A letter written to the St. Catharines Standard, after the Violence and
  Abuse conference in Toronto.
 
                  Where were the Social Service Agencies?
 
     On Friday and Saturday, June 9 and June 10, there was a conference in
Toronto that dealt with the neglected issues of Violence and Abuse within the
Family. This well organised conference, organised by volunteers with the help
of Senator Anne Cools, provided a different view of the issue of spousal
violence and child abuse.
     The list of speakers included Dr. Murrray Strauss of the University of
New Hampshire; Dr. Ferrel Christenson, University of Alberta ; Dr. Reena
Sommer, University of Manitoba, Dr Hazel McBride, Child Psychologist; dennis
Pringle, Social Worker(Thunder Bay) and Helen Goudge, Social Worker(Toronto).
Members of the Legal Profession were also on the panel.
     Throughout the discussions, one central idea evolved. That the major
source of abuse is our Social Agencies and our Family Court system. The facts
that were presented showed that there exists a significant bias within the
system that is ideological in nature. As Dennis Pringle stated in his speech
on the issue of false claims of abuse, there exists "an element of the Social
Services field that pursue a Marxist Feminist Agenda" that circumvents and
corrupts the Justice System in pursuit of their own agenda.
     The fact that this conference was being held created a flurry of
activity among feminist organisations who organised a small protest and
distributed flyers that contained misleading statements and outright lies.
     Noticeably absent from the audience were representatives of the social
work field. Not one representative from any of the Child Protection agencies
or the Women's Shelters attended the sessions. This puzzled me, as I would
have thought that a conference that dealt with child abuse and spousal
violence would have been of interest to them. Could it be that because this
conference did not conform to the ideology of the Feminist Movement, in that
men were not considered the sole contributors to abuse, that these agencies
and their employees did not attend?
     I would ask the agencies in the Niagara Region and the City of Toronto,
why they did not have anyone in attendance. Was this conference pre-judged by
these agencies? Was it the presence of Dr. Reena Sommer, the author of a
paper that brought to light the fact that Women and Men both commit spousal
abuse at the same rate of frequency? Was it the fact that Senator Anne Cools
was there, the same Senator Cools who upset the Feminist Movement with her
International Womens Day speech that stated that women have to look at
themselves as abusers as well as victims of abuse?
     By their abscence, these agencies gave credence to the theory that a
Feminist agenda, not the welfare of children, is the motivation for these
agencies.
 
June 12, 1995
 
... Spousal Abuse... It's a Human Issue..not a Gender Issue
--- DB 1.58/004910
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