What we can do to lessen violence, abuse

SOCIAL STUDIES - Published Monday September 22nd, 2008

In my university locker room there was a sticker. Someone had pasted it onto the side of a row of lockers in such an obtrusive way that every time you walked in you saw it glaring at you: "one out of every three women will be raped in their lifetime."

I was in a presentation the other day where the statistics were that one out of every four women will be abused.

Although the hardened professionals in the room just nodded their heads sagely, it was evident that most of us would like not to believe in this statistic. At the very least we wanted to say that we don't fit the norm.

I live in a house with three women. I did the math.

How about this: 33 per cent of all murders of women are committed by their "intimate partner". In case you are wondering only seven per cent of men are raped and only four per cent are killed by their spouses.

Or this, 40 per cent of all abuse cases start with the first pregnancy, and a pregnant woman is twice as likely to be abused as a non-pregnant woman.

We spend billions of dollars in terms of lost wages, mental health care, and emergency room trauma care every year as a result of abuse.

None of this takes into account the secret cost of depression, of fear, of pain. This does not look at the fact that abused children are more likely to abuse their children.

I am throwing out these statistics to make it seem a little more real.

This is one of those hidden problems of society; although given the prevalence it is hard to imagine we do not see it. And like it or not, it is a hidden problem because it is a woman's problem. Most men have absolutely no idea just how violent the world is for women -- simply because we do not experience it.

When I walk through a park at night I know that there are only a certain percentage of people in the world who are bigger and stronger than me -- a small percentage at that. I also know that unless they had a gun and were seriously intent on using it, I might be able to take them. I don't really worry too much about being alone.

My wife, for example, is half my size, and most men are physically larger than she is. That simple fact alone leads to a massive difference in how we experience the night.

But why is violence such a part of everything?

One reason might be the change of status that has affected almost everyone in society. In one generation we have gone from families where the husband was the bread winner and the wife took care of the children, to two parents working straight out while strangers care for the children; or many one parent families struggling to make ends meet.

We have struggled with gender roles to the extent that while I was growing up the only thing expected of me was that I would play sports, drink heavily, hunt and hang out with the guys. Everything else would be her problem. Now we realize that life is a struggle for everyone and we try to be equal partners.

But no one taught me how to be any different, and the role models on television and the movies don't always exhibit the best behaviour, although most of them are pretty good, come to think of it.

We have been brought up in a world that is changing so rapidly that we often no longer know our place in it. At the same time, that change makes us uncomfortable and we often feel powerless. We owe too much money, other people decide so much about what is going to happen to us, sickness and death are uncontrollable. In a world that seems so unstable and in which we seem so powerless, we want control.

Psychologists would tell you that abuse is almost always based on control. That the violator acts out because they are seeking to retain control. This is not simply control of the victim. It could be that their work life is out of control, or the finances, or the children, or an aging parent. . . and because you feel powerless to change those other things -- you act out in the one place that you do have power.

The scary thing is that this seems to be getting more and more common for younger and younger people. Teenagers are more likely to be abused in relationships than adults. Given the reasons I have been explaining this makes total sense. How many young people feel in control of their future, or their present for that matter?

So what can we do?

First we must recognize this is a real problem. It is not going away, and the world is not getting any less violent anytime soon.

Secondly we have to urge people to take it seriously. This is a billion dollar problem that affects a significant portion of our population and never makes it onto the campaign trail, for example.

Lastly, we have to pledge to live differently. Each of us has the ability to recognize our own power, in the workplace, in society, and in our individual home. Each of us has the responsibility to use that power in constructive ways.

To use a quote by Ghandi in a different context, we need to be the change we wish to see in the world.