What amazing insight to predict a cost of $15.6 billion 10 years in the future (2021-22). No justification or basis for that estimate are given, no reason for choosing 10 years time instead of the present, no indication of what those costs are - are they AusAid to "neighbouring Pacific", or the wages and other costs of the burgeoning public-funded DV industry, or...? Can't sensibly be the DV industry - that adds to GDP as surely as do car smashes (panel beaters, ambulance staff, doctors, nurses, ..... all gain from smashes).

No hope that the problem will have been eliminated in 10 long years time?

Essentially, the author's message seems to be "yeah, men experience violence,but who cares, they're not women".

Thanks but no thanks, dear.

BTW, does the author happen to know what the age-standardised death rate from all causes was for men and women in Australia in 2009?

According to the ABS, it is approximately 50% higher for men.

http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/Products/765CAB708CA1FEE1CA2577D60010A0C4?opendocument

Similarly, violence against men occurred at roughly 4 times the rate as violence against women.

Never mind, we know where the author is drawing her paycheck...

From the UNIFEM web page

"Julie is also a current fellow in Ethical Leadership through the Vincent Fairfax Fellowship Program at Melbourne Business School."

and

"since March 2007 Julie has overseen many campaigns to raise the awareness of gender equality issues and also committing nine months to the White Ribbon Campaign as the National Campaign Manager."

So Julie McKay was in charge when the White Ribbon Campaign people issued misleading "statistics" that falsely claimed that most students thing that it's OK to hit a girl, when the real figures showed precisely the opposite. Despite this being pointed out to the WRD people almost immediately, it took them several weeks to issue a grudging retraction which still sought to pretend that girls hitting boys is OK.

I wonder if the people at Melbourne Business School share her view that it is ethical to dismiss the needs of 50% of the population as irrelevant and that it is ethical to tell lies to support a cause you believe in?

The article is sexist. It discriminates against men, even while admitting men are more often the victims of violence.

C'mon people, be reasonable.

This article comes into the category of a "measurable work output", the mandatory product of a professional NGO operative. They have to do this sort of thing every so often to justify their existence, and to add to the "publications" list on their CV. I'm not sure what else you would expect from someone in Ms. McKay's position.

One line in her background material puzzled me though:

"Julie has experience in both the corporate and NGO sectors."

As far as I can see the lady has zero corporate experience. Her entire career has been in the fashionable charity sector, and I suspect this is where she will spend her entire working life. Let's face it, it's highly rewarding work, if you can get it - all care, no responsibility.

Thanks Julie for a useful article on gender violence against women. Previous comments on your article illustrate the underlying gender hatred that is the root cause of gender violence. The challenges are huge, keep up your good work!

And there you have it "Previous comments on your article illustrate the underlying gender hatred that is the root cause of gender violence."

In a nutshell, anyone who disagrees is only doing so as a result of their gender hatred and reveals themselves for public castigation and demonization.

How simplistic ..

You could also derive from this, that anyone who accuses others of gender hatred, is a themselves displaying gender hatred.

Yes anna52, the statistics are shocking, and the challenges are huge.

But I think it's time for this debate to move on from the claim that "At the centre of such abuse is gender inequality, which creates a cycle of violence that becomes acceptable". This is a nice line, similar in vein to John Howard's "we decide who comes into this country, and the circumstances in which they come". Although technically correct, it is a gross oversimplification, and worded in such a way as to appeal to extremist elements who want to win the argument (I didn't know it was supposed to be a competition - where is the group advocating for VAW?) by dehumanising the "other side".

In order to make progress here I think it's important for us to conceed that we simply don't understand the causes of domestic violence. And here again, I am not disputing the conditions - the condition of male dominance or patriarchy clearly allows VAW to continue, but that doesn't mean it causes it. My best guess for what causes it is a feeling of disempowerment or inferiority of the perpetrators vis a vis their peers which, combined with a culture of silence (on both men's and women's parts), pathological personality types, and/or the disinhibiting effects of alcohol and an unexpressed feeling off having been the subject of injustice, coalesce to turn some men violent. But more evidence is required before we can say that for certain.

However instead of attributing male violence to patriarchy (which again, I don't dispute the existence of), I think we need to explore the notion that VAW is caused by individual men's weaknesses and vulnerabilities. Because until we do, then discourses are going to lead to the interpretation that men are somehow inherently prone to, or responsible for VAW, and immune to VAM - and in turn, people like anna52 are going to deign to think that she is seeing an example of "gender hatred" when men stand up and defend themselves (however disingenuously) against such one-eyed, cutting, xenophobic sleights.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=12565#217127

anna52,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lies,_damned_lies,_and_statistics

really dear, the feMANazis used to claim the lifetime DV figure was 2 out of 3.

