Remembering Earl Silverman

Re: Men’s Shelter Founder Dies In Despair, April 29.

I knew Earl Silverman and have followed the news about his failed struggle to obtain funding for his shelter for abused men. His death saddens me a great deal. He was a highly motivated, outspoken and effective advocate of equality rights in Canada. He actually did more than talk; he acted for and gave shelter on his own dime to real victims of abuse and their children. He saw first-hand the discrimination that is heaped on men who undermine the accepted myths of male power and dominance over women. The knowledge he gathered from researchers, academics and clinicians lead him to validate and generalize from his own experience that men are beaten by women in similar numbers to the converse.

The pushback he got to his unfiltered and principled approach to mending society’s misguided and discriminatory position on spousal abuse cost him a life without children, his property, his soul — and then his life. Let’s learn from Earl to protect victims, not genders.

After having been so actively ignored, Earl, in death, is now this country’s most talked about male victim of domestic violence — but he is far from being alone. Earl Silverman tried, before his suicide last week, to run the only shelter for male victims of domestic abuse in Canada. He was refused funding and support at every turn. Governments in Canada, at all levels, buy into myth that domestic violence is perpetrated only by male bullies against helpless females. When StatsCan published survey data in 2004 that showed domestic abuse victimization by gender was roughly equal, there was limitless government funding available to criticize the report and rewrite history. Stats Can got the political message and went back to reporting only “violence against women” in 2006 and never asking women who reported abuse victimization if they had also perpetrated abuse.

The one-sided question helps the domestic violence establishment to maintain status quo and keep alive the fiction that domestic abuse is a political act. Surveys in the United States show that women who were abused also perpetrated abuse 70% of the time. They also showed that one-sided abuse is more frequently perpetrated by women. The mindset about Canadian domestic violence establishment resists scientific data and resists helping abused men in any way. Earl Silverman did what he could to help. He died trying.

How sad that the founder of a men’s shelter takes his own life in frustration. As I look at Toronto’s homeless, I see that perhaps 90% are men — yet the countless shelters, organizations, and awareness of gender issues in general, is almost entirely for women.

Shame on us. Shame on politicians without backbones for putting divisive agenda-driven, group politics before truth, equality and inclusiveness for all individuals.

It makes one want to complain to the national office on the status of men. Wait … there is no such thing.