Discussion Night: Violence against women
- Location: Atria, library
- Date:
- Time: 0:00
Discussion Night: Violence against women is a men’s issue
Violence against women is a human rights problem of pandemic proportions. It affects women of all backgrounds, across all cultures, in all countries in both public and private spaces. It includes physical, sexual and psychological forms of abuse. Although the vast, vast majority of cases are perpetrated by men, the campaigns, media attention, debates and talks on violence against women rarely include a mention of men alongside the alarming statistics that usually accompany these discussions. Men, and the way they’re socialised in the world, are largely erased from the issue, and so it’s often considered a problem for women to solve.
Every year in November, there’s a 16 day UN campaign to end violence against women. We’d like to use this discussion night as a platform to start thinking about an action, activity or campaign that we could plan in the coming months and run in November.
This night is for anyone who is outraged by the countless injustices of violence against women. But we especially encourage men to attend, if you are willing to acknowledge that as a man, you enjoy privilege that largely protects you from being directly affected by the issues we will be discussing. And acknowledge that even the most loving, caring and kind men in the world are still socialised into a patriarchal world in which their existence can feel threatening to women. So come to listen, engage constructively, be respectful, and hopefully come up with some badass activism against the world’s most pervasive and unjust human rights abuse.