Now it is down to 1 out of 3, when we all know the real figure including correcting for unreported DV is 1 out of 1000, or -01%.

http://motherandbaby.ninemsn.com.au/family/familytime/8292286/hands-on-dads-smarter-kids

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/8291815/sa-woman-guilty-of-pensioners-murder

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/8264178/mum-arrested-after-baby-dies-in-microwave

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcljXIuOwrY&feature=related female bigots

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlXeUrAMyKk&feature=related what really happens in an alleged DV refuge, dykes with access to vulnerable women & girls.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvTGYiwXKZ0&feature=share PAS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A87VbJUY6g&feature=related hate bounces

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=he7NHLYuLBg&feature=related misandry

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q-_6wwHpAr8&feature=related a sensible woman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qodygTkTUYM&feature=related the haters at it again.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb_6v-JQ13Q&feature=related per hour worked women actually earn more than men.

To all AFL

Anti
FeMANazi/fauxMANista
League

enjoy the videos, there are plenty more related subjects on you tube.

Nothing has any value unless it can be seen to be costing 'The Economy'. When will people stop these riduculous attempts to quantify the costs of everything.

I want to know how much burnt toast cost the economy last year!

Or Oprah Winfrey!

I want the full justification of all these figures and reports. I mean, What about if the woman goes to the doctor for some other aliment as well as a black eye, what % of the cost goes to the breakdown of domestic violence and what percent goes toward the abuse of antibiotics? Then I suppose the depression brought about the ill-health, but then what about the childhood trauma that also attributed to the depression. What % of the depression is attributable to that and how is it measured. What are the margins of error?

I reckon if you add up all the things that have cost the economy from all reports in 1 year it would equal 100000% of GDP.

I'm having a sickie tomorrow to celebrate!

'women are frequently targeted specifically because of their gender.'

They proved this by asking each perpertrator on each violent (Yes, Including economic) crime against women what their motives were.

Without exception, all said that they did it because they hated women.

In conclusion, there would be no violent crime against women at all with gender equality. Except for the women who hit women, but I suppose they are just self-loathing misogynists too.

BTW: The other day, I said to my partner that my pay is coming in after the weekend not before it, so don't spend up too big until I can pay the credit card off. I see the error of my ways now, and my economic violence in this case is due to my innate misogyny.

I'm not sure if 'VAW' will cost $15.6 billion but it might cost men:
-$15.6 billion to pay for women's many extra visits to the doctors each year
-$15.6 billion to pay for the 6 years women live longer than men
-$15.6 billion to pay for the extra sick days women take on average
-$15.6 billion to pay for the shorter working lives women enjoy
-$15.6 billion to make up for women's share of the tax burden while they are enjoying their shorter working lives with more breaks and sick leave
-$15.6 billion to subsidise women's higher rates of education which they then use less often, for a shorter working life and take more sick days and breaks.....

...I think a picture is starting to emerge.

And that's before we take into account the $15.6 billion men have to pay to keep women in jobs to argue men should pay more to women.

I'm with Anna52. My finger has hovered over a few posts, but I think the problem is the cumulative effect rather than any particular one. It's not so much that posters want to disagree with her, but the unpleasant boof-headed way in which some of you express yourselves.

So to try to get a reasonable conversation going I'm going to delete the next comments that are unreasonably aggressive towards Julie. If the comments aren't relevant to the article they will go too.

Graham (Moderator)

GY

I do believe that those posters to whom you refer prove the validity of Julie McKay's article. They demean us all.

Reality Check: More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they are girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century combined. If that isn't gender hatred, I wouldn't like to see what is......

It might help to provide some illumination of these - quite staggering - statistics, upon which the article relies.

"[VAW] in Australia alone will cost an estimated $15.6 billion in 2021-22."

Whom does it cost, and how is it measured?

And this one is even more staggering, almost to the point of defying belief:

"More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they are girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century combined."

The claim "precisely because they are girls" clearly indicates gender hatred. But I'm curious as to how the motivation is determined.

Any chance of some clarification? Or am I just being boof-headed?

Pericles, my guess would be the one child policy in China. I doubt that there are definitive figures for that but its the only thing I can think of where millions "could" have been killed just because they were girls.

