How do you get someone to change their perspective on an issue they can’t relate to?
One way is to reframe it until you’ve found an angle that disrupts ingrained patterns of thinking.
UK politician Jenny Jones did this beautifully when she proposed an alternative to the guidance police gave women following Sarah Everard’s disappearance.
They said women shouldn’t leave the house on their own, but Jones said: what about a 6pm curfew for men?
Our society expects women to maintain a lifelong vigilance against violence, but when we flip the picture and put the onus on men, it’s undeniable that we’re making an extreme demand on 50 per cent of the population.
I hope that it’s becoming clearer each day that making women responsible for the prevention of violence is impractical, ineffective and, ultimately, absurd.
