More than 830,000 men fall victim to domestic violence every year, which means every 37.8 seconds, somewhere in America a man is battered, according to the National Violence Against Women Survey. While more than 1.5 million women are also victims, everyone — no matter their sex –deserves help
At BU we think it is a reasonable conclusion to make that a Barbados society mirrors what is described in the quote above. Are we not sick and tired of hearing Nalita Gajahdar and Cynthia Forde spouting their feminist crap? Well in the case of Cynthia Forde we understand why. Why do these women feel that by bashing men that it makes them part of the solution? Why can’t they accept that although the incidences of women abusing men whether physically, verbally and emotionally is not as prevalent as men on women, it does still happen! In the famous words of Rodney King why is it that the Bureau for Gender Affairs does not foster an environment where the genders can “just get along”. We all have grown up in our villages and terraces where we have heard stories of women who constantly “nag” and “cuss” our men. The men often time remain silent to ensure that there is peace in the household especially when there are children around.
Ralph Boyce: Men are abused too
by CARLOS ATWELLMEN MUST BE ABLE to control their emotions better, said president of the Men’s Educational Support Group (MESA) Ralph Boyce, but society must remember they also got abused.He told the DAILY NATION in an interview Sunday that women had greater access to education and employment and as such, were in greater control and were also subjecting men to verbal, emotional, as well as physical abuse.He was responding to statements made by Minister of State in the Ministry of Education, Youth Affairs and Sports, Cynthia Forde, which appeared in the SUNDAY SUN.Forde said women “had to know they had to stand up and not be dependent on the men” and “the approach by males to resolving challenges with women by using brute tactics” must stop.
Saying it was “wrong” to focus only on violence against women, Boyce called for a sustained programme which looked into why abuse took place.
“We cannot talk about numbers as any abuse is wrong, but it is also wrong to focus only on violence against women. If men are being targeted as the abusers, then money should at least be targeted into finding out the psychological reasons behind the abuse,” he said.
Boyce said MESA received $1 000 a year but $1 million had been allocated for women’s shelters. He said they had never been informed as to whether there would be any shelters for men.
Forde expressed her willingness to work with the National Organisation of Women and the Bureau of Gender Affairs, but Boyce said it was equally important to work with MESA.
“We don’t condone any violence and men need to realise the other person does not belong to them; but women must also learn that if someone has been kind, protective and fair to them, that person should be treated with some kind of emotion, justice and fair play,” he said.
Although at BU we do not always agree with Ralph Boyce and the Men’s Educational Support Group (MESA) we applaud his effort so far to highlight the many concerns of men. We accept that we still live in a male oriented society but this does not mean that the rights of men must remain in abeyance. It is interesting to note from the quoted article MESA receives $1,000.00 per year when compared to one million for women for shelter. There can be agreement, if only from observation, that the men appear to be the gender in need of the shelter given the many characters we see around Bridgetown. BU remains fearful that more and more men will become marginalized in this process as more females ascend to more decision making positions in the country. We did a little unscientific experiment, we Google “gender affairs Barbados” and we were shocked at the results which came back. The majority of the results dealt with women issues. It is also insightful that when BU dialed 431-0850 which is the number listed in the 2006-2007 telephone directory we heard a recording that “the number we had reached is not I service”, perhaps indicative of the importance which all concern place on this division within government.
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