I must have led a fortunate life because I have never seen a man hit a woman. I can't comprehend how men, obviously stronger , can hit women at all.

But I find it worrying that we are using footballers as people to speak out against violence.
There have been many examples of footballers publicly shamed and disgraced because of violent behaviour to women and abuse of various kinds.

[There are of course many examples of violence to males, usually from other males, with a kid punched to death today, apparently, in Sydney.]

Recently I met a woman whose sister is in police work in Sydney. She says there is hardly a well-known footballer that you could name, whose name has not been associated with bad behaviour to women.

Couldn't we find some other men to denounce violence and have more credibility? Teachers... athletes.... tradesmen..businessmen? The idea of footballers as role models (whatever on earth that means) constantly bemuses me.

If we need "role models" for being a man, the best person to start with is usually our own fathers.

This campaign might make people feel good. That's fine. I wonder what a hard assessment of its effectiveness would say.
Violence to women is despicable, but we need to think of better ways of stopping it

Professional footballers, may have missed out on a lot of education because they have been contracted to a club at a young age, they certainly are not roll models. Men that fisically hit women are weak, and need to be dealt with by law. I can-not imagine such aggression, that would make you want to hit a woman.

I won't be wearing a white ribbon or swearing. Not that I disagree with the stated goals, rather that the representation of DV and violence in general has been deliberately skewed along gender lines and the effects of that skewing is perpetuating violence not ending it.

I've picked my side and it's against the corrupt lies that underpin most of the rhetoric of these campaigns.

Lets speak out against all violence regardless of the gender, size, age, ethnicity etc of either the perpetrator or the victim.

The promotion of gendered anti-violence campaigns serves to prolong the situations where much of the violence is at it's worst, where there is mutual violence.

R0bert

R0bert, sound words about what is nothing more than an avenue for self-promotion for those with little else to promote.

O'Keefe has a history of public drunkenness, Flood has a history of deliberate dishonesty, the organisation as a whole has a history of publishing dishonest and flawed "research" with no fact-checking, provided it is based on the message that "all men are violent".

What a great group...

Picking sides just shows you are an idiot.

Telling the truth as it really is, shows you are a man.

It would have been nice to find some here.

Hasbeen So what is the truth.