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.