The apparent murder of Michelle Gardner-Quinn is a tragedy certain to reverberate throughout our community for a long time to come. As the board of the Lake Champlain Men’s Resource Center, we add our collective, sorrow-filled voice to the outpouring of support being towards Michelle’s grieving. Yet we know there is more to say and do. While the story is still being pieced together, we feel certain one sad and disturbing fact will be irrefutably corroborated: Michelle was the victim of a man’s violence against a woman. We need not look further back than the past few weeks to the murders of women and girls by men in Essex Junction, Vermont, Colorado, and Pennsylvania to recognize that male violence against females continues unabated.
Let us label this a “Male Violence”, not shifting the focus to the victim or location, but keep the spotlight on the perpetrator and society’s role in socializing men to be violence.
Unless we want manhood and masculinity to be defined by the behavior of violent men- who assault, murder, often commit suicide-it is incumbent upon men of conscience to move from being well-meaning bystanders to vocal opponents of men’s violence against women. We invite men to join us in stepping forward to explicitly condemn such behavior, to pledge to educate ourselves about men’s violence against women, to reach out as allies to women and women’s organizations asking how we can help, to teach our children-especially our sons-about respecting girls and women, and encouraging fathers, coaches, clergy, educators, all of us, to forge an alliance of peace makers in our community. Out of the tragedy of Michelle Gardner-Quinn’s death, may we become more personally of men’s violence and engaged in collective action to prevent such violence. Doing so will both honor Michelle’s memory and demonstrate our intention to create a society committed to raising healthy boys and promoting peace-making men, concerned citizens our community so desperately needs.
