This debate has touched on many issues of but there is one fundamental issue that is missing. What is the role of women as mothers in continuing the violence? How do we shape our sons and daughters' behaviour? Why do our sons have the feeling of entitlement to violence but our daughters not? Michael Kaufman of the White Ribbon Programme at a national conference for men in Namibia argued that this entitlement is what allows men to continue the violence.
(I am not denying that women are also abusive - especially when it comes to emotional and psychological abuse - but with the prevailing statistics it is obvious that men are more likely to be abusive.) Preliminary findings of ongoing (and unpublished) research with violent men in the Windhoek central prisons in Namibia seems to indicate that rapists mostly had problems with the female parent - absent, cruel, negligent - whereas murderers had problems with the father figure. (The researcher is currently writing up her doctorate thesis on this issue.) I would like to know whether other researchers have found similar patterns? Rianne Selle ***End-violence is sponsored by UNIFEM and receives generous support from ICAP*** To post a message, send it to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To subscribe or unsubscribe, send a message to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. In the 1st line of the message type: subscribe end-violence OR type: unsubscribe end-violence Archives of previous End-violence messages can be found at: http://www.edc.org/GLG/end-violence/hypermail/
