Police statistics, government studies, and media reports all indicate that male violence against women is escalating. But very little has been done to understand the deep roots of the phenomenon. Until that happens, no means to eradicate male violence will be effective.

To this end Ron Thorne-finch offers an incisive analysis of the causes of male violence against women, and places the issue in a political context. He argues that men’s emotional, physical, and sexual violence are all inextricably linked: to end the violence we must address the effects of academia, the family, the media, the military, the peer group, pornography, and sport in creating violent men.

The women’s movement has played a pivotal role in breaking the silence about male violence and providing the political pressure to compel state funding for victim and offered programs. But Thorne-Finch argues that changes in the current state response are unlikely to occur unless more men take individual and collective responsibility for male violence. He provides a detailed examination of the responses among North American men in encouraging and resisting male violence against women.

Male violence must not remain ‘just’ a women’s issue. Thorne-Finch calls upon men to become more active in the struggle to end it. In a skilful balance between clinical intervention, social analysis, and political action he offers both the professional and the layperson a way to proceed in the struggle to end violence against women.

RON THORNE-FINCH is a therapist at Klinic, Inc, a community health centre in Winnipeg. He is the author of Exporting Danger: A History of the Canadian Nuclear Energy Export Programme.

Ronald Thorne-Finch's profile page