On the topic of violence against women, I've had a couple of thoughts that I might include in a column. I'm just wonder whether I'm unconsciously recycling ideas I might have picked up from another source.
First thought:
If all women decided tomorrow that violence against women should end, violence against women would not end. (Although women can take steps to limit that violence.) However, if all men decided tomorrow that violence against women should end, then violence against women would end.
(Ok, unless it's violence by women against other women.)
Second thought:
I'm thinking of posing a challenge to the male readers, something like:
I ask that all men reading this column to make a promise to not commit acts of violence against women. For many of you, this will be an easy promise to make. Some of you will not make this promise. So, I'm asking why not. And as we think about all the reasons why a man won't make that promise, we can realize how entrenched this problem is.
1 comment:
I think it's a great idea. It made me think of an incident that happened when I still lived in Venice. We used to hang out with our neighbors and we had all gone out for St Patrick's Day. The next day, the wife of our married neighbors was sporting an obviously husband-inflicted black eye. He had somehow gotten jealous in one of the most innocent night outs I've ever been a part of and decided she needed a lesson. I was so outraged and I wanted to go over there and give him what for! I wanted my guy roommates (3 of them) to go over and have a man to immature a**hole talk with him about how that was going to stop and I mean RIGHT NOW! But they all got positively coy about the idea. They did that thing that men do that drives me absolutely nuts - that look-at-the-floor-shake-their-heads-shuffle-foot-not-me-boss thing you see when a guy they know needs to be straightened out, but no one wants to be the guy to do it. That guilty gutless "I might get kicked out of the club" look.
It's the same reaction that sometimes happens when an otherwise upstanding fellow is in the presense of some truly heinous remark and says nothing.
They weren't best buds with this guy, so they weren't risking loosing him. They weren't strangers either - they were sitting in the catbird seat of giving him some sound, stern advice. But not only were they horrified at the thought, but they were united in their refusal to let me do it. I could not understand it, here were men I generally held in high regard. Regular good guys who became sick at the idea of standing up to a bully.
It seems like the same device you are talking about. If men decided it would stop...
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