Madam Chair and honourable members, it's a real honour to be here, especially with my fellow panellists, two women for whom I have a great deal of respect and admiration. They've done a fantastic job already of laying out some of the things that I'd like to talk about.
My name is Todd Minerson, and I'm the executive director of the White Ribbon campaign. We're a Canadian based non-profit that's working on ending violence against women and girls, but our unique approach is to engage men and boys on that issue.
I want to talk to a few different aspects around engaging men and boys in violence prevention, and really I want to focus on three distinct things today.
I have to tell you a little bit about White Ribbon or else my board of directors will kill me, so I'm going to share a little bit about what we do. But I really want to focus in on two critical questions: why should we engage men and boys, and how should we engage men and boys in prevention of violence against women and girls?
Finally, I would like to pose some challenges and make a few concrete recommendations for the committee. It warmed my little heart on this cold Ottawa day to hear both of my fellow panellists mention the importance of engaging men and boys on this issue.
Here's a little bit about White Ribbon, and I promise to be brief. Many of you probably know that White Ribbon has its roots and origins in the tragedy of the Montreal massacre of December 6, 1989, when 14 women were tragically murdered at École Polytechnique in Montreal. After that tragedy, a small group of men, including the late Jack Layton, sat around a kitchen table in Toronto and tried to understand what the roles and responsibilities were for men on ending violence against women and girls. Some 24 years ago now, they came up with a pledge and an organization that we still use today. That pledge is to never commit, condone, or remain silent about violence against women. In the ensuing 24 years, a few very interesting things happened.
First of all, we've grown to be the only national organization that's looking at prevention of violence against women with men and boys. We do this work in partnership with women's organizations, first nations, Inuit, and Métis groups, educators, community builders, and many others. Second, in that time, we have become a globally recognized issue leader on this, working with the United Nations, governments around the world, major institutions, multinational corporations, and other international NGOs. Finally, out of a grassroots movement, we have become the largest effort of men and boys in the world. We now support activities in over 65 different countries, where men and boys are organizing around this little Canadian idea that we have a role and a responsibility as men to work to end violence against women and girls.
I'll move on to the key questions. Why should we work with men and boys? What does the evidence tell us?
If nothing else, these high-profile and tragic events of the past few months have brought men's roles around violence against women to a more significant place in our collective consciousness. If I were to play a little word association game with you and say the names Ray Rice, Jian Ghomeshi, Bill Cosby, or if I were to mention some university hockey teams or dental colleges, you would all know what I'm talking about. lt is no doubt evident to this committee that there is a serious problem when it comes to violence against women not only in this country but around the world, and that men have both a prominent and a troubling role in that violence.
I want to put the names of some other men out to you here, which you may not be as familiar with. I want to start with the name Glen Canning. He's the father of a young woman named Rehtaeh Parsons. Now he's become a tireless advocate for working to end violence against women.
You may have heard of a gentleman named Paul Lacerte. He is the executive director of the B.C. Association of Aboriginal Friendship Centres, and he started a campaign called the Moose Hide Campaign with his daughter while he was out hunting. This is to encourage first nations, Inuit, and Métis men to get involved in ending violence against women.
I want to tell you also about a 13-year-old boy named Max Bryant who I met a couple weeks ago at the United Nations. Max raised $40,000 for girls to go to school after he heard an interview with Malala Yousafzai.
I had a chance to talk to Max. I went up to him and I said, “Why did you do this?” Honestly, he looked at me like I was from Mars. He said, "What do you mean why? Why not? Girls have a right to go to school safely just like boys do.” It was completely natural for him to assume that gender equality is the norm.
My point here is that the traditional narratives around men, when it comes to violence against women, clearly focus on the problem and not so much on the solution. At White Ribbon, we want to vigorously dispute that narrative. While most men will never use violence against women or girls, too many men are silent about it. We believe that all men, as Jane was saying, have both the promise and potential to be part of that solution, and we are engaging thousands of men and boys across the country to do just that.
If we want to understand why and how we get men involved, we need to get a deeper understanding of the core causes of violence against women. My colleagues have already mentioned them in some detail. It's a complex issue, but there really are, according to our perspectives, three core root causes.
The first, as both panellists have already said, is the reality of gender inequality. If we think of the whole spectrum of gender inequality, on the tragic and traumatic end is the murder, sexual assault, and violence that happens to too many women across this country. Over 1,400 indigenous women are murdered and missing, and too many women suffer violence at the hands of intimate partners or families. Also, we have to remember the new and extremely troubling forms of violence that more women experience online and in social media than men do.
The second root cause is this idea, which Jane also mentioned, of harmful masculinities. When a baby boy is born, he is not born a violent human being, but there is something that happens. What is it about masculinity that makes some men feel it is acceptable to use violence against women? Are there links to the ways that boys are socialized at a very young age with an impossible-to-meet standard of what it means to be a real man, or where the worst thing you can do to a boy is call him a girl or gay or anything less than a real man? These phrases: “man up”, “boys will be boys”, “boys don't cry”, “you throw like a girl”, “don't show emotions”, “fight”, “take what's yours”, all these negative aspects of masculinity come with tragic costs to women and girls and, as Rosemary pointed out, also with a tremendous amount of harm for men and boys. This system of patriarchy is killing all of us.
Finally, the third root cause, which we have come to appreciate in our work with indigenous communities around the world, is the history of colonial violence and community trauma. We know that in many of these communities violence as a gendered act did not exist before contact. As a non-native person, I must bear witness to that.
If we accept these root causes, then we also must accept that men and boys have a role to play, not merely as perpetrators or potential perpetrators, but in the myriad other roles we play in society, such as fathers—which is a key entry point for engaging men—as bystanders, as faith and community leaders, as employers and business leaders, as government and institutional policy-makers, and as human beings.
We have come to call this work at White Ribbon primary prevention. Simply put, it's to stop the violence before it starts. If we want to do that, we have to engage men with practical means so that they can speak up and speak out to challenge and change social norms around men and violence, and to activate and amplify the roles that we can already play to eliminate all forms of gender-based violence. The important thing to note is that this is a complementary piece to the vital work that must continue to happen in supporting women who are leaving violent and abusive situations, as well as addressing those conditions that perpetuate the violence.
We think that this is an untapped approach to violence prevention. It has potential to be a game changer and it's difficult and frustrating work at times. It can also be fraught with challenges, but when we talk with guys like Max Bryant or the other men I mentioned earlier, we do have a lot of hope.
I want to touch a little bit on what we've learned about promising practices.