Might be educational to see what if any figures are around on that topic and how they are derived.

R0bert

I would agree that there could be domestic violence occurring in some of the South Pacific countries, as I have lived on one of them years ago, and unemployment was very high.

That nation was kept afloat by handouts from other countries, with very little local industry except tourism, and who wants tourists gawking at them all day.

With high levels of unemployment, domestic violence can increase, and that is a fact.

However I am totally circumspect regards claims of endemic or large scale domestic violence in this country.

I have seen innumerable women with self-inflicted tattoos (normally on their backs, shoulder or ankles).

But I have never seen a woman with a black eye, and I can't remember the last time I ever saw a woman with a single bruise.

RObert,

I looked that up a while back for another thread....seems that there are around 117 male births for every 100 female births in China.

Poirot, there are 105 male births for every female birth in Australia. Do you think Australians are routinely killing female babies?

Jumping to conclusions is never wise...

Anti,

I wuz just quoting statistics m'dear...not jumping to conclusions.

105 male births for every 100 female births is the norm in most countries, and appears natural.

There are more males above the 105 being born in some provinces in China, but not all.

Many Asian countries also carry out abortion as a form of contraception, and the killing of unborn baby girls through abortion could be considered a form of population control, although I am personally not in favour of it.

Feminists have wanted abortion, and so they have it.

If there is roughly a 10 percent difference between what is normal and what occurs in China in terms of the ratio between male and female births, and if the Chinese diaspora conform to the normal, then I think you can infer that something is going on that is not to do with physiology.

'there are 105 male births for every female birth in Australia.'

Really?

105 to 1?

Just found these figures for 2009.

Male births were 119.45 for every 100 female births - a narrowing of 1.11, the first drop since 2006.

http://english.peopledaily.com.cn/90001/90776/90882/7011709.html

Poirot,
It is known about, and mostly occurs because more baby girls are killed in abortion clinics than baby boys. There are laws in many Asian countries against this, but it doesn't stop it completely.

According to feminist theory, it doesn't matter, because the foetus is not a human, but just a bunch of cells.

Sort of puts feminist theory to the test, doesn’t it.

Continuing the diversion to China some interesting material on the One-child policy at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy#Effects_on_female_population and on sex ratio's in humans at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio

It's obviously not easy to get clear figures but one that stuck out from the first of those "According to a report by the State Population and Family Planning Commission, there will be 30 million more men than women in 2020". At it's simplest that would suggest a figure of around 30 to 40 million more girls killed due to the one-child policy than boys.

I've not found a figure yet for just the male deaths in wars of the 20th century but one source puts the total war deaths of the 20th century at 160 million http://www.scaruffi.com/politics/massacre.html
Note another source suggested that 300 million died of Smallpox in the 20th century.

Looking for detail I came across a horrifying article on the Rape of Nanking http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/nanking.htm details were similar elsewhere (although there is dispute). For those who want to make an issue of body counts from either side of the gender divide it's worth read to bring home the sheer horror when people treat others as objects.

VAH affects us all.

R0bert

Graham, according to Wikipedia:"In an extensive study, carried out around 2005, of sex ratio at birth in the United States from 1940 over 62 years,[11] statistical evidence suggested the following: For mothers having their first baby, the total sex ratio at birth was 1.06 overall, with some years at 1.07. For mothers having babies after the first, this ratio consistently decreased with each additional baby from 1.06 towards 1.03. The age of the mother affected the ratio: the overall ratio was 1.05 for mothers aged 25 to 35 at the time of birth; while mothers who were below the age of 15 or above 40 had babies with a sex ratio ranging between 0.94 to 1.11, and a total sex ratio of 1.04. This United States study also noted that American mothers of Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Cuban and Japanese ethnicity had the highest sex ratio, with years as high as 1.14 and average sex ratio of 1.07 over the 62 year study period."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_sex_ratio

So it appears there are a couple of confounding factors. First, Chinese mothers have a high rate of male births. Second, a one-child policy means there will be a higher than normal rate of first-time mothers, who also tend to produce more boys.

Wikipedia again:""Sex-selective abortion and infanticide are thought to significantly skew the naturally occurring ratio in some populations, such as China, where the introduction of ultrasound scans in the late 1980s has led to a birth sex ratio (males to females) of 1.133 (2011 CIA estimate data)"

Poirot, the article isn't very credible. It reverses the true gender ratio

"the normal range of 103 males to 107 females.

In industrialized countries, the ratio is 100 to 107."

and overstates the gender ratio considerably.

