I would like to comment on the recent reports highlighting the continuing problem of systematic domestic violence in New Zealand. A couple of weekends ago there was a feature in the Weekend Herald on domestic and family violence. The story makes for a dissapointing read – basically because there is no story. The article merely presents the statistics, discusses various measurement problems with those statistics and advises on how they can be best interpreted – i.e. conservatively. The focus remains safely on measurement, not the substantive problem. The article talks to a couple of key women involved in supporting or counteracting the violence. These women I’m sure do incredible and necessary work – but they are the usual suspects to be consulted. Furthermore, the accompanying picture of a forlorn, passive looking woman with a stage make-up bruise seems to misrepresent or perhaps underrepresent the nature of the problem. Is the nature of domestic violence really captured by a picture of a woman with a black eye?

I think what is also missing from this and other reports like it is discussion of the initiatives to prevent domestic violence which men are involved in. We hear little about mens organisations to conbat this violence in NZ or even overseas initiatives involving men. Of course this is in large part becuae there are relatively few. But they do exist and are growing. The White Ribbon campaign which started in Canada and now has presence here and in many other countries is an example. Perhaps journalists could think outside the box a bit and key into emerging movements like these.

Many men’s reticence on the issue of domestic violence and the lack of institutional support structures in society for men or men’s groups mean that the burden of analsyisng and investigating gender based violence is carried by women and women’s organisations. But this problem is not going to go away until men and masculinities are brought into analysis. Some campaigns in the media are slowly starting to do this through the use of celebrity – a great step. However, there is still perhaps a lack of understanding about routinely addressing the issue as a men’s as well as a women’s issue. The picture accompanying the article I think also demonstrates a lack of udnerstanding of the contextual, relational nature of violence.

A Mexican researcher Juan Carlos Ramirez Rodrigeuz argues that when men are approached to talk about their violence against their partners and children it is often perceived to be confrontational. To aviod this in his own work (in Mexico) he has used a narrative approach. He lets the men tell their stories and allows the issue of violence to come up ‘naturally’ in the flow of their dialogue about their lives. This gives better results on how the men perceive, manage and justify their violence and at the same time does not separate their acts from the broader context of thier lives.

He says “I believe we need to capture the relationships that are constantly in flux, and that are shaped by other linkages – to other men, to one’s original family, to the workplace, to sons and daughters, and to institutionalised discourses, whether firmly established or only nascent” (referene below).

I think approaching the problem this way allows us to see gender as a relational concept, not as something that women and men have. I think this sort of approach allows us to see better that men and women are gendered. Perhaps this way we can start to take for granted much less the masculine foundations of our society, many of which condone the manhy forms of violence against women.

I know there is a lot of work around masculinities and violence in some quarters, I just wish the mainstream media would get a bit more savvy. But a commercially owned press is not a free press, I suppose – but debating statistics under the guise of true analysis of a crucial social issue is disappointing.

Finally and importantly, I would like to paraphrase masculinities expert Robert Connell in saying that although statistically most violence in society is perpetrated by men, this does not mean all men are violent. Having said that at the level of the UN Violence Against Women is treated as a serious issue of ‘epidemic’ proportions. There are many UN sites dealing with it, but take a look at

http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/index.html

should give a few leads.

megan

Rodrigeuz, J., 2006. Revisioning Male Violence in Men of the Global South: a reader (ed) Jones, A. London: Zed Books pp67-71.