“back to common sense”

From the BBC news website yesterday:

Every school pupil in England is to be taught that domestic violence against women and girls is unacceptable, as part of a new government strategy.

Which is all very well – and I’m glad they got that comma right – but what about domestic violence against men and boys? And what about violence in general?

The Spanish newspaper El Mundo publishes a Saturday supplement Yo Dona. I object to it as a matter of principle as I don’t think that it should be necessary to publish a newspaper supplement especially for women, particularly not one that focuses so much on fashion and beauty. (I’m not against special interest magazines, but surely a newspaper should contain news?) Each week, at the end of the letter from the editor, the latest statistics for death by violencia de género in Spain are published. From November 7th’s issue:

49 mujeres y cuatro hombres han muerto a manos de sus parejas o ex parejas en lo que va de año. Quien sufra violencia de género puede llamar al número gratuito 016.

Even in this female-focused magazine, the men who suffer aren’t forgotten. And the special phoneline is, at least theoretically, available to victims of either sex.

If you read right through the BBC story, you will find mention of domestic violence against men, but few people scroll to read more than the first screen’s worth of a web page and the opening paragraphs seemed designed to mislead.

What particularly caught my eye about the BBC report, though, was the video that opened within that first screen when I first connected:

Sean Connery saying, “Back to common sense” was not quite what I expected to find alongside an article about domestic violence measures.

In fact it’s an unfortunately positioned advert from the new Crédit Agricole campaign. I took the screen shot yesterday. This morning, for whatever reason, that advert is no longer appearing alongside the BBC story.