The issue with the Chinese one child policy is that from what I understand, in China, culturally it is the male childs responsibility to provide/care for the parents in their old age.

From what I understand in many third world rural areas, male children were preferred because of the labour that they could provide.

So the choice or preference for male children is based on economic reasons.

Antiseptic,

It's obvious that there is a significant discrepancy in the ratio of male and female births in China - even compared to your figures for industrialised countries. It's not all that surprising in light of the one child policy. As JamesH points out, there are economic reasons for preferring a male child, especially if you've only got one shot at it. However, there will be ramifications in the years to come when males are unable to find wives....

Poirot:"However, there will be ramifications in the years to come when males are unable to find wives...."

What then of Australia? In this country, the sex ratio for the population under 40 is still around 1.03 and it is not until past age 50 that it reaches rough parity, reflecting the fact that far more men die young than females do. What "ramifications" do you foresee?

I'm afraid your analysis is unconvincing. At present, it seems that the Chinese sex ratio is with historical norms for expatriate Chinese living in the US at 1.13. It may be slightly inflated due to the abortion of female foetuses. Who is driving this, do you think? Men or women? Chinese women aren't known as subservient tools of patriarchy, as far as I can tell.

It wasn't all that long ago when claims were made about super bowl domestic violence. How the level of domstic violence rose.

Sensational stuff, that proved to be not based on facts.

So in reality any sensational claims should be treated with a grain of salt.

Antiseptic, I was only commenting on the figures that were presented at the time. I don't claim expertise in birth rates, just some expertise in statistics.

Your Wikipedia stats don't negate this. The 1.14 male versus 1 female births in some ethnic minorities is an outlier and occurs in occasional years. I also wonder why "Hawaiian, Filipino, Chinese, Cuban and Japanese" should have a higher incidence of males than the bulk of the population. They're all quite distinctive racial types.

So the Chinese figures are outside the norm and suggest an increased rate of abortion of girls, which your Wiki quote also supports.

This is sexist, irrespective of whether it is rational or not because of economics as JamesH seems to be claiming.

Look, I realize that is horribly crass of a mere male to ask for evidence, references, or even a little vague guidance in the general direction of facts, when the topic is so emotionally charged.

But surely... someone?

"[VAW] in Australia alone will cost an estimated $15.6 billion in 2021-22."

"More girls have been killed in the last fifty years, precisely because they are girls, than men were killed in all the wars of the twentieth century combined."

I'm not after any level of precision. But these are heavy numbers.

GrahamY:"This is sexist"

I don't agree. If something is done for sound reasons, such as the greater productive capacity of sons in a peasant milieu, then it is not sexist. If I select black for my solar heat collector instead of white, am I being colourist? Black will collect more heat and work more efficiently.

Moreover, if it is the mothers who are doing the selecting, as seems likely, then it is a far different picture to the one that people like Julie McKay would have us take away. I think that is important to pint out.

Pericles, I'm sure Ms McKay must have some basis for her assertion. You can't think she'd just have made it up?

Don't be silly, Antiseptic, of course not.

>>Ms McKay must have some basis for her assertion. You can't think she'd just have made it up?<<

A figure as precise as $15.6 billion, in the specific timeframe of 2021-22, cannot possibly be invented. The detailed accuracy of the "point-six", and the identification of the exact financial year, indicate a carefully researched source with a refined methodology.

That's the part that interests me

Well, Pericles, I called for it first. I am the number 1 boof-head. Actually I suppose I just mocked the figures, as is my way.

I actually missed that this is a prediction for 10 years time. What an ambitious study it mustr have been, taking into account such a variety of factors. I cant wait to see the details of this exciting study! It will assume it to be a precision of the nearest $100000.

Graham I don't think James is claiming it isn't sexist, I think rather that it isn't misogynist, or 'gender hatred'.

I agree. It isn't any more misogynist than it is misandrist that men are killed in war 'precisely because they are men'.

I'm still getting over anti's claim that 105 men are born to every 1 woman.

I also love vanna's wedge.
'ccording to feminist theory, it doesn't matter, because the foetus is not a human, but just a bunch of cells.'

If the feminist is pro-choice, I think its every woman's right to abort. We always keep hearing women don't make these decisions lightly. But, of course, a helpless victim (as all woman are) is not responsible for her choices, we must safely assume it's pressure from a man somewhere. The nurturing virtuous sex just wouldn't do such a thing. The pressure must be extreme for the mother love to be overridden in such a way. It is plainly the mans fault if a woman chooses to abort her daughters, we need no evidence of that. If not on the individual family level, then on the extended family level and if not then on the culture level (Women have and have had no responsibility for any prevailing culture), then on the power-political level. Somewhere, we know for sure, it's all men's fault.

