Men’s issues group unveils billboard in reaction to Ontario’s ‘sexist’ campaign against domestic violence
Jake Edmiston and Nicole Thompson | March 9, 2015 | Last Updated: Mar 9 7:01 PM ET
A billboard near Davenport and Avenue Roads in Toronto, claiming that half domestic violence victims are men.
Calling the Ontario government’s campaign against sexual violence “sexist,” a men’s issues group unveiled a new billboard in downtown Toronto Monday in an attempt to draw attention to male victims of domestic abuse.
“HALF of domestic violence victims are men,” reads the billboard, paid for by the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE). “NO domestic violence shelters are dedicated to us.”
The billboard comes after Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne released a three-year, $41-million plan to combat sexual violence last week. The campaign, spurred in part by the high-profile sex assault allegations against Jian Ghomeshi, includes a video ad with staggering scenes of women being sexually assaulted and harassed.
In a news release Monday, CAFE accused Premier Wynne of forgetting “half the victims of violence.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c2ZSZrGc-O8
“Premier Kathleen Wynne’s violence against women initiative reinforces sexist stereotypes that ignore violence against men, gays and lesbians, and endanger children with abusive mothers,” the statement reads.
But declaring that men make up half of domestic violence victims risks oversimplifying a complex set of statistics, as one women’s advocate noted.
“If service providers were finding that there was such a need for men’s shelters, there would be men’s shelters,” said Penny Krowitz, executive director of Act to End Violence Against Women. “If we had enough men coming forward saying, ‘I need shelter from this abusive woman’ or ‘I need shelter from this situation,’ do you not think that we would have provided those services to men?”
A graph from a 2014 Centre for Justice Statistics report showing the victims of police reported intimate partner violence in Canada in 2013 (by gender and age).
In backing up its claim, CAFE cites a 2009 Statistics Canada survey that found an estimated 601,000 Canadian women and 585,000 men experienced spousal violence.
That study, however, also notes that women are twice as likely to be physically injured during spousal abuse than men; and almost seven times as likely to fear for their lives.
The latest data from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics found that the majority of police-reported spousal and family violence was against women. Women were the victims of nearly 80% of cases of intimate partner violence reported to police in 2013, the study found. And women between 20 and 24 were six times more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence then males the same age.
But those figures are based on police reports, CAFE spokesman Justin Trottier said, noting the Centre for Justice Statistics report itself finds female victims are “three times more likely than males to state that they had reported the incident to police.”
“In other words, there is an important scholarly debate about the rates of victimization, severity and reporting,” Mr. Trottier said in an email, “but the idea that male victimization is non-existent and can be safely ignored, is to neglect to support a huge group of people in need.”
Ontario Minister for Women’s Issues Tracy MacCharles’ responded to the billboard in a statement Monday, listing a number of sexual assault statistics (because the government’s campaign specifically concerns sexual violence).
“Sexual assault is a crime most often perpetrated by men against women,” the emailed statement read.
“That being said, we also know that men experience sexual violence and have unique needs for support,” the minister said, adding that the government funds the Support Services for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse program.
Mr. Trottier said CAFE didn’t take out the billboard to specifically respond to the new Ontario campaign.
“This is something that we’ve been working on for about two and a half months now,” he said. “It simply is trying to make room for a group that routinely gets marginalized.”
A CAFE fundraising campaign to either extend the Toronto billboard’s current month-long lease or post the ad on other billboards across the country had reached $2,000 by Monday afternoon, according to the organization’s website.
Men’s issues group unveils billboard in reaction to Ontario’s ‘sexist’ campaign against domestic violence | National Post
Here's a radical idea, how about advocates of women and advocates of men actually become advocates against violence, period.
Jake Edmiston and Nicole Thompson | March 9, 2015 | Last Updated: Mar 9 7:01 PM ET
A billboard near Davenport and Avenue Roads in Toronto, claiming that half domestic violence victims are men.
Calling the Ontario government’s campaign against sexual violence “sexist,” a men’s issues group unveiled a new billboard in downtown Toronto Monday in an attempt to draw attention to male victims of domestic abuse.
“HALF of domestic violence victims are men,” reads the billboard, paid for by the Canadian Association for Equality (CAFE). “NO domestic violence shelters are dedicated to us.”
The billboard comes after Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne released a three-year, $41-million plan to combat sexual violence last week. The campaign, spurred in part by the high-profile sex assault allegations against Jian Ghomeshi, includes a video ad with staggering scenes of women being sexually assaulted and harassed.
In a news release Monday, CAFE accused Premier Wynne of forgetting “half the victims of violence.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=c2ZSZrGc-O8
“Premier Kathleen Wynne’s violence against women initiative reinforces sexist stereotypes that ignore violence against men, gays and lesbians, and endanger children with abusive mothers,” the statement reads.
But declaring that men make up half of domestic violence victims risks oversimplifying a complex set of statistics, as one women’s advocate noted.
“If service providers were finding that there was such a need for men’s shelters, there would be men’s shelters,” said Penny Krowitz, executive director of Act to End Violence Against Women. “If we had enough men coming forward saying, ‘I need shelter from this abusive woman’ or ‘I need shelter from this situation,’ do you not think that we would have provided those services to men?”
A graph from a 2014 Centre for Justice Statistics report showing the victims of police reported intimate partner violence in Canada in 2013 (by gender and age).
In backing up its claim, CAFE cites a 2009 Statistics Canada survey that found an estimated 601,000 Canadian women and 585,000 men experienced spousal violence.
That study, however, also notes that women are twice as likely to be physically injured during spousal abuse than men; and almost seven times as likely to fear for their lives.
The latest data from the Canadian Centre for Justice Statistics found that the majority of police-reported spousal and family violence was against women. Women were the victims of nearly 80% of cases of intimate partner violence reported to police in 2013, the study found. And women between 20 and 24 were six times more likely to be victims of intimate partner violence then males the same age.
But those figures are based on police reports, CAFE spokesman Justin Trottier said, noting the Centre for Justice Statistics report itself finds female victims are “three times more likely than males to state that they had reported the incident to police.”
“In other words, there is an important scholarly debate about the rates of victimization, severity and reporting,” Mr. Trottier said in an email, “but the idea that male victimization is non-existent and can be safely ignored, is to neglect to support a huge group of people in need.”
Ontario Minister for Women’s Issues Tracy MacCharles’ responded to the billboard in a statement Monday, listing a number of sexual assault statistics (because the government’s campaign specifically concerns sexual violence).
“Sexual assault is a crime most often perpetrated by men against women,” the emailed statement read.
“That being said, we also know that men experience sexual violence and have unique needs for support,” the minister said, adding that the government funds the Support Services for Male Survivors of Sexual Abuse program.
Mr. Trottier said CAFE didn’t take out the billboard to specifically respond to the new Ontario campaign.
“This is something that we’ve been working on for about two and a half months now,” he said. “It simply is trying to make room for a group that routinely gets marginalized.”
A CAFE fundraising campaign to either extend the Toronto billboard’s current month-long lease or post the ad on other billboards across the country had reached $2,000 by Monday afternoon, according to the organization’s website.
Men’s issues group unveils billboard in reaction to Ontario’s ‘sexist’ campaign against domestic violence | National Post
Here's a radical idea, how about advocates of women and advocates of men actually become advocates against violence, period.