Sir, - Rob Wetherill (November 2nd) says that "the notion that we can create our own identities. . .is absurd". This suggests that adolescents who have grown up identifying with aggressive, abusive and violent men cannot change their identities.
Such despair is unworthy of someone involved in education and psychotherapy. The whole point of educational programmes such as Exploring Masculinities is to help adolescents develop critical self-reflection so that they can change their beliefs, attitudes and behaviour.
Moreover, there is established research which shows that intervention programmes with violent men do work; they manage to stop being violent and to develop a new understanding and concept of themselves.
It is this failure to accept that masculinity is not a given, but a cultural construct which can be challenged and resisted, which seems to lie at the heart of opposition to the new programme.
With regard to Mary T. Cleary's criticism (November 2nd), all I am calling for is some critical reflection about the differences between abuse and violence. Conceptual clarification would help our understanding of the different ways men and women dominate each other. - Yours, etc.,
Dr Tom Inglis, Department of Sociology, UCD, Belfield, Dublin 4.