Dr. Kathy Cairns, speaker invited to the Alberta FV Roundtable pre-meeting, May 6th, 2004
Dr. Kathy Cairns - Professor in the Faculty of Education, Division of Applied Psychology, at the University of Calgary. Dr. Cairns' areas of expertise include psychology of gender, sexuality, sex therapy, as well as individual and marital counselling.
Consider:
Compared to the more popular speakers invited to the pre-meeting of the
Alberta Family Violence and Bullying Roundtable, Dr. Kathy Cairns appears
to be moderate, genuinely interested in alleviating social problems
regardless of gender of people seriously affected by inequities, and not
focused at all on men as abusers.
Given that her interest appears to center on the homeless, it
remains to be seen what her contribution will be with respect to abuse
issues at the FV Roundtable.
Mind you, even Dr. Cairns appears to be blinded to some extent to
the plight of men and their disproportionately large share of
homelessness. She considers homeless younger people, women and kids.
It appears that women, not men, warrant special concern. Still if
there is any gender bias in her views, it appears not prevalent.
In one report that contains Dr. Cairns' name, men are mentioned twice
as often than women, a total of four times in one paragraph.
The links between homelessness and health are incontrovertible.
Homelessness is associated with higher rates of accident, injury,
physical and sexual assault, and a range of physical health conditions
including tuberculosis, skin infections and conditions, poor blood
circulation and foot problems. Rates of mental illness among the adult
homeless population are estimated at between 10 and 50 per cent. In
addition, in his recent study of homeless men in Toronto, Dr. Stephen Hwang found that they had
higher mortality rates compared to other Toronto residents.
Mortality rates were eight times
higher among men aged 18 to 24 years, four times higher among men aged
25 to 44 years, and twice as high among men aged 45 to 64 years.
It seems that Dr. Cairns is affiliated with objective social
researchers and research.
A search of the Internet for <"Kathy
Cairns" abuse women> will provide you with 5 search returns
of articles that mention Dr. Kathy Cairns, but none of those are overly or
disproportionately concerned with women as abused victims.
A search of the Internet for <"Kathy
Cairns" abuse
men> will provide you with 4 search
returns to articles that mention Dr. Cairns, but not in the context of
exaggerated concern with men as abusers, although they do mention men as victims
of social neglect.
That is an encouraging sign. It may also be a reason why Dr. Cairns
seems to have been unable to promote her name to the same extent as that
achieved by the more biased speakers at the FV Roundtable.
It remains to be seen whether
Dr. Cairns fits in well with the FV Roundtable, whose objective it is
to raise awareness and fear about
the relatively trivial
"problem" of family violence, thereby to maintain the flow of funding
for the women's shelter industry and related programs for women.
Full list of invited speakers,
including background information
Index to pages for Alberta FV
round-table discussions
See also:
 The White Rose
Thoughts are Free __________________
Posted 2004 04 17
Updates:
2006 03 04 (added link to Feminism for Male College
Students)
|
