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The Forum > Article Comments > The male cloak of invisibility > Comments

The male cloak of invisibility : Comments

By Caitlin Roper, published 4/6/2014

The national dialogue surrounding men's violence against women shifts attention from male perpetrators and onto female victims.

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@Killarney

NO ! Any abuse of children is unacceptable, making excuses for women ( by claiming that neglect is not as serious a form or abuse) and throwing about stereotypes of males as neglectful for working to support a family are also irresponsible and unhelpful.

Australian child protection statistics are reported by relationship to victim NOT gender of perpetrator. Stats across the western world are remarkably consistent. The safest place for a child is in a stable intact family and the most dangerous in a single female headed family, perpetrated by the mother or her new partner. The person least likely to abuse a child in the biological father.

Witnessing DV is known to be harmful to children and australian children are just as likely to witness their mother or stepmother hit their father of step father as visa versa.

Both men and women are capable of and do perpetrate violence agains partners and children. To frame it as a predominantly gender issue ignores the vast amount of research and misses opportunities to alter outcomes. All it achieved is the idealogical imperative of feminist to cast men generally as villains and women generally as blameless victims, inhabitants of the real world know the situation is far more complex and nuanced than that.
Posted by rper1959, Wednesday, 4 June 2014 6:24:04 PM
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According the the ABS, women are more than 3 times more likely than men to suffer physical violence from a partner, and 10 times more likely to suffer sexual abuse from a partner:

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Lookup/4906.0Chapter7002012

Killarney,
I agree that victims of crime can suffer from media attention, but the convention in headlines is to use the passive voice to exclude the less important charaters in a story. Newspapers reported "Kennedy shot", not "Oswald may have shot Kennedy". Use of the active voice may be taken to mean the perpetrator is more significant than the victim.
Posted by Rhian, Wednesday, 4 June 2014 6:40:49 PM
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Thank you for your article Caitlin.

This is also an issue I have been interested in for a long time. I used to know a woman who was a victim of DV and I know it is an issue that affects the entire community, but I also knew someone who worked as an interpreter and I know the issue is prevalent in migrant communities as well.

I suggest one of the reasons why there is so little media "discussion about why some men beat, rape, abuse and murder" women is a strong reluctance to talk about anything that might include race or racial profiling. This is feeling I get from reading your article too. While I accept that the prevalence of DV affects the entire community and that the form of DV may differ between different ethnic communities, nevertheless I also detect a strong reluctance to even raise people's cultural backgrounds as an issue for discussion.

The issue of DV was one of the main issues I was thinking about in relation to recent discussions over changes to the Racial Discrimination Act. Currently I understand there is an investigator in Victoria trying to secure funding to investigate the issue. If she is allowed to do her job she is very likely to cover issues that will cause offence to some ethnic communities uncomfortable with their cultural practises becoming subject to public scrutiny.

I think there is a real risk of that study being compromised by an overriding concern not to cause offence. That would make the report worse than useless because it will only focus on people willing to acknowledge that the problem exists.

"If we as a society are to move towards eradicating men's violence against women, we must first name the problem accurately."

That is my concern too Caitlin.
Posted by Farquhar, Wednesday, 4 June 2014 7:36:12 PM
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rper1959

I was neither 'making excuses for women' nor claiming neglect is not as serious a form of abuse (although that’s debatable). I was pointing out the problems in a methodology that muddies the statistics on neglect and abuse, and ignores the time-imbalance factor, to make it look as if women are doing most of the sexual, emotional and physical abuse of children, when it’s actually men.

And I did not say that working to support a family is neglectful. I said that working 60-HOUR WEEKS is neglectful. Yet, as a culture, we view this kind of child neglect in men (and increasingly, women) as admirable. For some time now, governments have proactively pursued policies designed to make those lucky enough to be employed work much longer and much harder. And you only need to look at the commentary on any OLO article to do with work and unemployment to see how deeply embedded this workaholic attitude is in a lot of men, who are proud to brag about all the back-breaking labour they’ve performed and the long hours they’ve worked over the course of their lives – without ever asking themselves if it was all that necessary or how their wives and kids felt about it.

When the problem of fathers having insufficient time with their children is brought up, it's almost always in the context of divorce and separation (i.e. blame the woman), not the culture's screwed-up attitudes to work. Men who choose work that routinely takes them away from their families for long stretches at a time (e.g. the military, mining, professional sport, executive management, political life) are never factored into the problem.

Also, the massive gender imbalance in the statistics on child neglect clearly point to the fact that women must shoulder a grossly imbalanced burden of child rearing, often without respite from its mind-numbing loneliness and stress (especially women in low-income brackets). If there is one domestic violence problem that is being brushed under the carpet, it’s that.
Posted by Killarney, Wednesday, 4 June 2014 9:02:38 PM
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<"If we as a society are to move towards eradicating men's violence against women, we must <first name the problem accurately."

<That is my concern too Caitlin.
<Posted by Farquhar, Wednesday, 4 June 2014 7:36:12 PM

Firstly, why is concentrating on one half of the problem/issue going to fix it?

Sadly this becomes very murky, issues of mental illness and compliance with medication is a huge issue. As is drug and alcohol addiction and related violence associated with these addictive behaviours.

To end violence against women, then a holistic approach needs to be undertaken that includes all forms of violence not only against women, but men as well. Otherwise all it is, is a piece meal approach that will never solve the issue.

We have had at least 6 decades or 60 years of domestic violence awareness and intervention, so the question is, why have not the interventions/treatment programs of the last 60 years worked?
Posted by Wolly B, Wednesday, 4 June 2014 10:40:27 PM
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WollyB "We have had at least 6 decades or 60 years of domestic violence awareness and intervention, so the question is, why have not the interventions/treatment programs of the last 60 years worked?"

Because men have never owned the issue.
And you are right, because until men agree they ARE the main perpetrators of violence against other men, and women, then nothing will change.

This author writes a very raw, truthful article that made me sad.
What some men (especially on this forum) don't realise is that most women are not out to 'get' men at all. They ('feminist or not) merely want men to see that the continuing attitude of superiority and ownership that some men continue to feel about women just fuel the domestic violence against women.

And no, it does not just involve lower socio-economic groups or some particular racial groups, domestic violence involves ALL of us.

I agree that we should be talking more freely about the gender of both perpetrator and victims of domestic violence in media reports. Why not?
Posted by Suseonline, Thursday, 5 June 2014 2:19:11 AM
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