It has passed not because violence against women has passed. It hasn’t. We know, for instance, that at least 55 women have died violently this year. We know that a woman is hospitalised every 90 minutes because of injuries inflicted by either a partner or former partner, a parent or a child.

But White Ribbon is not fit-for-purpose. It is – and always was – the wrong tool for the job of dismantling the behaviours which lead to violence against women. It tries to engage men in this most wicked of problems by rewarding them for surface behaviour, for the shallow actions of hosting morning teas and wearing a pretty white ribbon on their lapels. That is not and never will be behaviour change.

Time after time, the organisation has failed to live up to any promise it had; and its last failure should illustrate to everyone why White Ribbon should close.

BuzzFeed’s Gina Rushton revealed on Friday that White Ribbon’s new chief executive Tracy McLeod Howe removed the organisation’s support of reproductive rights from its website because "we are agnostic until our stakeholders tell us it is important to most of them". The statement reads, in part, “all women should have complete control over their reproductive and sexual health”.

Fortunately, an almighty public backlash followed; and the statement was reinstated before the day was out. Apparently, stakeholders (that is, the living breathing people who want violence against women to end) told McLeod Howe that reproductive rights are human rights; and without those rights women will never be equal. And perhaps even told her that inequality is one of the key drivers of violence against women.

Public pressure is one glorious thing. Time and time again, we see it work for public good. But we should be deeply concerned that the chief executive of an organisation purporting to be about stopping violence against women thinks she needs to consult on reproductive rights with her stakeholders.

Her stakeholders – her key stakeholders – are women. They are the weak, the vulnerable, the strong and the brave, the women who experience violence and those who witness it, those who support the women who suffer. And those women demand equality. It is those opinions which matter most.

This is not the first time White Ribbon has failed. Its process for selecting its ambassadors is so corrupted that the title White Ribbon ambassador is nearly meaningless.

First, what does it take to be an ambassador? Good question. It appears to be a number of e-learning modules which require answering multiple choice questions. It does not, however, require anyone to make an actual worthwhile commitment, such as lobbying your employer to provide paid domestic violence leave; or, in the case of the employers themselves, committing to paid domestic violence leave in the workplace. The hurdles are so low, even the neighbourhood cat could leap over them.

It no longer carries a comprehensive list of those who are ambassadors or advocates, probably because it wishes to avoid transparency and accountability. Where once you could check to see if a person claiming to be an ambassador actually was one, now it is up to the individual ambassador to decide whether to list themselves. Now, if you wanted to check whether former Northern Territory Attorney-General John Elferink stepped down immediately after telling a colleague he was "really tempted to give her a slap”, you would have to rely on White Ribbon to publicise it. In that case, it only took one day before Elferink was dumped by White Ribbon. But when psychiatrist Tanveer Ahmed excused male violence against women because of "male disempowerment", White Ribbon didn’t take the initiative. Instead, Ahmed had a week to allow him to “publicly recommit”.

Just last year, Lisa Visentin revealed a plan by the men's organisation to accept money from a publican if the authorities let him install more poker machines in his venue. White Ribbon only changed its mind on the money when Visentin called. In other words, it was willing to take money in exchange for supporting contributing factors to violence against women.

And White Ribbon is a consultant to the NRL on violence against women, the same NRL which this year refused to respond to questions about the figures which showed a dramatic increase in family violence on State of Origin game days (and which refuses to acknowledge the relationship between alcohol and violence).

Last year, I criticised White Ribbon for colonising the day set to honour the International Day of the Elimination of Violence Against Women to celebrate men who claim to do the right thing. And instead of picking a date months away, it decided to place White Ribbon day just two days ahead, front and centre.

Send the money where it matters, to refuges, to education programs for children and young people, to support programs for victims. We can’t fix male violence by affixing white ribbons or by putting all this money and attention on adult male behaviour. By then, they are unfixable. We have zero evidence that these consciousness-raising endeavours actually raise consciousness or change behaviour. In the meantime, women are dying while men wear white ribbons.

Close White Ribbon. Spend your money where it matters.

Jenna Price is an academic at the University of Technology Sydney and a Herald columnist.