A year ago Amanda Todd took her own life because of cyber bullying. Author and child activist Raffi Cavoukian has written an article featured in The Star.
Please read the article here:
Whether violence happens in our community, our province, or in another part of the world it affects us. Sometimes it is particularly difficult for young men to acknowledge violence; to recognize that there is a very real and serious problem. Recently though, male students at Gulf Island Secondary School (GISS) did just that. At a Salt Spring Women Opposed to Violence and Abuse (SWOVA) Youth Team meeting, the week after the tragic death of Amanda Todd, the 15 year-old Port Coquitlam girl, who took her own life on October 10, 2020, male students reflected on the violence.
SWOVA’s Youth Team comprised of both young men and women, meets weekly throughout the school year, where youth become more self-aware, develop leadership skills and awareness of social justice. Through this work, the youth team members go to the middle school on Salt Spring Island, to facilitate SWOVA’s Respectful Relationships program (R+R) for Grade 7 and 8 students. Their facilitation skills while conversing with younger students about racism, sexism, and homophobia are incredible.
At the Youth Team meeting shortly after Amanda’s death, young men and women talked about many things. What stood out most for many was the desensitization and exploitation that can be part of the virtual internet world. Young men acknowledged that Amanda Todd experienced exploitation, harassment, blackmail, and stalking – all of which comprise misogynistic violence – from a man who has not been caught yet. All of this resulted in anxiety, social isolation, exclusion, and eventually life ending hopelessness. What is indicative of the Amanda Todd case is that we live in a world where gender based violence is alive, well, and indeed thriving, although often unacknowledged.
Anti-bullying week occurred November 12-17 with the theme of “stand-up” to bullying! Teachers here on Salt Spring Island such as Heidi Serra at Fulford Elementary School are working with students to be better friends. For every negative bullying action a person can take; for every act of violence, there is an inverse and opposite positive action people can take. We must, as Heidi Serra does, create a culture of peace and love in our schools. We must, as Ghandhi once said, start with the children. There are many things that can be learned from the Amanda Todd case. Clearly though, stronger, better, and more widespread social and emotional learning is needed for children starting in Kindergarten. This will build self-awareness, resilience, confidence and self-esteem in our youth.
Blake Peters is a grade nine student at GISS and one of many outstanding members of the youth team. Struck by the tragedy of Amanda Todd’s death, he notes that we should all be part of ensuring that youth do not experience violence:
“As a part of the Salt Spring youth team I feel that Amanda Todd’s story is tragic and I feel deeply for the family and friends of hers. Things need to change to support kids, male and female; not just on Salt Spring but everywhere! For me this youth team has done just that. It supports everyone in it. If more places had groups like this I believe it could prevent the violence Amanda Todd experienced. Violence shouldn’t continue to happen and we can make a change if we want to! This isn’t the first time this kind of thing has happened and won’t be the last, but we can help prevent it.”
As a man engaged in the struggle to end all violence in the world, particularly that against women, it is a great honour to sit in circle with young men who are not only self-aware of the steps they need to take to create peace within themselves, but also the world.
For more information, please visit www.swova.org or www.togetheragainstviolence.wordpress.com
Written by: Blake Peters, Cole Smith and Kevin Vowles
The recent tragic suicide of Amanda Todd is front-page news in Canada. Cyber-bullying and other forms of bullying are the topic of many conversations. What seems to be missing from the conversations is the desire to look at the systemic violence, attitudes and behaviour that underlie all forms of bullying.
Fazeela Jiwa, writer and former BC high school teacher writes: “Why isn’t anyone talking about the sexism and misogyny involved in Amanda Todd’s life and death? ‘Bullying’ is important, yes, but it is a vague term that glosses over the structural reasons for why it happens, like race/gender/class/ability (and I would add homophobia). If we don’t start talking about the specifics of power structures in high schools, every ‘bullying’ campaign will be a waste of time… Bullying is not childish; not a thing that happens solely to teenagers; those same learned behaviours are the ones that circulate in the workplace, in clubs, on the street, and any other adult-inhabited place.”
According to Jarrah Hodge, who writes and educates on gender representations in media, politics and pop-culture: “There was no discussion of the pressure girls like Amanda experience to measure their worth through their sexual desirability. From her story it sounds like this man had the hallmarks of a predator—he tried to use her photos to blackmail her and yet she’s the one who got blamed. This comes from the idea that it’s up to girls and women to protect their purity at the same time as all their role models in the media say that you need to ‘get a man’ to be a complete person, that you need to be sexually attractive to be liked, appreciated, and valued. She said the guy she showed off to was telling her how beautiful she was. Given our culture that can be really tempting for a girl.”
The question is- do we want to tackle the real problems of systemic violence in our society that manifest in behaviour such as bullying and harassment? Do we want to look at the messages in our culture that create enormous pressures and isolation for girls like Amanda, or do we want to simplify the issue and say we need to crack down on bullies? I think that the answer is we need both. Bullies need to know that their behaviour will not be tolerated and we also need to change school culture so that systemic violence cannot find a breeding ground where dozens of youth join in and become the harassers.
Blogger Krissy Darch says: “This man’s intention, when he threatened Todd with exposure of the coercive images, was to make Todd feel like a whore. The weapon that this man was able to rely on was the judgment of our society. Under our unequal social and economic conditions, the stakes are higher when a woman falls out of favour with her community. For a girl or woman, falling out of favour with her community can mean a sentence to a nightmarish cycle of distress.”
With education for our youth about systemic violence and the consequences, and what social justice means, we can change school cultures and find a way to support our youth rather than marginalize and isolate them. That would be real social change and a positive outcome from the tragic death of Amanda Todd.
Lynda Laushway - Executive Director of SWOVA
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