Because of the Royal Commission into Family Violence, the issue of violence against women is very newsworthy in today's Australia.
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One hundred years ago that same violence's prevalence was a constant theme of the Melbourne feminist weekly The Woman Voter.
It agitated The Woman Voter that so much recruiting propaganda "makes a strong appeal to men to enlist because of the outrages being committed by German soldiers on Belgian women".
"[But what about] the outrages committed daily on Australian women and children by Australian men?
"And when we read in the Irish press of a hideous atrocity perpetrated by British soldiers on a helpless girl in Ireland let us ask ourselves: 'Who are we that we should dare cite the atrocities of war as shown by Germans as reasons for urging men to enlist?'
"A violent assault was committed upon her. Her blue costume was torn from her [unprintably explicit details follow] and how the girl escaped death is inexplicable.
"That atrocity is reported, not from Belgium or faraway Flanders, but from Athlone in Ireland by the Irish press. The perpetrators are not Huns from Prussia or Saxony. We learn from the Irish Times that they are identified by the victim as members of the Royal Field Artillery, who will no doubt be shortly engaged in the fight for civilisation and for the honour and purity of the women in Belgium. Meanwhile this is how how women at home are cherished. Save us from our friends."
