Backlash or Equality?: The Influence of Men's and Women's Rights Discourses on Domestic Violence Legislation in Ontario

• NCJ Number: 225403
• Journal: Violence Against Women Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2009 Pages: 5-23
• Author(s): April L. Girard
• Date Published: January 2009
• Length: 19 pages
• Sponsoring Agency: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Legislation/Policy Analysis
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This examination of public debate on Ontario’s (Canada) Bill 117, An Act to Better Protect Victims of Domestic Violence, focuses on the discourses that men’s rights activists used to counter feminist constructions of domestic violence.

Abstract

Throughout the debate on Bill 117, there was contention over the relevance and bias of protection and rights in relation to gender and victimization. Many of the representatives of women’s antiviolence groups used gender-specific terminology in focusing on ways that government responsibility for protecting victims could be enhanced. In particular, they emphasized a holistic approach that includes offender accountability, victim protection, and community services that promote women’s equality, a concern that identifies their discourse as “feminist.” In countering the feminist orientation toward the legislation, the key argument of men’s rights organizations and supporters was that domestic violence is a human, rather than a gender, issue and that it is not about men’s violence against women, but rather about all violence against intimate partners. Men’s rights advocates were passionate in their belief that current laws discriminate against men under a feminist ideology and that Bill 117 would continue this discrimination in the sphere of domestic violence. One focus of men’s rights advocates was on funding issues, notably gender bias in the dispersion of funding for services to victims of domestic violence. Advocates for men‘s rights also argued that the presumption that women are the victims and men the perpetrators of domestic violence leads to false allegations against men by women. Each side of the argument provided statistics designed to bolster their position. The primary data source for this discussion of the debate surrounding Bill 117 was the Hansard verbatim transcripts of the Bill 117 hearings held from October 3 to December 5, 2000. The study used both content and discourse analysis. 9 notes and 39 references