*TRIGGERING* Stop Domestic Violence (France)

[Jimmy H.]

Feminist organisation Choisir (http://www. choisirlacausedesfemmes.org/) links to this clip (see below) for the domestic violence awareness campaign lead by the Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes. It focuses on the way domestic violence affects children, and is addressed to men; the slogan at the end says "A man who maltreats his wife is teaching his children violence."


***WARNING: TRIGGERING***

Big size version:
http://www. youtube.com/v/FAaZXIPNH48

Direct link to Youtube page with smaller version:
http://www. youtube.com/watch?v=FAaZXIPNH48

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I am always skeptical about the use of advertising, but this is pretty subtle because it is set in a white petit-bourgeois family and it shows the violence of verbal abuse (the man shouts "did I hit you? Did I hit you?").

This is supposed to be airing on television in preparation for the 25th. Choisir's front page says that in France, one woman dies every three days under her male spouse's beating.

I have been told that some people have reacted negatively to the spot. My guess is that they would have preferred it to be set in a North African or Black family, so that they could distance themselves from it and blame DV on "barbaric cultures". But Bertrand Cantat, the "leftist alternative rock star" who slapped his girlfriend, actress Marie Trintignant, to death, then spent the whole trial mudding her, was a white Frenchman from Bordeaux, and this was a wealthy couple.

[stormy]

Hi Jimmy

I'm never a big fan of actually showing the violence, but I guess something is better than nothing (that is, not raising the subject at all). But I have seen the issue tackled in other countries much better (Australia and Canada). I blogged one of the Canadian PSAs that didn't get shown (shame).

As far as the children learning violence, I think that it was better handled by this one: stormcloud.wordpress.com/2006/10/19/dv-psa-the-children/

I don't have a problem with white, middle class being shown, as DV happens across the board.

Interesting that you bring up the one woman killed on average every three days, that is an identical stat with GB. In fact, comparing the populations of both GB and Fr, both have 60 million give or take a few hundred thousand.

[sunnysmiles]

I'm sorry - but should the stat be: "1 in every 3 ABUSED women dies everyday in GB/Fr?". I'm sorry to be nitpicking but it seems way too shocking to me that 1 in every 3 women in a relationship is dying and nothing's happening.

In Canada it's less than 1 in 6 abused women dying due to abusive partners, but that's out of the 1 in every four women who are physically abused by their partners. Of course, the percentage would be higher if we accounted for verbal/sexual/emotional etc... abuse.

[stormy]

sunny

The GB stat is an average over days, not number of victims.

The total female DV homicides is (very roughly) 110-125 per annum, which averages out to one per three days, or roughly two per week (2.3/wk).

If the homicides were put into percentage of women who suffer DV that are killed, the percentage would be tiny (about 0.01%), so not huge and everyone would just accept such a tiny percentage.

[Jimmy H.]

sunny,

The French stat comes from a survey made for the first nine months of this year and has been publicised by Catherine Vautrin, the Delegate Secretary for Social Cohesion and Parity. The press file (PDF format) presenting this and other results can be found here:
http://www. femmes-egalite.gouv.fr/espace_presse/dossiers_2006/docs/violences_conjugales.pdf
(in French; see page 26.)

The average frequency of one woman dying from domestic abuse every three days comes from this recent survey. Earlier studies using different methodologies gave either lower (one every 2 days) or higher (one every 4 days) numbers for the years 2003-2004.

Stormy,

Thanks for directing me to the American spot. I remember seeing your post and making a mental note to check the video later, but I forgot. Both clips show the violence, though the American one is more "sophisticated" and verbal than the French one. However, I am not sure it is "better"; I'd say both have their particular subtlety in showing the constant fear, the threatening atmosphere and the importance of verbal abuse. The French ad signals a significant change with previous campaign which used make-up effects for blood, bruises and "black eye".
(I'd say more, but I have to go; I may come back later.)