Behind DV rest sexism and views of women as objects
Today I participated the Westminster Hall debate – Domestic Violence (DV) against women. In this debate I drew attention to:
• DV against women is an issue for all of us and men especially
• A minority of men are perpetrators of DV but other men may know about situations and fail to challenge and or report
• Behind DV rest sexism and views of women as objects and in this day and age we need to support young people and adults what healthy relationships are and what it involves.
• DV has to become socially unacceptable and so I was proud to make mention of the White Ribbon Campaign.
• Some of the facts around DV are startling and these still shock me now e.g. 1 in 4 women will experience physical abuse in their lifetime, On average 2 women a week in the UK are killed because of domestic violence.
• Men and young people have to learn about DV and its impact on all. DV is not just a women’s problem.
• DV is physical, sexual, psychological, financial and also emotional and we must challenge all these aspects
• Prevention is the best cure so we need Male Ambassadors and Role Models to promote good relationship and challenge negative behaviours and sexism be active and speak out.
• Introduce Compulsory National Educational Programmes on Healthy Relationships this is a must if we have or one million children estimated to see DV every year
• Cultural Perspectives also need to be addressed and we need more men from BME communities to be role models in this area
• I also raised concern about the Cuts and Challenges Facing Charitable sector in General – Impact on Services for Women
I’m so glad Galloway lost.
It is still shocking how easily (in my very limited experience) abusive men ‘pass’ for normal. There is a definite evasiveness and concealment around other men, which makes it a bit optimistic to expect men to police abusers. But also, the abusive behavior can be so similar to ‘accepted standards’ that its easily rationalized and ignored.
How far is Cosby from a ‘swingin’ bachelor role-model from the 60s-90s? If he’d used alcohol alone, would people have been able to blame him rather than the victims.
I saw the headline of this piece and thought you were taking another swing at Daryush Valizadeh…
Got it kinda close…
Even if all of the men in the world stopped hitting women and all of the women stopped hitting men, the culture and practice of domestic violence by both men and women would still be widely accepted and, I suspect, scarcely diminished.
But men beating women is caused by misogyny. Practically everyone being beaten as children has nothing to do with it. After all, practically everyone gets beaten as children.