Just as if a man is violent towards any woman, he did it because he has a pathological hatred of all women. No other factors could possibly come into play.

Pericles I'm guessing that the figures are sourced from (or extrapolated from) a report done by Access Economics for the Office of the Status of Women http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/pubs/violence/cost_violence_economy_2004/Pages/default.aspx

I wonder what the estimate is for the cost of all violence in Australia, I've not found that yet.

R0bert

'Health cost data for the conditions associated with DV'

Hahaha.

Thanks you so much R0bert!

'Associated'. Of course we must assume any health cost for a condition that can be associated with DV, is infact caused specifically and directly and exclusively by the DV the woman has experienced.

But from the actual report...

'For example, as discussed in the report, the possibility that
correlation between DV and another factor (say, depression)
may both be due to a third (unidentified) factor—such as a
previous life circumstance, or that the causality may be twoway.
These various impacts need to be disentangled in orderto generate more robust fractions that would be generally
accepted among the broader health community. Such analysis
would, in turn, require sound epidemiological source data.
Ideally, a number of similar international evidence should also
be available to support the attributable fractions so derived.
There is still a long way to go in this area to refine estimates
of these potentially very large and important costs.
Similarly, in relation to the second generation impacts,
longitudinal analysis is required in order to disentangle risk
factors, predisposition and causal relationships that link early
events to later outcomes in a systematic way, controlling
for a variety of potentially'

Gotta love this kind of guestimate 'research'...

http://blogs.news.com.au/jackmarxlive/index.php/news/comments/cross_fingers_day/desc/

Thus a reference to a previous report that references a previous study will become a constituent part of a legitimate “new report”, the burdon of methodology removed from the back of the new “researcher”. There is plenty of fodder out there for this sort of folly. Of course, conspicuously absent from the “new report” will be references to previous reports that refute the aims of Cross Fingers Day. The report will thus be not unlike a genuine survey in which answers that confound the researcher’s already predetermined findings are ignored. That’s not a report at all, and any reporting upon it is closer to advertising that journalism.

'There is almost a complete lack of Australian data on
domestic violence against men, and on same-sex domestic
violence and its impacts.'

Surprising!

I missed it earlier (until just after my post).

The estimate is on page 7 of one of the documents http://www.fahcsia.gov.au/sa/women/pubs/violence/np_time_for_action/economic_costs/Documents/VAWC_Economic_Report.PDF

R0bert

[Deleted for abuse.]

Poriot,
According to feminist theory, it should not matter if there are more males to females, because a woman simply goes from one man to the next.

Some further information about China, not often mentioned by those who wish to say females are being discriminated against.

0-14 male to female ratio 1.167
15-64 male to female ratio 1.057
65+ male to female ratio 0.92

https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html

As for the costs of domestic violence: I could think that I am a victim of domestic violence, and I can claim that I am a victim of domestic violence, and I know that I am a victim of domestic violence, and domestic violence has now filled every aspect of my life, and domestic violence is now all I can think of.

Although I haven't actually had any bruising.

vanna,

Are you planning on growing up and getting a life anytime soon?

What sort of a "balanced" comment is this?

"...because a woman simply goes from one man to the next."

Well, I don't know what sort of women you've associated with in the past to be left with an outlook like that, but....oh well, what's the use? No matter what I say, you'll reply with a torrent of puerile misogynist claptrap...that's what you do - and that's why I don't usually bother to engage you anymore.

Antiseptic, it is sexist to decide that on the balance of probabilities, and without weighing the merits of the particular person, that one ought to die because they are presumed to be less economically productive than another.

How can you know? And why is it that gender should be the prime determinant?

It would be wrong of me to moderate these threads on the basis that the male contributors are more likely to be boofheads than the females, and to penalise males accordingly (and no Houllebecq I wasn't specifically thinking of you when I originally made the boofhead comment).

So it is equally wrong to presume that because a child is female it will contribute less to your financial well-being than a male and so should be aborted as an unacceptable opportunity cost, that is if one accepts lower economic contribution as a valid reason for abortion at all.

Poiriot,
It is a part of feminist theory that a woman moves from one man to the next. That is why they wanted no fault divorce, and have rarely had a good thing to say about marriage. They want de facto relationships.

