Roscop,

It is corruption and it is being legitimised and funded by the federal government.

Change the government.

It's hard to find sensible voices on gender. This is one of them.

There is no way that we can prove that 1 in 3 women will be subject to violence. That would mean that we can predict the future.

There are many sensible women who are feminists. Unfortunately, the ones who gain most attention are the well-known mischief-makers. Many of them have had bad experiences which have scarred them emotionally. One of these said she was glad that men were more successful than women at suicide: it showed men could do something better than women.

FIght on, men, for a more balanced and thoughtful view of sex and gender : and let the mischief-makers drown in their own venom.

There is an valuable article by Murray Straus at http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/V75-Straus-09.pdf discussing public perceptions of PV vs research findings. Worth a read for those wanting some background on the issue.

That's linked from an advocacy site which is trying to promote better accuracy in DV research http://www.mediaradar.org/research.php#waj
Like most advocacy sites there is not a lot of diversity but there is some valuable material referenced there.

R0bert

Thanks for the link RObert. A worthy extract from the Straus paper:

"Asymmetry in Effects."
"There is one important and consistently reported gender difference in PV: although women engage in both minor and severe violence as often as men, the adverse effects on victims are much greater for women. Attacks by men cause more injury (both physical and psychological), more deaths, and more fear.
In addition, women are more often economically trapped in a violent relationship than men because women continue to earn less than men, and because when a marriage ends, women have custodial responsibility for children at least 80% of the time.
The greater adverse effect on women is an extremely important difference, and it indicates the need to continue to provide more services for female victims of PV than for male victims. In addition, as will be explained later, the greater adverse effect on women underlies the reluctance to acknowledge the evidence on gender symmetry.
However, empathy for women because of the greater injury and the need to help victimized women must not be allowed to obscure the fact that men sustain about a third of the injuries from PV, including a third of the deaths by homicide (Catalano, 2006; Rennison, 2000; Straus, 2005).
PV by women is therefore a serious crime, health, and social problem that must be addressed, even though the effects are not as prevalent as assaults perpetrated by male partners. Moreover, the risk of injury and the probability of the violence continuing or escalating is greatest when both partners are violent (Straus, 2007b), as is the case for at least half of violent couples"

Saltpetre, it's my impression that the majority of those opposed to completely gendered campaigns would not have too much trouble with those comments by Straus.

It's recognised that women sustain more injuries, that women are generally more afraid of the physical aspects of the violence. Most opponents of gendered campaigns that I've seen comment don't demand equality of representation of DV (I can't speak for everyone). The main bug bear is the utter refusal to acknowledge female violence against male partners.

No public voices willing to stand up and tell women that hitting a male partner is not Ok. No public voices willing to stand and say, it is DV when you hit him (or use any of the other DV behaviours).

I do think that Straus misses some stuff in that, men can be trapped in a violent relationship, societal views on men who desert a wife, maternal bias in the implementation of family law and supporting system being a couple of big issues worthy of note.

He also does not seem to acknowledge the emotional impacts on a man of being beaten and being unable to stop it. I don't know how to describe that well but from my own experience it was very very difficult to deal with.

I like Straus, he and Gelles seem to have had great integrity in a field where that seems to be rare. I don't always agree with their background beliefs but that's OK.

There are some other side issues, DV is expanded to cover controlling behaviours yet again without evidence it's assumed to be mostly doing it. A women checking a partners emails and sms's or other behaviours is no less a controlling behaviour than a male doing the same.

Not an issue I've paid a lot of attention to but the question is also asked about the lack of coverage of violence within gay and lesbian relationships. Do DV victims in those relationships somehow not deserve any support?

R0bert

'It all boils down to one in four women will be ignored during their life time'.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w5AOj6EhRuY