Rick Goodwin is executive director of The Men’s Project.
An Ottawa counselling agency for men says it’s time to rethink the root causes of domestic violence to recognize that men and women alike can be abusive.
“We have sort of criminalized masculinity in that we can only see guys as being perpetrators of violence and not allowing men to be seen as victims,” says Rick Goodwin, executive director of the Men’s Project.
The most recent Statistics Canada report on family violence suggests that six per cent of women and seven per cent of men are abused by their partners. However, services for women in abusive relationships far outweigh those for men, and Goodwin says this is because violence is framed as a women’s issue.
To put an end to abusive family situations, Goodwin says Canadian society needs to recognize that violence comes in many forms and has many faces – and he says change needs to start with how the legal system interprets and deals with abusive people.
The Ontario court system requires those who have abused their partners to take a Partner Assault Response (PAR) course. The 16-week programs, offered by community-based agencies, aim to re-educate abusive people.
Erin Williams, executive director of the Ottawa Coalition to End Violence Against Women, says PAR programs allow men to re-examine their patriarchal beliefs and values.
“When you’re looking at why violence happens, it’s about male privilege, and it’s about power and control over women,” Williams says. “Abuse is not about anger, it’s about your power and your control over someone.”
But Goodwin points to statistics that suggest between 70 and 95 per cent of abusive men faced violence as children and says that it’s necessary to look at the issue in this context to put an end to the cycle. The Men’s Project offers counselling services to address this “core wound.”
“In essence they’ve had traumatic experiences as children,” Goodwin says. “The Men’s Project allowed us to reconceptualize, how do you engage with guys who are either a victim of violence, perpetrator of violence, or both. And the both is really I think a crux of the matter here.”
Goodwin used to run a PAR program in Ottawa but his belief that there were gaps in the service system led him to co-found the Men’s Project in 1997. The organization won a community safety award from Crime Prevention Ottawa in 2009.
“We try to work from the subjective of experience of the men that we serve, which kind of makes logical sense. How can counselling not do that?” Goodwin says.
“A PAR program does not work with subjective experience of men. I know that model and if anything I feel relatively guilty to promote a model of service that does not seem to have a basis of change," Goodwin says.
Assuming violence is about male dominance discounts men as victims and limits the services available to them, Goodwin says.
The Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General has been funding support services for male victims of sexual violence since 2003 – including $1.5 million for the Men’s Project in Ottawa and Cornwall, says Brendan Crawley, senior communications coordinator.
Goodwin says that’s a start but points out that there’s no dedicated funding for men who face other forms of violence in the home. He says the lack of dedicated shelters for men leaves them and their children to turn to homeless shelters to escape violent situations.
“Ontario has a system of shelters, transition houses for abused women and their children – and God bless those people that do that work, we’re not criticizing them – but Ontario really needs to provide a similar service for men who are victims of domestic violence,” Goodwin says.
However, Williams says leaving home is a “drastic move” and points out that women are more likely to be injured or killed by a partner than men. According to Statistics Canada, 56 women were killed by their partners in 2006, representing 78 per cent of all spousal homicides in Canada.
“It suggests that men are just as vulnerable to violence and actually make the drastic move to leave their home. Leaving your home and going into a woman’s shelter is not something that women want to do – this is something they have to do for their safety, for their lives, for the lives of their children,” Williams says. “Men are stronger so the extent of injury that can happen to a woman from a man is graver than vice-versa.”
Funding for shelters should be available on the basis of need, Williams says. In 2007, 3,281 women were turned away from women’s shelters in Ottawa
“If that’s a need then I think there should be funding available for everybody but proportionate to their victims,” Williams says. “All I know is there’s a need for more women’s shelters.”
Williams adds that federal funding cuts for the Status of Women and a shift toward gender-neutral language in official documents inaccurately suggests that women have overcome inequalities.
“It tends to be a backlash against women’s rights,” Williams says. “I think we need to be careful of not pitting men’s services against women’s services.”