They also want lots of IVF, but isn’t nature ironic.

“Certain types of IVF treatment may increase the odds of having a boy, research revealed yesterday. Some methods tip the gender balance to as many as 128 boys being born for every 100 girls.”

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1316079/IVF-skews-ratio-boys-girls.html#ixzz1XAaOz48A

I can't wait for our un-married feminist Prime Minister to say that she is being abused and discriminated against, because she has such a low public approval rating.

Really, vanna,you don't say..... how profoundly absorbing for you.

<So it is equally wrong to presume that because a child is female it will contribute less to your financial well-being than a male and so should be aborted as an unacceptable opportunity cost, that is if one accepts lower economic contribution as a valid reason for abortion at all.Posted by GrahamY, Tuesday, 6 September 2011 8:50:13 PM?>

Is it not also sexist to choose male children because of the labour that they can provide?

However we have the luxury of a relatively high standard of living and our survival is not dependent on the productivity of a meagre few acres of land.

What articles like this one expose, is what is known as values conflict. What right do we have to impose our values onto another culture.

Afterall our own society is less than perfect, the westernizaton of cultures has lead to turmoil and disharmony.

From what I understand some other cultures view the western culture as sinful and evil.

Graham the sexism in the one child policy gets more complex than that.
Not sure if it's across the board or just some provinces but it appears the rule could be relaxed if the first child was female or disabled.
Somewhat of a backhander in that.

Also if both parents were from single child families. A lot of it seemed to be around the likely hood of the child being able to support parents and grandparents in their old age.

I've been thinking about the reaction to the article, hope I'm not breaching rules of conduct with some of what follows.

I tried to find what research was around to support the views put forward in the article about attitudes to VAW amongst Pacific Islanders. The stuff I found looked like the usual advocacy research so I'm still undecided how much truth is in it.

The Islanders I've known have been very protective of family and nothing I've seen suggests that they think it's Ok for men to beat up women. I'm not really inclined to wonder next door and ask my neighbours, it may be Ok to beat up rude white guy's.

Part of the hassle with these discussions is that so much of the material is spin built on spin built on half truths. Data that's clearly relevant is left on the cutting room floor, anecdotal views are on-quoted, focus groups of people with a special interest are interviewed then treated as a normal sample. It's very easy to get extremely cynical about anything coming out of the industry because so much of it is either false or way out of context.

Violence is a human problem, those who continue to want to make it about the subset of violence that's handy for pointing the finger and little else are in my view part of the problem, not the solution.

R0bert

Graham, you're conflating outcomes with motivatons. If I choose red for my solar panel collector because I think that red is going to do the best job, then I'm still not being colourist, even though my motivation was incorrectly based. I didn't choose the colour simply because I prefer red, but through sound reasoning based on a faulty proposition.

I suspect that most peasant families would prefer boys for the same reason - they are stronger and they are historically more disposable, as vanna's figures on the population sex ratio show. A family group needs only one woman to produce more children, but may need several men of more than one generation to support that woman and the children she bears. This may not be a sound assumption, but I'm sure it has a lot to do with the cultural background that informs the preference for boy babies.

Let's not taint the discussion with our own bourgeois predispositions.

R0bert, the Pacific Islanders I know are also very gentle people, but they don't handle their grog well. I understand tht the Polynesian population derives from an East Asian parent group that lacks the ability to synthesise some forms of alcohol dehydrogenase and are hence more affected by alcohol than typical westerners. Aborigines are in a similar boat, I understand.

Perhaps UNIFEM should be simply campaigning for alcohol to be removed from sale in PI communities?

Apologies for being off-topic, however have to point out to Anti that black is the best absorber of heat of all colours. If you have chosen a very dark red it will work but not as effectively as black.

You don't have to take my word for it a little research will reveal which colour absorbs the most energy from the sun.

Yes, the reason it is not "colourist" whatever that might be, to choose an absorbent colour, is that there is a direct relationship between the colour and the absorption of energy.

There is no such relationship between gender and ability to support, just a probability factor across the whole gender. When you act on the basis of that probability factor rather than the individual in front of you, you are being sexist.

I'm not saying I don't understand why they might do it, or that it might appear to be rationally smart for them individually, but that doesn't make it not sexist.

The babies are being aborted because of their gender. It doesn't change that when there are economic or other reasons involved in that choice.

I think that's splitting hairs Graham. The quote under consideration is 'precisely because of their gender'. The implication is made that it's an innate hatred of women, not because women are disdvantaged in the culture in terms of producing money, and that money is important for survival.

