I believe that the role of peers to educate others about these issues is highly necessary if we are going to be successful in changing the cultures of men's violence. However, my experience with anti violence or conflict mediation groups (especially with teens) is that the almost never take into account sexism, racism or other dynamics of oppression and power when discussing education. Men's violence against women (and their male partners) is not just about violence -- but is also imbedded in other notions of gender, power, entitlement, etc. Unless we include this in the analysis, then anti-violence groups are not addressing sexist violence.
I also believe, bouncing off of what Juergen stated, that educational efforts need to be part of a broader coordinated community -wide effort. This includes services for (in this case teens) who are abusive and who are abused, as well as other services, resources and efforts. We aren't going to change attitudes -- especially those attitudes as imbedded as those related to sexism, power and entitlement (which I see as the root of men's violence), much less a patriarchal culture, by an educational program here and there. It is going to take a much broader and more expansive campaign. In response to Suzanne Baker's request for information about DARE-type programs addressing violence and abuse in relationships: First off, and I don't know if this has been discussed yet, but the results of DARE are not as good as they initially appear (nor as good as DARE promotions would lead us to believe). So I am not sure that is the model we want to be looking at. That being said, gender-specific and cross gender groups of teens to address dating abuse, sexual assault, stalking and the like, it seems to me, are crucial. I know of very few models, however. There is a group in Arizona that works out of high schools -- who's name (of course) escapes me for the moment. Here in DC there is the EMPOWER program for girls (including a girls advisory board) and it seems to me that Girls Inc has some programming addressing dating abuse with young women. There are very few models for men. Again, here in DC, Men Can Stop Rape, Inc. has developed "men of strength" clubs that are places for teenage men to explore issues of masculinity, privilege, sexism and men's violence. If you are interested, I can probably dig up the contact information for you, although I know EMPOWER, Girls Inc and MCSR are all on the Web. Rus Funk Washington, DC [EMAIL PROTECTED] ***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/
