Trudeau’s comments on violence against women criticized

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau’s remarks about violence against women came under fire online for appearing to blame certain Canadian communities and for not addressing what’s really behind the fact that 1 in 2 Canadian women will experience sexual or physical violence in her lifetime.

“Anyone who wants to end violence against women has to look at equality as a root cause,” Anuradha Dugal, director of violence prevention programs for the Canadian Women’s Foundation, tells Yahoo Canada News.

That involves seeing all women as equal partners in employment, relationships, leadership and other arenas of society, Dugal says.

During Monday’s Up for Debate program — which featured Trudeau, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair, Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, and Bloc Québécois Leader Gilles Duceppe — Trudeau was asked about why violence against women by younger men persists when other moves towards gender equality have been made.

“I don’t know where exactly to point my finger,” Trudeau said in the videotaped segment. “I think there’s probably an awful lot of factors that come together to shape societal behaviours, whether it’s certain types of music — there’s a lot of misogyny in certain types of music.

“There’s issues around pornography and its prevalence now and its accessibility, which is something I’m really wrapping my head around as a father of kids who are approaching their teen years.

"And there’s also the shifting parental roles; there’s a lot of communities in which fathers are less present than they have been. There’s a need to have more engaged, positive role models.”

Trudeau’s remarks quickly brought online criticism that the leader was referring to black communities, specifically in his mention of “certain types of music” and “communities in which fathers are less present than they have been.”

“I wrote recently about subtle racism. We saw an example of it at last night’s #UpForDebate forum, during an answer from @JustinTrudeau,” tweeted Desmond Cole, a Toronto Star columnist and NewsTalk 1010 radio host. “Is it a coincidence that two of the three factors Trudeau cited about violence against women are well-worn stereotypes about black people?”

The comments didn’t have to be explicit for it to be clear what kind of music and communities Trudeau was referring to, Andray Domise, a Toronto-based activist and co-host of the Canadaland Commons podcast with Cole, told Yahoo Canada News.

“You don’t have to be a linguistic genius to know what he’s talking about,” Domise says of Trudeau’s response. “It’s insulting my intelligence to expect me to not understand and parse the words he’s using.”

Black Canadians hear similar veiled comments all the time, he says, both from politicians and in their everyday lives, making it clear which harmful and inaccurate stereotypes about the black community Trudeau was referencing.

When asked about his remarks at a campaign event in Montreal on Tuesday, Trudeau said, “I wasn’t speaking of any community in particular. I was saying as leaders, as parents, as community leaders, we need to make sure we are combating misogyny in all its forms wherever it’s found, whether fashion magazines or popular music or popular culture.”

Trudeau may not have intended for his comments to be racist, Domise says, but they were uninformed about both black communities and violence against women in Canada.

The response given by Trudeau ignored the fact that any woman in Canada could be a victim of violence, Dugal says, regardless of factors like age, race, family structure or income level.

“That’s really the most important story. We consider this a little taboo, that this could affect any woman, and I think it’s hard to hear that it could affect any woman,” she says. “People have a tendency to assume that this only happens to certain kinds of people.”

The Canadian Women’s Foundation would like to see support from politicians of all parties for a national action plan on violence against women, Dugal says, noting that it’s a framework that already exists in other countries including the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia.

“I think it’s important to say that we’re a little behind on not having a national action plan on violence against women,” she says.

Singling out certain types of music or certain communities ignores the fact that Canadian women face violence in every community in the country regardless of income, racial background or marital status, Domise says, and doesn’t do anything to make women safer.

“There’s so much left for us to say,” Domise says, “and for the party leaders to be giving cockamamie answers like these is telling me that they’re not ready to have these conversations.”