Ad blitz to combat disrespect to women

Ad blitz to combat disrespect to women

A $30 million advertising campaign hopes to combat violence against women by focusing on early attitudes of disrespect.

I'm getting so tired of these gender-based campaigns providing tens to hundreds of millions of dollars of funding to support only girls and women, with boys and men being excluded from receiving such support.

From this article that attacks boys and men while excusing girls and women for the same behaviour, we have only a single line that states the truth:

"We need to teach our young boys and girls to respect one another and that we are equals full stop."

But how can this be achieved when the money and the focus of attention is being spent only on changing the attitudes of boys and men, while excusing the same behaviour in girls and women?

The multitude of messages being presented by this article include the following:

• excuses accepting the bad behaviour of boys needs to change (by excluding girls, apparently their bad behaviour is acceptable)
• violence against women is wrong (by excluding men from this statement, apparently violence against men is acceptable)
• little girls need to be taught not to blame themselves when bullied or attacked by little boys (by excluding boys from this statement, apparently it's ok for them to accept all the blame when attacked by little girls)
• apparently only little boys attack little girls
• only men are 'loud and aggressive', while 'strong female politicians' need to be 'stronger'
• only women are killed by male partners
• only girls and women deserve to be supported

There's more of it here, about the same campaign: Domestic Violence Ad Campaign Asks Australians To 'Stop It From The Start'

• A young boy slamming a door on a girl as a "joke."
• A woman cowering, terrified, on the floor as her enraged partner looms over her, venom in his stare.
• ...new government ad campaign... urging Australian men to "stop it from the start"...
• "We have to address the prevalence of violence against women and girls in this country. It is a disgrace...

No examples are included about the violence by girls and women against boys and men. From the language and focus of this campaign, and others, we can tell that the violence by girls and women against boys and men is apparently acceptable, while the violence by boys and men against girls and women needs to be addresssed and eliminated.

It's disgusting. Campaigns such as these should be addressing violence full stop. All people are both perpetrators or victims. It's not just males who are perpetrators and females are only victims. Creating these divisive campaigns and providing support to only half the community is only going to create more problems with mental health issues amongst boys and men, who won't receive support because all the money's going to female victims. The end result is going to be an increase in violence from these unsupported and mentally ill males, which will only add fuel to the ongoing campaign of male demonisation.

When will we, as a society, stand up and say that we need to support all people, and oppose all violence, regardless of who it is that's engaging in it?