It goes to motivation.

It also goes to responsibility. The underlying theme is that men have somehow engineered this as an expression of some innate misogyny and men have sole responsibility for all the problems of the world, and that women have had no input in the make up of cultures.

As usual 'societal expectations' are something for which women bare no responsibiliy and these expectations only ever negatively affect women. It's ridculously one-sided.

It's the central tennet of feminism that women are never responsible; From aborting babies of a certain gender, to dressing up their daughters for beauty pageants, to 'regretted sex', to prostitution, to the worship of fashion and modelling, to the sales of women's magazines women are forever the helpless pawns of the evil men.

It's not hairsplitting, it is the definition of sexism, or any other discrimination. You don't get out of discrimination merely by saying you had good reasons for stereotyping.

That doesn't mean I buy the victim culture of a lot of feminist discourse. But you don't answer that by perpetrating your own dodges.

I was raised in a family where it was just accepted that girls could do anything, and my two sisters frequently proved that.

One of my sisters went through the stock standard feminist stage in the 70s, but I think she's grown out of the "patriarchy made me do it" phase, and I've never heard the younger one use any of those lines at all.

It is undoubtedly why they have both been quite successful.

I've employed plenty of men and women over the years, but never on the basis of pre-formed impressions of what either is going to do based on gender. However I know that there are lots of people who do, and that is grounds for legitimate complaint.

Thank you for providing the base data, R0bert. It would have helped if the reference had been provided in the article.

An interesting report. Personally, I find the calculation methodology to be quite bizarre, but then, I'm not a professional statistician.

One set of numbers was particularly confusing.

In terms of "Disability Adjusted Life Years", upon which much of the calculation depends, Domestic Violence poses a risk to health roughly equivalent to a lack of fruit and vegetables, and a third of the risk posed by physical inactivity. (The Cost of Domestic Violence to the Australian Economy: Part I, p27)

The other missing piece for me, wading through the mass of QALYS and DALYs, was the manner in which the Australian economy would actually realise all the dollars that were being measured, should domestic violence against women disappear from the continent overnight.

After a while, it occurred to me that there is something intrinsically sick in the concept of a society that needs to go to such lengths and expense to explain in financial terms that men beating up women is bad.

Would the report encourage the perpetrator, as he raises his hand, to suddenly think "hang on, this is bad for the Australian economy", and consequently desist?

Or - even worse - does our government work along the lines of "we'd really like to discourage domestic violence, but it doesn't stack up in economic terms. As soon as someone can show us what it is costing the taxpayer, we'll act"

In the meantime of course, it provides "work" for a whole host of people - Access Economics, KPMG (how they must love this stuff), plus the various NGOs and government departments.

What an odd society we have become.

"For the avoidance of doubt", as lawyers are wont to say, can I ask whether it is the contention here that the one-child policy in China is caused by underlying gender hatred, and hence constitutes Violence Against Women?

Presumably that would require that the cost of abortion in Australia, including the associated QALYs and DALYs, be added to the Access Economics and KPMG reports.

Or am I splitting hairs?

Pericles,

I think you hit the nail on the head when you wrote: "...we'd really like to discourage domestic violence, but it doesn't stack up in economic terms..."

E.F. Schumacher made a similar observation of our system in "Small is Beautiful":

"...Anything that is found to be an impediment to economic growth is a shameful thing...Call a thing immoral or ugly, soul destroying or a degradation of man, a peril to the peace of the world or to the well-being of future generations; as long as you have not shown it to be "uneconomic" you have not really questioned its right to exist, grow and prosper."

GrahamY:"There is no such relationship between gender and ability to support, just a probability factor across the whole gender. "

We use such stochastic probabilities all the time. If you only have one bet, then you place it so as to maximise your odds. In radiation safety, for example, there is the ALARA (As Low As Reasonably Achievable) principle when dealing with exposure to ionizing radiation which could cause health problems. Any individual working with ionizing radiation, from UV to gamma, should take the precautions necessary to minimise their exposure to the hazard. The reason is simple: if the radiation causes some form of problem, the outcome is very negative. Most people may have no problem and enjoy the suntan from the solarium, but do you want to be the one who gets melanoma?

People in China under the one child policy had one bet, so many of them placed it on sons.

The reasoning is simple and goes like this:

Any woman may be entirely the superior of any or all men, but if one wishes to maximise the family wealth then boys are the way to bet, given the option, especially in the context of a peasant farmer lifestyle.

