Eight days ago, we sent an email to Seattle’s Union Gospel Mission sharing our thoughts about their use of the phrase “mother treated violently” in their list of top causes of homelessness. Today we received good news. UGM has changed “mother treated violently” to “violence in the home”, acknowledging that children experience trauma whether it’s their mother or their father who is treated violently in the home.
Union Gospel Mission expressed gratitude for our bringing this matter to their attention. We admire the very noble work UGM does, and we appreciate how they handled our concern. This is a small, simple example of eliminating gender bias impacting men. (The Center for Disease Control, in contrast, has not yet rectified their error in the Adverse Childhood Experiences study.)
A Union Gospel Mission staff member also told us (without our having asked for this) that they would reexamine the intake surveys given to people seeking their services to see whether the survey questions differ for men and women. This staffperson speculated that the intake survey for men might do an inferior job of asking about violence men have experienced compared to the intake survey for women. We are impressed by this conscientiousness and hope to hear positive developments in the future.
