Men in Heels is No Laughing Matter at Domestic Violence Awareness Event

By Terry Dickson of The Brunswick News terryldickson50@gmail.com

As he stood in red heels with his pants tucked into his socks, Glynn County Sheriff Neal Jump had one request for his audience.

“If I fall, please don’t laugh at me,’’ he said.

That was after he gave some sobering statistics at the Walk a Mile in Her Shoes event at College of Coastal Georgia where male law enforcement officers, faculty, students and others strode through the campus in uncomfortable women’s shoes.

Dr. Johnny L Evans Jr., interim president of the college, had similar sentiments.

“While it’s comical to watch most of these men struggle,’’ he said, “what we do here is serious.”

The day was set aside to honor those who have lost their lives to domestic violence and those who have survived.

Evans noted the college has a number of partners and mentioned Safe Harbor, a rape crisis center, that “raises up home and light to intervene” in the lives of others “at their darkest times.”

Jump thanked the partners who provide services for victims of domestic violence, be it physical, psychological, emotional or isolation. In the past, when deputies responded to domestic violence calls, they often left without arresting anyone if, in the case of couples, the men and women went to separate houses, he said. But sometimes they got back together, Jump said, “and later someone would die.

Recent laws require police to take someone into custody in reports of domestic violence, which has saved lives, Jump said.

“It took all of you to make that happen,’’ he said.

Nationally, one in three women are abused daily, Jump said.

“As long as I’m sheriff, I’ll keep putting them in jail,’’ he said.

City Commissioner Felicia Harris noted there were more than 37,000 reported incidents of domestic violence in 2023.

Of the observance at the college, Harris said, “I don’t call it an event…Events end. This is a movement.”

Dottie Bromley, executive director of the Glynn County Community Crisis Center/Amity House, said there were 75 sex trafficking victims helped locally in 2023. In Georgia, 119 lost their lives to domestic violence in 2023, she said.

The men who had listened to the speeches in their sometimes painfully uncomfortable shoes walked an elongated loop from the Nunnally Building to the Student Center and back. Some were laughing at themselves as they took shorter than normal strides.

Some stood around and talked a few minutes afterward once back in their own shoes.

Republished with the permission of The Brunswick News. Originally published in The Brunswick News.