ending Violence

I have, for a while now, been struggling with the call to end, or stop, violence against women.

Yes, we should do that and of that there can be no debate. But for me its not just about just stopping violence against women. Women are not the only victims of violence and men are not the only perpetrators of violence (and this is where I get close to being accused of victim blaming), but there are a couple of very key issues that seem to be constantly overlooked here:

• women are not the only ones being abused or killed,
• it is a minority of men who are offending in his way,
• not all abusers and killers are men,
• the role of direct and/or indirect provocation.

For me the key to ending family violence is to focus on stopping violence in all of its forms, regardless of who the victim is.

As much as I have an issue with “stop violence against women” I was angered when the other day I read, from a leading American anti-domestic violence organisation a new slogan: “Stop, violence against women and girls.”

WTF? What about boys? What about the little boys who get beaten, abused and sometimes killed by (a minority of) men? Really, do boys not matter?

Isn’t this attitude symptomatic of the social attitudes toward boys that leads them to become the men that they become.

Boys don’t need to be protected?