The Government apparently recognizes this:

"The one-child policy (simplified Chinese: &#35745;&#21010;&#29983;&#32946;&#25919;&#31574;; traditional Chinese: &#35336;&#21123;&#29983;&#32946;&#25919;&#31574;; pinyin: jìhuà sh&#275;ngyù zhèngcè; literally "policy of birth planning") refers to the one-child limitation applying to a minority of families in the population control policy of the People's Republic of China (PRC). The Chinese government refers to it under the official translation of family planning policy.[1] It officially restricts married, urban couples to having only one child, although it allows exemptions for several cases, including rural couples, ethnic minorities, and parents without any siblings themselves.[2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

It's not sexist to want to make sure you and your family doesn't starve. That may no longer be a common experience within china as modernisation takes hold, but I'll bet there are lots of people in the backblocks who can remember when it was a regular feature of life.

Graham, I should have said that I accept your narrow point in regard to definitions, but I think that in this case the definition serves to obscure the issue rather than illuminate it.

Pericles:"After a while, it occurred to me that there is something intrinsically sick in the concept of a society that needs to go to such lengths and expense to explain in financial terms that men beating up women is bad."

Yes indeed. Of course, we don't live in such a society, no matter how much the discussion is skewed by the damaged and those who want to take advantage of them. We live in a society that has held for a very long time that violence is not to be encouraged in any context other than war and some forms of sport and that even there it must be highly regulated. There is no cultural norm in which beating up the missus is acceptable, but there is a strong effort on the part of the more rabidly misandric feminists to normalise the use of violence against men by simply pretending that it isn't worth discussing.

There's lots more lovely free taxpayer money in being a part of "The Women's Lobby"...

Yeah you win Graham, but I think we are talking slightly at cross purposes. I think I'm more interested in the proposed/assigned motivation for the sexism. The picture painted is it's just an innate evil in all men, or an irrational hatred of women that motivates the sexism. I think it's fair to say it comes about from much more pragmatic (if outdated) motivations as discussed.

Like I said, is it misandry that men die in war 'precisely because thay are men', and is that an ihnerant misandry in society? Never heard that argument made before that's for sure but it seems equivalent to me.

Houellebecq, men go off to die in war to satisfy their atavistic brutalist nature. Haven't you learnt anything at all?

Pericles, the Access Economics report is interesting as a piece of speculative fiction. It says this at the start:

"Main Findings of the Study
It is estimated that in 2002–03 the total number of Australian
victims of domestic violence MAY [caps for emphasis] have been of the order"

In other words, they don't even know what the current prevalence is, let alone what it costs.

Sounds like typical OSW fluff. Make up a number, then build a whole edifice of speculation around it, then take your very impressive-looking house of cards off to the girls of Emily's List and voila! you have a shiny new paradigm based on no more than wishful thinking.

Brilliant in its own way.

Unfortunately when dealing with government, 'evidence' based policy demands statistics and figures, rubbery or otherwise. It is all part of the funding process. As Pericles pointed out figures are not really needed to prove violence towards women is a bad thing. Statistics are the reality of dealing with bureacracy. Bureaucracy by it's nature needs to be seen as accountable for spending money even if some it is farcical. Anyone who has worked for government knows rubbery figures can be used for self-interested careerists as well as for genuinely good causes or where there is a legitimate need.

Issues of violence against women in developing countries is very different to the Western experience. It is necessary to separate the two.

In the Third World women may still be burned on their husband's funeral pyre, harsh justice in relation to rape (out of the women's control), infidelity, forced marriages and access to education.

Boys in these environments do not fare better. They are often recruited as child soldiers barely knowing a normal childhood uprooted from their family home, sent to war, and subject to painful cultural body art and the like. Both girls and boys experience circumcision in various cultures. I often wonder if the demonisation of women in these societies does not do as much damage to men who must find it difficult to gain happiness from a union where honest communication and intimacy is restricted by strict social hierarchy and oppression of women.

Is there anything wrong with gender specific causes? I don't think so whether it be prostate cancer, men's sheds or breast cancer awareness which are all gender specific or 'shave for a cure' or child labour in Africa which is non-gender specific.

Violence is a social problem and in the West men are also victims of violence, however I don't think that means we should get rid of women's refuges or rape crisis centre or men's sheds just because they are gender-centric. Men are also supported in rape crisis centres.

Violence does affect us all and an inclusive anti-violence campaign would have a wholistic benefit as well.