After the early December suspected murder-suicide allegedly involving NFL linebacker Jovan Belcher, there has been an inordinate amount of attention given by the media to the topic of violence against women and suicide. While the latter has had avid attention since Amanda Todd took her life, the former has garnered some unique attention from the media, activists, bloggers and other pundits.
There have been claims that violence against women is an epidemic in the NFL, and some other major sports. The women's shelters, and validly so, are pointing out the problem, too. But this is one of those classic examples of the 10-90 rule. That is something that happens 10 per cent of the time is getting 90 per cent of the attention, and what happens 90 per cent of the time is only getting 10 per cent of the attention.
Douglas Brownridge in his book, Violence Against Women, mentions that in Canada, three per cent of employed and six per cent of unemployed men were violent against their female partner in the past year. While, yes, that is three and six per cent too many, this does indirectly show another statistic that commonly gets overlooked, and that is 97 per cent employed and 94 per cent unemployed of men were not violent towards their partner in the past year. This shows that an overwhelming majority of men are not violent against their partners!
That violence against women occurs, is a travesty, and should not be taken lightly. But we need to be ever so careful not to stereotype particular populations, races and demographics. Violence against women occurs in cohabitation, marriage, after divorce, in renting situations, in homeowner situations, in stepfamilies, in traditional families, in rural settings, in urban settings, during pregnancy and after and to women who are aboriginal, of immigrant status, disabled or of European descent and so on.
There is nothing manly or macho about throwing a tantrum and acting out physically, especially in times when a woman is vulnerable, such as during pregnancy. Nor is it appropriate to label all men as abusers.
There are decent men out there, and even stellar men, at that. They love and support their partners and children. It's just unfortunate that we don't often hear of these tales, because they occur over 90 per cent of the time.
