Some months ago one of my students came to thank me: he had discovered during my lectures that rape was a cruel act that may leave the victim devastated. Until that time, like his friends, he had thought it was nothing serious, only rather ardent sex, in short. What meaning should we give to this fact? Must we despair that a man, who was 20 years old in 2004, had never heard it said that rape is violence and violence is devastating, or be happy because, when he was told, he thought about it, understood and started changing his way of thinking and it is hoped also his way of behaving?

The dilemma posed by this episode represents the dilemma to be faced when we try to assess the results of the struggle to prevent male violence. Initiatives are flourishing throughout the world, run by women of extraordinary courage, determination and intelligence. But these groups always run the risk of giving way, because they are overloaded with requests for help and limited by lack of resources. Even when their action is successful, it is a question of repairing the damage from male violence rather than preventing it. Paradoxically, there may also be a double meaning to the tragedy of the murders of wives and companions, which in the last few years have been murders of ex-wives or companions in particular. Women are no longer accepting being subject to abuse by their partners and are leaving. Because they have refused to be subject, in some cases the man kills them. More systematic attempts at assessment may also arrive at uncertain and contradictory conclusions: it is possible that in some countries and in some circumstances some forms of violence are decreasing while in other countries and in other circumstances other forms of violence are increasing instead.