Follow-Up to Workplace DV Charity Event

Napnip sent me a follow-up to his workplace fundraising event for charities, which included a battered women's shelter. It seems from the dialogue that the woman could end up being educated about the hidden problem of domestic violence against men. I think the way napnip handled it also shows an effective way of challenging these myths without risking your job or even being overtly confrontational. See the Read More section for his submission. Napnip writes, "The forum was pretty much non-confrontational. The lady who gave the presentation didn't mention many statistics, except when she said that "every 9 seconds a woman is battered". I'm not sure where she got the "9 second" figure from, perhaps on a state-wide basis (here in South Carolina). When the meeting was almost over, I said that I had a question for her. I mentioned that not long ago the FBI stated that a woman is beaten every 15 seconds, to which she wholeheartedly agreed. Then I mentioned that the FBI doesn't actually tabulate or collect statistics on domestic violence, that they actually got that number from the Family Research Laboratory. Then I mentioned that according to FRL stats, a man is also beaten once every 15 seconds.
She was totally shocked when I said that. She really had a genuine look of shock on her face. I then mentioned the Dept. of Justice Violence Against Women Survey which stated men made up over 835,000 victims in '98, which amounts to 36%, and NOT the 5% myth going around. Again, she was in shock. She said that she had never heard those numbers, that she had always heard the 95-5% stats. I told her I would forward her some information from the 'net and she seemed eager to see the info. (I already had her e-mail addy since I had e-mailed her a couple of weeks ago asking advice about starting a men's shelter, and she surprisingly was very helpful.) She seems like she is open to an honest dialogue. I hope this is true."

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