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Log inSkowhegan: Man has unique role aiding abuse victims
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Skowhegan: Man has unique role aiding abuse victims
by Outspoken on Tue Jul 22, 2008 4:36 am
Skowhegan: Man has unique role aiding abuse victims
By Sharon Kiley Mack
Staff Writer Bangor Daily News
SKOWHEGAN, Maine - On Jason LeBlanc’s first day at work, he answered the door to the Family Violence Project three times to find an abused woman seeking help.
Each time the woman looked up at him and flinched.
LeBlanc, 37, is an oddity: one of only three men in the state who works as an educator and advocate in one of the nine Family Violence Project centers.
Each of those three women, however, looked past his gender and sought help. "‘We don’t hate all men,’ they told me," LeBlanc said.
In the eight months he has been working from the Skowhegan office, LeBlanc has learned that being a man in a role traditionally filled by women can be beneficial.
"When I visit with junior high students, I often ask them — in the presence of their teacher — who the most powerful person in the room is. They always say it is me," he said Friday.
LeBlanc said that being a white male in his 30s in today’s society provides him with great power and often helps him get a foot in the door. "It’s not where I feel I am," he added. "It is how society sees me."
"There is a difference," he said. "When a woman speaks, the girls get it. When a man speaks, a guy gets it." With 85 percent to 95 percent of convicted abusers being male, LeBlanc said he hopes he can make a difference.
He admits he has his work cut out for him in Somerset County, which has the second-highest rate of domestic violence in the state and the highest rate of arrests of women for domestic violence.
http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=167417&zoneid=500
By Sharon Kiley Mack
Staff Writer Bangor Daily News
SKOWHEGAN, Maine - On Jason LeBlanc’s first day at work, he answered the door to the Family Violence Project three times to find an abused woman seeking help.
Each time the woman looked up at him and flinched.
LeBlanc, 37, is an oddity: one of only three men in the state who works as an educator and advocate in one of the nine Family Violence Project centers.
Each of those three women, however, looked past his gender and sought help. "‘We don’t hate all men,’ they told me," LeBlanc said.
In the eight months he has been working from the Skowhegan office, LeBlanc has learned that being a man in a role traditionally filled by women can be beneficial.
"When I visit with junior high students, I often ask them — in the presence of their teacher — who the most powerful person in the room is. They always say it is me," he said Friday.
LeBlanc said that being a white male in his 30s in today’s society provides him with great power and often helps him get a foot in the door. "It’s not where I feel I am," he added. "It is how society sees me."
"There is a difference," he said. "When a woman speaks, the girls get it. When a man speaks, a guy gets it." With 85 percent to 95 percent of convicted abusers being male, LeBlanc said he hopes he can make a difference.
He admits he has his work cut out for him in Somerset County, which has the second-highest rate of domestic violence in the state and the highest rate of arrests of women for domestic violence.
http://bangornews.com/news/t/news.aspx?articleid=167417&zoneid=500
"Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything."
Plato (427-347 BC)
Plato (427-347 BC)
