Plakat-Aktion kanadischer Männerrechtler facht Mediendebatte über häusliche Gewalt weiter an

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne has released a three-year, $41-million plan to combat sexual violence. Violence against women, that is, since she too is a cultural hemiagnosiac. The Canadian Association for Equality (CAFÉ) has mounted a counter-campaign, accusing Ms Wynne of forgetting "half the victims of violence." They have mounted a provocative billboard ad in which a man is seen cowering before the figure of an angry woman, with the hashtag #Let’stalkmen. A CAFÉ press release includes the statement: "Premier Kathleen Wynne’s violence against women initiative reinforces gender stereotypes that ignore violence against men, gays and lesbians, and endanger children with abusive mothers."

Penny Krowitz, executive director of Act to End Violence Against Women countered CAFÉ’s citation of Statistics Canada’s findings that almost as many men as women experience spousal violence (601,000 women to 585,000 men) with the argument that women are twice as likely to be physically injured during abuse and far more likely to fear for their lives.

Krowitz is correct that the most extreme form of spousal violence is male-on-female, but hard-core batterers and outright killers are rare (about 45 women are killed by male intimate partners in Canada annually, and about 25 men are killed by female partners, although the latter figure does not include proxy killings by boyfriends or others). In violence of the mild to moderately severe variety that constitutes most domestic violence – shoving, slapping, hitting, punching, throwing objects, even stabbing and burning – both sexes initiate and cause harm in equal measure. That includes gays and lesbians, where rates are higher than the general population.

Every major survey has borne out this truth. In fact, the most reliable, like Canada’s 1999 General Social Survey, found not only that most male and female violence is reciprocal, but also that the younger the sample, the more violent the women relative to men. A meta-analysis of more than 80 large-scale surveys notes a widening, concerning spread – less male and more female violence – in the dating cohort.

Hier findet man den vollständigen Artikel von Barbara Kay.