THERE’S a certain irony at the Engaging Men and Boys to End the Cycle of Violence Conference in Sydney, a national forum on how we can end family and domestic violence in this country. Overall attendance was up by 50 per cent on last year – very promising – and male attendance also promisingly reached a record 40 per cent. We are headed in the right direction. But there’s no denying we have a way to go.
As CEO of White Ribbon Australia and Communicare, I have been part of the chorus of women asking men to join the conversation. I want to listen to what boys and men want to say.
I want to know their thoughts on why domestic violence happens, what influenced their views of women in their own lives, what they think about the stories we all see hitting the news about violence against women, and together with men pave the way we can all take in this movement to stop family violence.
And it is a movement. White Ribbon was started by a group of Canadian men after they witnessed in 1989 a massacre of female students at cole Polytechnique university.
The ribbon reflected the idea of men giving up their arms.
Is silence one of the arms we are asking men to now put down? Yes. It is the critical next step.
We’ve come to a difficult place in dealing with FDV in Australia. Millions of Australian men are in a holding pattern, frozen between wanting to fix this but not having the answers, and the comfortable blanket of “not all men” bystander mode.
At White Ribbon we are working to encourage men to the conversation, to share their perspectives and insights into what the issues are.
The first step is listening loudly, which is at the heart of our #welisten campaign. We encourage men to share their real experience of being a man in today’s Australia. And we are working to ensure that coming into these conversations, they know there are no right answers, there is no perfect response, just a better one, we don’t have trick questions or ulterior motives.
By men taking a seat at the table, we can also move beyond unhelpful labels like “toxic masculinity'”. Terms like this put men on the defensive. We gain a lot when we get men asking what all men can do to be part of the solution.
I know this works because it’s a method critical to Communicare’s Breathing Space program, a live-in, intensive men’s behaviour change program designed for men who choose to use violence and abuse in their relationships. The key to meaningful change lies in listening to people’s own stories. These men are the experts in their own lives and our role is to listen loudly.
While it’s disheartening that we are still hearing sexist comments and seeing abusive behaviours from high-profile men, the fact that these are even news stories to begin with is a positive sign of movement in the right direction. Every time these remarks and displayed behaviours are called out, we change what is seen as socially acceptable.
It encourages men not to stay silent when they hear these sorts of comments echoed.
We need those men to join the conversation.
It is crucial for men to step up and help define the boundaries of acceptable attitudes and behaviour. If we make enough steps in the right direction, this movement will take shape, and who knows, next year there might be equal numbers of men and women at the Engaging Men and Boys to End the Cycle of Violence Conference.
