"What about the men?"

During workshop the question about men's experience often came up. Although the detail varied - what about men's experience of abuse as children and as adults, men as students, and occasionally men as abusers - the oft repeated question seemed to suggest that it is not legitimate (or not possible) to talk about women's experience unless we also take account of men's experience at the same time. In one workshop the literacy worker seemed angry that I dared to focus my research, and my workshop, on women. Even though I agreed that research on men's experience is also important and suggested that men in literacy needed to take that on, he was not mollified. Margaret McPartland, an administrator in New England, commented that there is not enough research about men who are victims of violence, and wondered whether it existed but she just didn't know about it. She thought it was important for women's sake saying: "Whatever affects men, affects the women too." For some the focus on material about violence seemed to be seen as women's material, only suitable to be used in women only groups. Others were eager to talk about the tension of taking up issues in mixed groups with men they knew to be abusive in the class. I was also often asked about women as abusers, towards each other and particularly towards children.

Medicalizing Violence

The aftermath of violence is spoken about primarily in medical terms. This sets the scene for an approach to issues of violence in education that is clearly focussed on diagnosing who has a problem and referring them for "help." That process can easily become one of sending them away to deal with it. Several literacy workers said that counsellors tell students they need to deal with their issues before they come to school. One counsellor said when he told his supervisor that one of his students needed more support or was in danger of dropping out, his supervisor asked whether it was: "appropriate for her to be here in the first place? Would it make more sense for her to be somewhere else?"