Yes, I can go first.
I agree with you in terms of how there is a difference between on reserve and off reserve. On reserve, aboriginal women may encounter violence against them, but they don't necessarily want to lose their husband, their family, all the things that matter to them.
The issue is that the woman is experiencing violence against her and she wants that to stop. The reason that a lot of women may be apprehensive about even calling the police is because they don't want to uproot their family unit. They don't want to lose all that--the community sense, for one, their family sense. All their family are in the community, and it might cause community uproar because of the husband's family. It really impacts the whole community, not just the family.
Yes, they are human beings. These are men who have a desire to have a family. They have a desire to be happy. One of the things they are having difficulty with is ensuring they have balance themselves.
Everybody needs to get their needs met. It just so happens that one of the ways a man, or anybody for that matter--it doesn't matter whether they are a man or woman--can achieve their balance is with power. When a woman feels empowerment, that's great, but how you achieve that empowerment is either negative or positive. You can achieve it on the negative side.
If a man goes home after a hard day's work and he has issues at work, he's frustrated. Dealing with anger may not be the same as going home and meditating. They go home and that's where they feel they can get their outlet, with the people they love the most. Their outlet happens to be their wife or their child. It's “get away from here”. Even though that man may love his family, that's what he's learned. Either he's learned it or he explodes...and maybe it's the one time; oftentimes it's every once in a while.
Maybe they don't have the job they want, or maybe it's not the career they're looking for. If all they're concerned about is putting food on the table--and putting food on the table may mean cleaning a ditch, making sure they do their job just to get a bit of money--where is the balance there? Is the empowerment of that man where it needs to be?
I think that's where it needs to be acknowledged that they're human beings. They don't want—