Futures Without Violence: Esta Soler Strives To End Domestic Abuse

When Esta Soler formed what would become the San Francisco-based Futures Without Violence 30 years ago, no one would return her calls.

"It was pretty lonely," Soler said. "But we've taken domestic violence from the backpage and put it on the frontpage."

Since its beginning, Futures Without Violence has strived to end violence against women and children, primarily through education and training programs and by working with legislators to improve laws that deal with family violence.

Soler said her organization was a driving force behind the passage of the Violence Against Women Act of 1994, which provides resources for victims of abuse and includes funding to train police, prosecutors and judges to help them better understand and deal with the problem. Congress reauthorized and expanded the law in 2000 and 2005.

"In the past, it was thought that things like domestic violence just happen," Soler said. "This act said, when it rises to a level of a crime, it needs to be taken seriously."

FWV also launched That's Not Cool, a comprehensive public service advertising campaign that includes a website, television, radio and print ads as well as posters in schools and malls, according to FWV.

"That’s Not Cool provides essential information on dating and digital issues and inspires teens to take action to prevent teen dating abuse in their own communities," the site says.

Soler also works to make sure her organization reaches out to men and boys to get their help ending family violence.

"If you're only talking to women and girls about domestic violence, you're missing half the population," Soler said. "Most men, when we ask them, say they want to get involved in these issues."

FWV's Coaching Boys Into Men campaign began in 2001 as a public service announcement series designed to help men realize their unique role in the fight against family violence. Since its launch, the campaign has transformed into a comprehensive curriculum for coaches and their athletes, according to FWV's site.

"The Coaching Boys into Men leadership program equips athletic coaches with strategies, scenarios and resources needed to build attitudes and behaviors that prevent relationship abuse, harassment and sexual assault," the site says.

"I had the opportunity to live in a home with a mom and a dad who believed in respectful relationships," Soler said. "Both men and women deserve that."

At the heart of many FWV initiatives is the drive to get the issue of family violence out from behind closed doors and into the public eye. With that goal in mind, Soler's organization has moved its headquarters to San Francisco's Presidio.

"The new location raises the visibility of the issue in a major city in a national park," Soler said. "We want to keep the issue on the frontpage until it doesn't exist."

Soler said she remains confident that stamping out family violence can happen.

"We don't have to accept it as a part of life," Soler said. "We've seen so much change, but there are still too many kids who are bullied, too many women who are raped. We can do something about it."

To learn more about FWV, visit the organization's website.

Comments

[dbrett480]

03:53 PM on 10/16/2011

A large part of the problem rests with women who refuse to cooperate with law enforcement in prosecutions. I get tired of being called out to the same house to make the same arrest and then show up in court only to find that the charges have been dropped due to lack of victim cooperation.

[drsolo]

03:57 PM on 09/30/2011

If every gym class in the world would teach little girls self defense, teach them judo we could stop a LOT of violence against women. My father taught me self defense when I was young and it wasnt that I ever had to use it, but the learning of it gave me a spine and an "attitude" that told people "dont mess with her" and nobody did. And, BTW, learning how to fall in Judo is guaranteed to prevent all kinds of broken bones in cases of slip and fall. You learn to fall in a way that lets the soft parts of the body absorb the shock sparing the bones.

[orbs]

05:17 PM on 09/29/2011

Girls need coaching as well. Please do not paint over the fact that a growing portion of females are physically and emotionally abusive. Not only to men, but to anyone they can degrade or intimidate.

[Trevon Carlson]

04:58 PM on 09/29/2011

You do know that men and boys can be victims of family violence as well, don't you? Or, does that not matter to you since they are men and boys? Men are not the only perpetrators. It's time you wake up to that.

[Justin Bowen]

02:45 PM on 09/30/2011

Of course it doesn't matter to her. Violence against women = wrong. Violence against men = good. It doesn't matter how many studies and surveys show that women commit more domestic violence than men because these people only care about one side of it.

[SirenForSanity]

05:31 PM on 09/30/2011

Is that why men are encouraged to never walk alone because there might be a woman waiting to attack them? Or why there are networks all across the country for the express purpose of men escaping domestic violence?

[SirenForSanity]

03:30 PM on 09/30/2011

How many centuries have men been almost the only gender making policy? They could have addressed the issue at any time, for women and men. It took decades for women to bring the issue to the forefront and force policy makers to act. So why criciticize women, now, because they aren't focusing domestic violence on male victims, instead including all victims? Where is your criticism of the men who have ignored the problem for centuries? No matter the gender of the victim, in the majority of the cases the perpetrators are still men.

[Justin Bowen]

04:59 PM on 09/30/2011

Why criticize women because they aren't focusing on domestic violence on male victims instead of including all victims? It's simple: this is a problem that can't be solved by only addressing one side of it.

Domestic violence is a multi-faceted problem. Most domestic violence situations are mutual; in the rest of the cases, women are more likely to be the aggressor than men. The reality of violence is that it tends to beget violence. And yet, the sexual grievance industry's approach to this problem is to say "men are evil for using violence and their victims are delicate little flowers to whom life just happens while women are strong and independent for using violence and their victims are cads and bring it on themselves." The proposed solution is to simply keep locking up men while giving women carte blanche to continue to be violent. To make matters worse, feminists come out in full force against anyone who dares to suggest that people who CHOOSE violent individuals with whom to have relationships and then STAY with those violent individuals are sick and ought to be REQUIRED to get mental therapy as a condition of using the criminal justice system to solve his or her problems.

THAT is why we're criticizing these people. Domestic violence can ONLY be combated by addressing ALL sides of this problem and these people simply want to address only one side of it.

[Justin Bowen]

05:12 PM on 09/30/2011

Of course, people here don't want to hear the truth, so they don't approve comments that show that they are wrong.

The fact is, in the majority of cases where the violence is not non-mutual, WOMEN are the perpetrators: http://www.csulb.edu/~mfiebert/assault.htm.

Study after study and survey after survey have shown that it is WOMEN who are the more aggressive. The disparity between reality and the DOJ statistics results from cultural biases that tells a man not to call the police whenever a woman slaps him (or throws dishes at him or stabs him with forks or does anything else that would land him in jail if he did to a man), which in large part is the result of the FACT that he is more likely to be arrested himself if he does so.