Joachim Ostertag is pedalling across the country to stop violence against women.
The 60-year-old from Owen Sound, Ont. started his solo bike ride June 20 and arrived in Jasper on July 17. Ultimately Ostertag will end up in Vancouver, but first he will ride the Highway of Tears between Prince George and Prince Rupert, B.C. For that stretch of the journey, Ostertag will be joined by his daughter, who is a PhD student in Prince George.
That highway is an important stretch of road for Ostertag to overcome, he said, because along that 800 kms of Highway 16, there have been a series of murders and disappearances of young women in the last 40 years.
Ostertag has been working with men who are abusive to women for the past 23 years and recently decided he needed to connect the dots between Ontario and the west coast, raising awareness along the way.
鈥淚 like to bike. It鈥檚 one of my passions,鈥� he said last week. 鈥淏iking and my work to stop violence against women are both very important to me.鈥�
So Ostertag has combined the two, talking to people about changing the cycle of violence in each community along the way.
So far, he鈥檚 found women are more inclined to talk about violence than men. In fact, when enquiring about a woman鈥檚 tattoo in Saskatoon, Sask., Ostertag found out she was a victim of Robert Pickton鈥攖he British Columbia pig farmer convicted of second-degree murder in the deaths of six women.
鈥淚t was quite an eye opener to talk to her,鈥� said Ostertag, who asked the woman, 鈥淚f you had one message to men, what would it be?鈥�
鈥淪he said, 鈥楳en have to stop treating women like things.鈥欌��
Ostertag is keeping a blog with stories like this one with the hope that his interactions with people will engage Canadians and make them think about how to create change.
An important step in creating that change, he said, is thinking about how we raise young boys and how we represent women in the media.
鈥淏oys see a lot of misogyny in action movies and pornography, so it鈥檚 very difficult to raise boys in a consistent way that teaches them to respect women.
鈥淚f we really respect women, we wouldn鈥檛 use media to represent them the way we do.鈥�
Between 60 and 70 women in Canada are killed each year by a former or current male partner.
According to a Statistics Canada report based on police-reported data, 173,600 women aged 15 years and older were victims of violent crime in 2011 and, overall, men were responsible for 83 per cent of that police-reported violence against women.
Ostertag said men can be the change鈥攖hey can end the violence.
鈥淧eople often say violence against women is a women鈥檚 issue, but it鈥檚 actually a men鈥檚 issue,鈥� he said. 鈥淢en need to step up.鈥�
To follow Ostertag on his Change the Cycle tour, visit changethecycletour.org.
Nicole Veerman
[email protected]
