Hundreds of people have taken part in a rally for women's rights in Canberra. Holding placards with slogans like "This is what a feminist looks like" and "No means no", they heard a line of speakers of all ages call for change in the attitudes of some men towards women.
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One of the organisers, and the first speaker, Amy Blain, said: "We are all here because we want to see change."
She said she wanted the event to be broad, embracing people of different backgrounds. "Let our choice be to connect, not disconnect. To unify, not fragment. To work together, not apart," she said.
Most of those there were women, with a smattering of men, but there was a broad range of ages. An estimated 300 to 400 took part in the event. Similar rallies were held in Sydney and Melbourne and in US cities.
Away from the stage and the speakers in Canberra, some attendees reflected on what's changed across the generations - and what hasn't.
Fifteen-year-old Olivia Boddington said she was occasionally patronised by men and boys.
She said one male had said to her "I'm a man and I know what's real".
Olivia said she would, and did, call out that sort of comment and object, whereas she thought women in previous generations would more likely have kept silent. In contrast, she said: "I normally tell them to 'shut up'."
Would she say something if a man whistled at her from a building site? "It's so terrifying to have that happen," she said, and because of that fear she might well keep silent.
Not so 17-year-old Dhani Gilbert. "It's not OK. I will not be treated as though I'm a dog because you whistle at a dog."
"It was a very strong reality for a lot of women. I would turn round and tell them it's not OK," she said.
Dhani didn't think her generation was any more against what she called "Australia's culture of violence" than that of her mother or grandmother, but the youngest generation was "more outspoken about our refusal to be treated as lesser".
She thought male attitudes were beginning to change. "These kinds of movements are the beginning of change," she said.
From the older generation, there was a view that change was happening. Greens Member of the ACT Legislative Assembly Caroline Le Couteur noted that in the past, the women always washed up. "I don't think that young women feel like that any more."
When men whistled from building sites when she was young or shouted sexually loaded invitations, "I wouldn't have even processed it as abuse," she said. "That was life."
"If all they did was wolf-whistle, you were doing OK compared to what could have happened," said Ms Le Couteur who is in her late 60s.
But she emphasised it was a matter of tolerating the intolerable. "We put up with verbal abuse. We didn't think there was any choice."
Ms Le Couteur wants the law in the ACT changed to make consent for sex more definite so that men would have to be absolutely sure the woman they were with wanted what was about to happen.
There should be a consent law where both people in a new sexual relationship would need to say, 'Yes, this is what we want to do' ".
"My generation's position was to say 'No means no'. Young women think that's not good enough", she said.
There should be a much more explicit definition of consent enshrined in ACT law as there was in the law of other Australian states, she said.
Ms Le Couteur conceded this would be difficult to define in a legally tight way but it was important to send a signal that unwanted sex was completely unacceptable.
