Joan Abernethy

2015-03-10 19:48:43 -0400

We want to be careful with this one. Women in Canada have only been persons under our law for not yet 100 years and in many cultures in the world, still are not.



Before the famous Alberta women moved on this issue, Canada was, more or less, a domestic honour culture. Women were property, like cattle, to be bought and sold. We did as we were told or else. Our lives were worth less. We were expendable.



There are many groups in Canada that would like to restore gender apartheid in our law and how best to do that but by demonizing women?



“The rape wasn’t my fault; I raped in self defence!” Sure, that’s hyperbolic … now … but you get my point. “I took her teeth out because she threatened to leave”, etc. Violence is the woman’s fault. Always has been. Right?



Having made that point, there is no denying that males, especially boys, are frequent victims of female domestic violence and, including men, of frequent psychological and financial domestic abuse by women.



I don’t buy the idea that female on male domestic violence is equal to male on female domestic violence. Sure, women hit. But nowhere near as lethally as men do. We don’t want to lose sight of that fact. The data Justin relied on to conclude the incidence of male violence is equal to the incidence of female violence were collected from a highly subjective self-report survey not from an objective hospital record of injuries sustained.



I agree there should be more focus on and help for victims of domestic abuse in LGBTQ relationships.



As to more shelters, it is the wrong way to go. The ones we have are filled with working girls who, admittedly, are often victims of “domestic” abuse but whose pimps use the tax paid-for shelters to save on housing costs to make more profit. Non-working-girl victims of domestic abuse are put at risk by crime misuse of shelters that prop open fire doors with bricks to let johns in and out to avoid detection by front-entrance video surveillance.



Pass guaranteed income law that allows victims of abuse to access funding to purchase private secure housing during domestic abuse crises. Safe. Dignified. Cheaper.



I should point out that the clip of Wynne’s campaign about violence against women is not solely or even mostly about domestic abuse. It is about workplace violence and casual sexual harrassment, exploitation and predation in public.



That clip of the fellow putting rohypnol in the woman’s drink could happen not only at a bar but at a corporate holiday party or a Pride parade. It’s no joke.



I wonder if Justin Trottier has any data on the incidence of female on male sexual predation in society generally, in the workplace, or by means of covert rohypnol intoxication.



Wynne’s campaign does not focus on male predators in exclusion to female domestic abusers either. In fact, it focuses, in the clip shown here, on bystanders.



“Thanks for doing nothing to help, nothing to stop the abuse. Thanks for being a silent collaborator. Thanks for saying nothing, for keeping quiet”.



I support Wynne’s campaign to oppose sexual violence and sexual harrassment in the workplace. It was, in fact, initiated by my MPP , PC vice-chair of the committee, Laurie Scott. Conservatives support this campaign, if not the partisan composition of its committee.



I also support more resources for boys and men and for members of the LGBTQ community who are in abusive domestic relationships.



The two – the premier’s campaign against sexual violence and Trottier’s campaign for more resources for male and LGBTQ domestic-abuse victims – are neither concerned with the same issues or mutually exclusive. They are both worthy initiatives.

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