Women’s Resource Centre hosts conference to address violence against women
February 25, 2010 9:00 AM
From February 18 to 19, Antigonish played host to Girl Talk: Responding to Violence against Girls and Young Women, a conference addressing violence against women and girls organized by the Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre.
The keynote speaker, Helene Berman, is the Scotiabank Research Chair for the Center for Research and Education on Violence Against Women and Children.
She focused on the importance of context when discussing violence and encouraged the audience to imagine what visiting anthropologists would conclude about our society in which rape and violence are unacceptable, yet popular culture is hyper-sexualized.
Music celebrates rape, violence and the degradation of women; movie-goers rejoice over the bloodied and bruised; sports are based around cultures of violence; and the majority of porn provides severely skewed perceptions of sexual encounters.
Berman argues that we must begin to question why society criminalizes violence and also normalizes it. She gave several alarming statistics, some of which were that young people spend on average 28 hours a week watching murders in popular media, most of which are committed by men.
She argues that issues such as these are at the root of questioning what appears to be the socialization of boys and girls to expect violence and to normalize it in their lives.
These sentiments became themes throughout the weekend. Most speakers spent considerable time addressing the importance of placing violence in context, as well as providing a safe arena in which to discuss it.
Wyanne Sandler of the Antigonish Women’s Resource Centre and the conference’s organizer opened the discussion on Saturday by sharing a small part of the research she has been doing with rural girls concerning their experience of violence.
She explained that she had sought to open up dialogue, examine what violence is, how it is experienced and how to address it in a forum not dedicated to experts but to the girls on the front lines.
Eliza Knockwood, Sarah Furey, Leslie Marple and Betsy MacDonald sat on a panel discussion on the second day, each woman discussing an issue close to her for ten minutes then answering fielded questions.
Knockwood discussed the structural violence she has faced as an Aboriginal woman. She placed great emphasis on the process of healing, stating that while violence is pervasive amongst indigenous communities in Canada, healing may take place through the process of listening and witnessing as a collective community.
Her assertion that “hurt people hurt people and healed people heal people” highlighted the continued need for preventative and support structures throughout Canada.
Marple spoke on the construction of queer culture as a psychological issue. She recently completed her masters of psychology at the University of Toronto after having received her undergraduate degree at StFX.
MacDonald hails from Antigonish and has been extremely active in various parts of the community throughout the years. She spoke about forms of support available in Antigonish and the challenges presented by conservative groups to such initiatives as the “sex booklet” that sought to educate teens and young adults about healthy relationships.
Instead, its distribution to students was prevented by the school board.
Furey, vp communications for the students’ union, spoke to the importance of interdependence between survivors of violence and the communities they are a part of.
Furey suggested that the “secret world of violence” which serves to maintain silence about issues of violence against women can be infiltrated by creating safe spaces both within the wider community and on an individual level.
As was pointed out throughout the discussion, this conference was a unique situation where women and men came together to recognize the fact that there is still considerable work to be done in ending violence against women and girls.
