This morning on Radio 4's Today programme, it was reported on the News that new classes were to be drafted into the school curriculum to educate boys from the age of 5 that it is wrong to commit domestic violence against women.The following news item was the recapture of the former Duchess of York's dresser Jane Andrews who had been on the run from an open prison where she was serving a life sentence for bludgeoning her boyfriend with a cricket bat and then stabbing him to death in 2000 for refusing to marry her. Ironically she had then lied that she had slain him in self-defence after he had attacked her; if the forensic evidence was anything to go by; in his sleep!
Does anyone else feel that both genders might benefit from such classes in increasingly compulsive, vicious and immature times of growing gender equality?
Though personally I would much rather both boys and girls were taught HOW to have a functional, loving relationship in the first place - if they have no example to learn from in their home lives - and that they should either seek professional help or call it a day (like civilised human beings) if they can't.
By the way, to avert confusion (and libel risk), I ought to point out that the murderer is the one standing on the left in the picture above.
5 comments:
I'm astounded by this. I only caught a little of the story last night on the news and automatically assumed that both boys and girls would benefit from this proposed change in the curriculum. How offensive! I don't doubt that the majority of domestic violence is committed by men but I bet there's a surprisingly high number of silent, male sufferers too.
I'm so with you on this...there is such an emphasis on the don't do this, don't do that rather than the positive...as you say 'how to'.
There does seem to be a natural assumption that males are the source of all evils in this country...and that just isn't right.
Went to a talk at the boy's school the other week about teen drinking, drugs and self-harm...not a mention of how to create an environment which would help avoid this in the first place
I am thoroughly sick and tired of the anti-boy ethos in schools at the moment. It makes me want to kill someone sometimes. But somewhere along the line I must have been taught restraint!
Steve, since most men are apparently too embarrassed to complain, perhaps we'll never know the true figure for domestic violence against men. Except for those who wind up stabbed to death like Jane Andrew's beau, that is. Conversely women will complain, but seldom press charges and almost as seldom leave a bad situation.
Nota Bene. As comedian Simon Munnery would say 'If men are so awful, who brought them up that way? Women, that's who!' Which I don't entirely agree on but he makes a valid point - up to a point. The more spoilt and unboundaried children become, the more immature and aggression-incontinent they will be as adults.
RB - Hear hear! Gender battles are ludicrous as if there weren't a need for both, there wouldn't be both! Nature is not stupid. Sadly the same cannot always be said for nurture.
I'd strongly recommend this:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nhmgn
It's from a lecture provocatively called "A Woman's Right to Be Evil".
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