"no tpl U-quuuu V "1061006 1150001000 vvunacu I 01/11! v WU: "(I "to ca 01000 0 Panel found what women already know u , n An“ In" a.-. .LA _.,\_.‘.. -m. .IA L-.. m LA“- L... In..- c-..:.... “m...“m h an: .. bun“... rant." -vnlnnnt: Inn 4‘,“- tl-‘i m “llmn nnrharl .9 HT'IIAXVO Ell-1L By BARB JOY Oakville Beaver Stafl“ n action plan calling for the abolition of sexism in Canadian society has drawn r mixed reviews from women’s groups in Halton. Bev LeFrancois, executive-direc- tor of the Halton Rape Crisis Centre, said both the national and provincial rape crisis coalitions opposed the initiation of the work â€" recently completed by the nine- person Canadian Panel on Violence Against Women at a cost to taxpay- ers of $10 million â€" on the basis Emmy Thwa Nï¬g g V “a Was $10-million Violence Against Women report worth the expense? Thma Nï¬ghï¬ that the money could have been bet- ter spent. “You can imagine the frustration of people working in rape crisis centres who can’t pay their staff or if they’re under-staffed,†she said. “Besides, we’ve been working for 20 years telling people about vio- lenoe.†At the same time, LeFrancois was not completely negative about the report. Besides her high regard for Patricia Marshall, the panel’s chairperson who, she said, has mon- itored judicial decisions at great length, she thought the government now has no excuse to ignore prob- _@EE Ocel‘ooleOOOoOoooom a.--'--'---"'-"--..'I-"’E.. -IM ) ‘lâ€" Z/ééageï¬g 236W Mans? S; @l W 592: PHâ€"ZZA/ï¬ï¬Ã©m REGULAR mess 5n ALL: t4.9“! MEDIUM: Q99 lems facing women. It now knows what women’s groups have known for‘decades, that women are subject to sexist attitudes everywhere in this country. ready explanation for this: When men help with work in the home, it shows the work is valued. If the work is valued, the person is val- ued._ ‘ ported it. “We t their (NA While report w “The rising statistics on rape and violence against women tell us that young men aren’t catching on â€" although some are,†she said. “The one man on the panel, Peter Jaffe, said it was inappropriate to say this doesn’t concern men. It does. For instance, they have to stop laughing at sexist jokes and things like that.†One recommendation of the panel concerned men sharing with household chores. LeFrancois had a EXPHRES AUG. 14/93.: “If you value a person, you don’t hurt them,†she said. ‘ The panel posed a disquieting dilemma for the Women of Halton Action Movement, noted Tessa House of WHAM, a group con- cerned with women’s issues. Afï¬liated with the National Action Committee on the Status of Women (NAC) which opposed the panel on the basis of not having enough native women on it, WHAM sup- “We thought it was divisive on their (NAC’s) part,†s‘aid House. While the resultive cost of the report was high, House thought it was worth it. “You can’t keep doing a patch-E; up job on violence. You have to we look at the root causes,†she said. 9 “The panel has exposed a very ugly E side of relationships between men u and women.†In its two years of interviewing 4,000 people across Canada â€"â€" vic- tims, social workers, lawyers, health officials and people working in (See 'Poor page 7)