From The Times

November 26, 2009

Violence: let’s separate the men from the boys

Posters, T-shirts and education campaigns won’t do. Only robust child protection will break the cycle for boys – and girls

Camila Batmanghelidjh

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It is wonderful to hear that the Government is launching an “ambitious strategy aiming to bring an end to violence against women and girls”. The agencies that championed this should be congratulated. It is the result of the most effective campaign spearheaded by the End Violence Against Women Coalition, as well as years of work done by refuges working with vulnerable women and children.

We are told that the strategy will make available £13 million to support victims of sexual and domestic violence; there will be a national communications strategy to educate children and the general public to understand that violence against women is abhorrent. In addition, there will be helplines supporting those who are being stalked and those who have experienced sexual violence. Domestic violence protection orders or “go orders” will be put in place to allow victims to stay in their homes and make perpetrators leave so that long-term plans for protection can be made. The NHS will also be asked to examine its role in responding to female victims of violence.

As I was reading through the announcement, I had a sense of joy but also of regret. I am happy for women but sad for boys and men. They too experience so much violence, but no one seems to be rising up to protect them. There is a risk that the analysis of violence stays embedded in simplistic narratives.

The perpetrator is often thought to be the male and the victim the female. Undoubtedly, women suffer across the world at the hands of men who perceive themselves to be superior, and whose perverse sense of “biological elitism” gives them permission to harm, control and minimise women.

However, the violence afflicting Britain is much more complicated. It is important to understand that, broadly speaking, there are two types of people involved in violence; the more disturbed I call the initiators of violence; the less disturbed are the imitators, who rise in defence when they have been attacked themselves.

 

Ending violence against women is profoundly important. But, then, so is ending violence against children, against men, boys, girls - against people altogether.

Camila Batmanghelidjh offers some very helpful and thought-provoking observations about how violence grows and is perpetuated within families. Girls as well as boys can be violent.

In the service of truth, I would like to point out that violence is not just an issue for boys. Girls can also be extremely violent — they often harm younger children as well as each other. Shockingly large numbers of boys and girls are constantly harmed by drug dealers, child abusers and through gang violence.

Campaigners have done a great job representing the women victims of domestic violence, but we need a broader commitment to reduce violence, one that is not simply a cosmetic campaign based on posters, concerts and life-not-knife T-shirts.

We need more of this kind of clear-headed thinking about one of the most damaging and often hidden aspects of family life and the bringing up of children.

The Baha'i perspective is that we are all born with latent virtues and that we all have the potential to rise to great heights of nobility. But we can also fall to great depths of depravity. It takes courage and commitment by adults to work with children and young people - particularly those aged 11-15 - to break the cycles that perpetuate violent behaviour, to transform individual, family and neighbourhood culture away from contest and violence to mutuality and support.

We are at an interesting crossroads in consumer culture.  Where luxury purchases used to be the ultimate sign of affluence or, at least, aspiring affluence, more consumers now may be driven to make conspicuously conscious purchases.  According to research co-authored by Aronte Bennett and mentioned in her MediaPost article, corporate social responsibility (CSR) seems to be becoming a strong motivator influencing consumers today – even in these bad economic times.  As she put it:

In a variety of experiments, our research found that consumers like CSR-associated products for two distinct reasons.

First, the fact that these products send out highly visible, social signals to their friends, family and co-workers regarding their kindness and charitable nature.

Second, they like the more private, self-signaling potential associated with the purchases of these products, even when a strong public social signal is absent to others.

These consumers like the visibility of what they are doing and they also gain in self-regard.  This is sounding familiar, like a whole other market – luxury.

continue reading.

Andrea Learned is a marketing dot-connector with a focus on gender and a longterm view on coming trends. Andrea's broad, colorful commentary can be found regularly on her blog, Learned on Women.