And while violence against women continues to enjoy a high profile and a fair amount of resources is committed to spreading awareness about it, according to Dr. Herbert Gayle, the money should go to healing damaged men and boys - after all, they are the source of most of the violence in Belize.
He says that if violence is to be properly addressed, the treatment of men and women will have to be evened out, because beneath the male's tough exterior is an emotionally battered being.
Dr. Herbert Gayle, Violence Anthropologist
"So it's to look at how we bring the status of males to that of females. I know a lot of people like to sit down and look at all the suffering that women are having but they don't look at the fact that the suffering of women no longer equates to the depth of progress that they have made. And that the males who on the surface say everything is alright, actually have far more social problems. We were the ones who neglected these boys. I mean, come on, I see some of these boys - we walk in some of these communities - and it is crazy: the girls have on nice clothes and the boys completely naked and barefoot! We're like, wow, all right, next generation of criminals! We can't do that. And it becomes interesting about human beings, when human beings do damage to themselves, they actually create a frame around it to protect the damage So we treat boys badly and we make it part of their definition of masculinity. 'You need to be rough, boy, you don't want to be puny!'"
Jules Vasquez
"You feel a change can be made? Fairly easily."
Dr. Herbert Gayle, Violence Anthropologist
"Easily compared to, say, Jamaica, compared to say even Trinidad."
Jules Vasquez
"And that is because of the small population?"
Dr. Herbert Gayle, Violence Anthropologist
"The small population one. The public will here is extremely strong. The fact that people ask the second question which is: what is the problem? What can we do? in some other countries people say 'we already know the problem and we dealing with the problem' which says 'I am still in denial.' Here what I get from 2-3 persons is that 'what is the problem meaning that if we know what the problem is genuinely we'll do something about it."
A link to Dr. Gayle's full report can be found at 7newsbelize.com…
http://issuu.com/7newsbelize/docs/male_social_participation_and_violence_in_urban_be
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