we don't want.
[13:24] And so I think one of the things that you can do in that situation is to remove the person from the behavior, right?
[13:31] You know, like don't make it about say like, Josh, you are an abusive person, for example, right?
[13:37] It's like, hey, Josh, what happened there wasn't okay.
[13:41] You know, it's not about them.
[13:42] It's about the behavior, right?
[13:44] And oftentimes in the moment, it's about getting out of that situation.
[13:49] You know, change for this issue isn't going to happen overnight.
[13:53] It's going to happen through incremental steps.
[13:55] And the one thing I always think is so important is
[13:59] is to make it about the collective.
[14:01] You know, like if we're talking about group settings, right, rather than singling out one person and being like, oh, you know, Terang's like this or Hugh's like that or whatever, just being like, hey, aren't we better than that?
[14:11] Like aren't we wanting to be a certain type of way?
[14:14] It's like collective responsibility.
[14:16] Absolutely.
[14:17] You know, because it's not about the individual, right?
[14:19] Like if you've got a group of guys and there's one guy whose behavior you're worried about, right, and you just kick him out of the group, he'll find another group.
[14:26] Yeah.
[14:26] Right.
[14:27] You know, and if that's your first port of kind of call to like fix the issue is just, oh, just get rid of him.
[14:35] He's not going to learn anything from that.
[14:37] You're not going to, you know, you're not really helping the situation.
[14:40] It's almost a selfish act, really, to kind of like just push the problem into another place as opposed to.
[14:46] Yeah.
[14:48] And it makes it seem like.
[14:50] They're solely the problem.
[14:52] Like there's nothing in our group that has made it that it's been okay for them to behave that way.
[14:57] You know, I think it's kind of if we examine our own kind of entitlements and privileges and then we go, oh, you know, maybe we've created an environment here where he thinks it's okay to belittle women or demean women or treat women in a certain way.
[15:12] Yeah.
[15:14] What is it about this group?
[15:15] You know, what can we do differently?
[15:17] You know, should we have a conversation with him?
[15:19] You know, what's the best way to approach this?
[15:22] And I think that a lot of us as blokes don't have that conversation.
[15:26] Like we don't have it at all.
[15:27] We're just like, oh, you know, he's a problem, you know, or...
[15:31] more commonly than saying he's a problem, is actually just diminishing it entirely.
[15:35] Just being like, oh, that's just the way he is.
[15:37] You know?
[15:38] Yeah.
[15:39] That's just the way Tim is.
[15:40] Oh, it's fine.
[15:41] You know, he's always been like that.
[15:43] He doesn't mean anything by it.
[15:45] And it's like, but maybe he does, you know?
[15:49] Sorry to any Tims out there, but like Tim's kind of like, you know, let's say he's making a sexist joke every time we catch up, right?
[15:55] And then it's like, after a while, it's like,
[15:59] I don't know if that's okay anymore.
[16:01] Yeah.
[16:01] You know?
[16:03] And the thing is, right, that not all sexism or disrespect of women is going to end in like –
[16:10] you know, the way my sister lost her life, you know, being stabbed to death.
[16:13] It's not going to, that's not how it's, you know, that link is not like it's a clear straight line, right?
[16:20] But it's a continuum.
[16:21] And so especially for women, they don't know, you know, if the guy that's making sexist jokes at the pub is the same guy that's going to potentially use physical violence in the home, right?
[16:34] They don't, they don't, they actually don't know because no abusers have it written on their foreheads.
[16:39] So I think, you know, as a society, the more that we have that collective responsibility, like you touched on, Ryan, the more that we kind of look out for one another, you know, because this has been as an issue.
[16:50] We've sort of treated it like we'll just keep it behind closed doors.
[16:54] It's just a domestic.
[16:56] It's none of our business.
[16:57] Yeah.
[16:59] But if we see something and we walk past it.
[17:03] then we're just saying that that's okay.
[17:06] Yeah.
[17:06] You know, and I would have hoped that if someone knew, you know, what Nikki was going through, that they'd have done something, that they'd have said something.
[17:15] Yeah.
[17:16] You know, and it's, you know, and Nikki's just one face.
[17:19] You know, there's so many people that are impacted by the issue that I think we have this responsibility.
[17:26] You know, like we can support a mate to get help if he's got problems with his behaviour or his behaviour is causing issues in his family.
[17:33] or for ourselves and be like, hey, we could get help.
[17:36] We could talk to a therapist.
[17:37] We go to some behavior change or anger management or whatever it is to really kind of become the best versions of ourselves.
[17:47] The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment.
[17:54] The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you're struggling, please see a healthcare professional or call Lifeline on 13 11 14.
[18:02] And as always, if you'd like to hear more from this conversation, you can find a link to the full episode in the show notes.

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