Patrick Stewart: A million men must promise

Sir Patrick Stewart speaks at the Diplomat Ballroom in New York, March 8, 2013. (Breakthrough.tv)

NEW YORK?Sir Patrick Stewart stood in the center of the Diplomat Ballroom at the UN Hotel here on Friday, pounding his fist methodically against a podium, each thump punctuated with a number ("One ... two ... three ...") until he got to nine.

"Every nine seconds a woman is assaulted or beaten in the United States," Stewart said.

The 72-year-old British-born actor, best known for his roles in "X-Men" and "Star Trek: The Next Generation," served as host for the launch of "Ring The Bell," a global campaign calling on one million men to make one million "concrete, actionable promises" to end violence against women.

"Violence against women is the single greatest human rights violation of our generation," Stewart said.

"This is a call to action?not an act that will make things better in six months or a year's time," he continued. "This is action that might save a life today, or tonight, or tomorrow."

The event?coinciding with International Women's Day and the 57th session of the Commission on the Status of Women at United Nations headquarters?was attended by about 200 assorted actors, activists, politicians, filmmakers and musicians, including Michael Bolton, who fought back tears while talking about his work lobbying for the extension of the Violence Against Women Act passed by Congress earlier this week.

"We will continue to battle," Bolton, a father of three daughters, said.

[Related: Top UN official urges focus on violence against women]

Later, Stewart received a standing ovation after recalling the repeated violence he witnessed as a 5-year-old child at home.

"I became an expert on when to open the door and throw myself between my father's fist and my mother's body," Stewart said.

He said his father "was unable to control his emotions?and his hands."

"My mother did not do anything to provoke my father," Stewart said. "But even if she did, violence is not the answer."

Dallas Mayor Michael Rawlings, who in January launched an initiative to combat domestic violence in his city, suggested "dialing up the shame" for men who commit violent acts against women.

"You can call a man who hits a woman a lot of things," Rawlings said, "but you can't call him a man."

Don McPherson, a former NFL quarterback and college football hall-of-famer turned feminist, agreed.

"We don't raise boys to be men," McPherson said. "We raise them not to be women, or gay men."

McPherson compared the fight to end violence against women with the one to end racism.

"White people confronted white people to fight racism," he said. "Men need to confront men."

In a videotaped promise to act, Sir Richard Branson relayed a recent, troubling anecdote from a humanitarian visit he made to Africa:

"Yesterday I was at a clinic we run in Africa called Bhubezi Clinic and there were 40 women in the room. Somebody asked the women if any of them had been raped, and there was laughter amongst the women. We asked why they were laughing. The women said, 'Ask the question: Has anybody in this room not been raped?' Not one woman put up her hand."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/lookout/patrick-stewart-million-men-violence-women-011042478.html

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