Seeking: Men To Take A More Proactive Role
By 250 News
Prince George, B.C. - The city's three Victim Services Providers want to mobilize male community leaders to take a more proactive role in working to end men committing violence against women.
At an open community roundtable discussion to look at the issue yesterday, there were 15 women in attendance and four men. While the two-hour discussion did not focus on that disparity - looking instead at what is working in Prince George, what isn't, what can be done about it, and where we go from here - participants did comment on it at the end.
One Victim Service worker asked point-blank, "Where are all the men?" Another said while there are more and more men working in this field, it was disappointing not to see them at the roundtable. A third participant offered that it may take more time. She said she's watched the number of men attending Victim Services conferences in Vancouver grow from one to about 10 now over the span of a number of years.
"I think we're definitely moving forward," says one of the roundtable organizers, Bally Bassi. "At the same time, having four (men) today versus zero back in the 90s or back in the 80s - that's a good number - but it's far fewer than we need. We do need more men working in this area, so we've got to continue that work."
Bassi is the Community, Social and Justice Program Manager at the Elizabeth Fry Society and she'd like to see some prominent men in the business community, from within the local RCMP detachment, and the city, itself, get involved in working towards ending men's violence against women.
She says violence against women "happens in everyone's backyard" and it's time to accept that reality and move forward.
Both NDP Leader Jack Layton and Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff raised the issue during last night's federal leadership debate as one that demanded attention.
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Posted by: He spoke on April 13 2011 12:24 PM
Second, although I support any effort to lower any kind of violence in society and especially in our community, I believe that an effort to curb violence of one kind in isolation from all other kinds of violence is probably not going to be as successful as it might be otherwise. How do you get a buy-in on reducing and hopefully eliminating violence by men against women when violenec by men again men is still sanctioned (i.e. war, contact sports, MMA, boxing.etc.)?
Yes, there is a size, strength, and power differential that makes male on female violence particularly heinous, but keep in mind that violence against children and seniors (other vulnerable populations) is typically at the hands of women. That this point is so is not defensible on the grounds that women more often find themselves in the care-giver role with children and seniors.
If we are serious about ending violence, let's talk about ALL forms of violence.
Remember, not all boys grow up in home where a father is present and involved in their life, but almost all boys grow up with a mother, so perhaps we should start with training mothers to raise their sons not to choose violence.
And please - not one word about men, testosterone, and violence - the research simply does not support the notion that men's higher levels of testosterone (and yes, women also have testosterone in their endocrine systems) are responsible for male violence.
My $0.02 worth.