Campaign Against White Ribbon
I wish to mount a new challenge to the White Ribbon Campaign. I urge everyone here to copy and paste the letter below either into your email or to a printer, amend it if you wish, add your own details instead of the { } bits, then either send it or email it to the Human Rights Commission.
If you change the letter, please leave in a clear statement that you are or were offended by White Ribbon. I believe that if a reasonable number of people inform the HRC that they are offended by the campaign then the HRC has to accept it’s an offensive campaign.
I am highly offended by the campaign and its large poster that I frequently pass in my travels. Please email a copy of the letter to others, or print off a few copies of the letter (minus the { } bits) and ask men and women you know if they also would send one.
It would be great if people could mention here on MENZ Issues that they have sent or emailed their complaint, so we have an idea of how many complaints and notifications of offence the HRC has received.
{Your address here}
{date}
Human Rights Commission
PO Box 12411
Thorndon
WELLINGTON 6144OR: Sent via email to [email protected]
Dear Commissioner
Re: White Ribbon Campaign
I hereby formally complain about the White Ribbon Campaign.
I hereby inform you that I am offended by the White Ribbon Campaign, its slogans and posters calling for men to show they are against violence only towards women.
The White Ribbon Campaign discriminates on the basis of sex, stereotyping men as the only people who commit violence that deserves attention and discriminating against male victims of violence as not being worthy of consideration. Men are much more frequently the victims of violence in our society than women are, as shown for example by our Ministry of Health data concerning assault, homicide and attempted homicide (see: http://www.health.govt.nz/nz-health-statistics/health-statistics-and-data-sets/maori-health-data-and-stats/tatau-kahukura-maori-health-chart-book/nga-mana-hauora-tutohu-health-status-indicators/interpersonal-violence)
I strongly object to my taxes being used to support the White Ribbon Campaign. It is unacceptable that our Human Rights Commission and other government organisations would support a campaign that practises blatant discrimination on the basis of sex.
I look forward to your stance against the White Ribbon Campaign. I would support a campaign against violence that does not discriminate on the basis of sex/gender.
Yours faithfully
{Your signature and full name }
{Your telephone contact details }
1 gone from me by mail Hans.
Comment by Gwahir — Mon 17th December 2012 @ 9:39 pm
Excellent Hans – as you know from my posts, the mere fact this department is PROHIBITED from even investigating DISCRIMINATION against men, when it involves a GOVT department just highlights the sham that it is.
Comment by hornet — Tue 18th December 2012 @ 7:56 am
I’ve sent one in thanks Hans
Comment by Nicholas Cooper — Tue 18th December 2012 @ 8:40 pm
The campaign of Victim-in-the-hood.
Comment by Down Under — Fri 21st December 2012 @ 2:46 pm
Done, this is a great idea, thanks for putting in the work to create this Hans, you make a huge difference
Comment by David Jade Young — Wed 2nd January 2013 @ 8:02 pm
I got a (template) response back from HRC
page1
page2
Hans or anyone else, could you refer me to some examples of response to this challenging the assumptions and stereotypes claimed in the letter, such as accurate DV statistics (not even considering the underreporting by men and the multiplier on reporting by women.)
Comment by David Jade Young — Fri 18th January 2013 @ 12:35 pm
To Auckland Humanity Project
I am concerned that you utilise White Ribbon as your only gender equality resource. They do some good things. But they are also man shaming, little better than the old “all men are rapists”.
It is easy to point a finger ie MAN up and do something to stop violence. That is only a thinly veiled shaming message to men. Shaming is not a part of positive mental health, it is part of damaging people’s mental health.
Auckland Humanity Project is very much positive mental health, in all of its facets. You are brilliant.
The average man in the street has very little power to stop the Malcolm Rewa’s of this world. Especially as the family court prevents many men from caring for their own children and influencing the development of their own children.
Interesting, as often women and family court prevent men from playing a full role in the development of their own children. (Sure, read the Care of Children Act 2004, but this doesn’t actually happen very often in the secret family court.)
So, the women caring for many of our children alone, do have much more opportunity to influence their children. And too many of these children do end up as rapists. Too many – I am not laying sole blame, just according to statistics….
Sure, men may murder more children than women. (But women manslaughter more children than men, but we don’t talk so much about that. These children’s bodies are not smashed up, they are poisoned by pills, suffocated by blankets and the like. But these cases are fed to media much less than murders…)
The largest loss of quality of life that our children suffer, is due to neglect and psychological abuse. No broken bones to show up in X-rays. Hard to diagnose and even harder to prove in court. Less harm than being murdered, but the numbers of children is many hundreds of times higher. Ask a schoolteacher about remedial classes in primary schools. These are full of neglected and psychologically abused children.
Sexual abuse by women is very little talked about, but the numbers are certainly not negligible.
So perhaps women have in their hands more opportunity to reduce production of future rapists and murderers?
I am not suggesting to point an accusing finger at solo mothers. They need more support. Their children in general need access to their own fathers and father’s families, in ways not poisoned by these solo mothers.
Our White Ribbon salesmen don’t have anything to say about that.
I am just suggesting that we approach our problems with an aim to be constructive and fair.
Gender prejudiced DV programmes have had fairly small positive impacts. They have also had negative impacts as big as the positives.
Lets aim more carefully, to do more good and less harm?
I have two male children, so I have an incentive to make these issues better.
If you are curious, I can provide statistics to back up these statements. In cases where NZ lacks sufficiently detailed statistics, I would show UK, USA and Australian statistics.
Thank you very much for your positive works,
Murray Bacon.
Comment by MurrayBacon — Thu 2nd August 2018 @ 3:33 am