Anti
If you go back over many threads on this issue there are swathes of comments declaring women to be more violent, to be money grubbers, responsible for their rape/assault etc. No strawman, just read back a few months and you will find many comments along these lines.

What do you define as 'instigating' violence. Is it for offences such as because the dinner was not on the table on time, or their shirt had a crease in it, or they did not like the way she spoke to another man at a party, or she nagged him to do the dishes - this is what some abusers describe as 'her fault'. So please be specific when quoting these sorts of statistics because the above constitutes what some men believe to be instigators.

Let's take a more grey area example. If a woman slaps a man and he slaps back then one could say categorically that the hostility was shared and that the woman 'instigated' the first hit. However, there are many more women who do nothing to instigate the assault they experience.

However, if the man retaliates by punching his partner into oblivion resulting in a visit to the hospital I would argue this was an inappropriate response. It is also about degrees. The same goes in law for two men in a pub where one man might push another out of the way after a few too many, the other retaliates by punching him in the head to this death. Not an acceptable response by law.

The women on these threads bar some exceptions have agreed that DV policy should be written on the premise of non-gender but that does not mean the supports should not be allocated in area of most need. The policy should be about protecting and supporting victims (man, woman or child) and focus on prevention strategies (as is feasibly possible).

JamesH
I understand where you are coming from and there is no doubt some gender self-protection in both camps. My concerns are not with statistics that show women to be capable of violence, that is not in dispute. It is the exaggeration of the extent of it that annoys me and the tone of anti-female comments on here that go beyond mere policy debates.

You cannot be oblivious to them I am sure. At times comments do fall into the realm of personal attacks. Your own rhetoric has softened over time. I have sympathy for men in the Family Court system and have said thus, but the facts around the extent of female violence don't stack up. That is not the same as recognising that women also have to take responsibility for their own violence when they behave in the same way. Why would men believe that women think other women are allowed free pass when it comes to violence. As I said it is also about degrees and for both parties to learn strategies such as removing themselves from the situation or getting a divorce. Let's face it these relationships are toxic and cannot be healthy for either spouse nor more importantly for any children that might be affected.

Why, thank you Pelican.

There is at least one man who does not make me proud to be a man and that is the man who deprived a little girl of a life jacket at Christmas Island.

And I appreciate the fact that the vast majority of mothers would never do what this woman did.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2013572/Fiona-Donnison-murdered-toddlers-left-car-boot-split-husband.html

Hopefully I think we have reached the point where it is realised that DV can be extremely complicated, there is a lot of mis-information.

If it was approached more from the perspective of investigating a crash or accident where the circumstances that led to the incident were also examined dispassionately.

Sure without doubt there are people who are born violent and will use this to get what they want, without regard to others. There are others who become violent because of drugs, brain injury or illness(diagnosed or undiagnosed)for example, some diabetics can become aggressive when experiencing a hypo.

The ABC catalyst program had an interesting program on hormonal influences. (that most chose to ignore).

Pelican <"My concerns are not with statistics that show women to be capable of violence, that is not in dispute.
It is the exaggeration of the extent of it that annoys me and the tone of anti-female comments on here that go beyond mere policy debates."

Exactly! This is the most intelligent comment I have read for ages.

Good on you Pelican for continuing to argue with the OLO misogynists!
I would suggest that some of these posters are just trying to pick a fight with the others, just because they can?

Blind Freddy can see the glaring truth in Pelican's comment, which is why there is really no point in saying much more :)

I only came back here to see what was happening because I am so over the multitude of threads devoted to the carbon tax!

Pelican, domestic situations are all "grey areas". What is normal byplay for one couple may be seen as unacceptably rough to another.

My suspicion is that on the whole middle class women claim that being yelled at during an argument is violence, while working class women regard this as a perfectly normal state of affairs and give as good as they get.

I think the real problem that the women here have is that they simply don't know any working class people. Do yourself a favour and go for a meal at a pub in a working class suburb tonight. Stay at the bar for a while: you'll see lots of examples of women giving as good as they get and usually better, since the men know they aren't allowed to "win".

A common theme in these reports is that someone "didn't know they were experiencing violence" until the researchers pointed out to them that the definition of violence preferred by the researchers fit their circumstances.

The Monash correction of Thea Brown's report that I mentioned in another thread also makes mention of this effect, to the extent that a report being relied on to inform government policy overstates the prevalence of serious domestic violence by well over 50% by it's own admission, all due to the "researchers" having confirmation bias. They reported what they wanted to believe, not what the data showed, even with a carefully selected sample set. It's a serious condemnation of the peer-review process as it's applied within Gender studies "research". How many other such faulty reports have been released without proper review?

I await the Government's acknowledgement of the correction and amendments to its proposed FLA changes to reflect the vastly different picture the proper data presents. Yeah, that's gonna happen...

pelican "It is the exaggeration of the extent of it that annoys me and the tone of anti-female comments on here that go beyond mere policy debates"

Then why not more annoyed with the tone of the anti-male comments on here (see some recent posts by Suzie and Ammonite) or the much more serious exageration of DV stats by the women's lobby.

While some give lip service to the idea of gender neutral laws it's pretty obvious from other comments they don't mean it at all.

You've still not had the decency to acknowledge the lies ChazP has been caught in nor her views on misuse of information. Instead focussing your efforts into exagerating and misrepresenting the stance that most male posters here actually take.

R0bert