That feeling has been magnified since he became a father — three of his four children are girls.

When his old mate proprietor Bill Perry invited him to come to Wodonga to address a White Ribbon Day at his Huon Hill Tavern, Archer didn’t hesitate.

“It got me thinking a lot more about the issue,” he said.

“It’s been really good because the more I’ve chatted about it, the more important I’ve realised it is.”

About 140 people attended yesterday’s event, run by Wodonga Council, Wodonga police and the Wodonga Apex Club.

Archer’s involvement was in a question and answer session, for which he got assistance from White Ribbon ambassador and Wodonga councillor Mark Byatt.

“One of the vested interests is that I’ve got three daughters who are one day going to be women,” he said.

“I started to think that we needed to have more of a stance against this.

“It’s something that’s pretty prevalent in the community and affects a lot of lives.

“It’s not just physically but mentally with the way some women can be treated.”

Archer said his AFL background informed him of the vital role that sport could play.

Sporting organisations, he said, had an important role in spreading the message that violence against women was unacceptable.

“They’ve got to get it drilled into boys at a young age,” he said.

Archer admitted he was fairly blunt in his discussion about why this was so important.

“Ninety-nine per cent of men are born physically stronger than women so for a man to actually hurt a woman is weak because most can’t defend themselves,” he said.

“I think we’d all like to go to our grave being known as courageous.

“Doing something like that — physically or mentally — against a woman is the complete opposite.”

Archer said he greatly enjoyed taking part.

“The more I spoke about it, the more passionate I got about it,” he said.

“Women and girls play a massive part of my life, and so if I can do a little bit to get the message across it’s only going to help.”

Cr Byatt previously said how the “devastating cycle of violence” against women took many forms.

It was, he said, a spectrum that encompassed financial, verbal, emotional, psychological, physical and sexual abuse, as well as workplace harassment.

“People need to know that they can make a difference,” he said.