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The Forum > Article Comments > Why has the state government ignored key recommendation from own DV taskforce? > Comments

Why has the state government ignored key recommendation from own DV taskforce? : Comments

By Cassandra Pullos, published 17/2/2017

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk's reported remarks urging parties demanding new measures for DV offenders to first discuss the issue, seems to ignore her Government's own DV taskforce recommendations of 2015.

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It seems to me, if there is a "global" epidemic of domestic violence, there is simply a global epidemic od drugs and alcohol abuse. Bet I'm closer the mark than this "expert"!
Posted by diver dan, Friday, 17 February 2017 1:29:47 PM
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"We need to identify the triggers and how to stop acts of violence before they occur."

Or conversely stop domestic relationships before they occur which will stop domestic violence. Domestic relationships are not compulsory but it seems women are willing to, indeed they seem desperate to, enter into relationships where there is an 'epidemic' of violence. Why is no one focusing on such reckless behaviour?
Posted by phanto, Friday, 17 February 2017 1:51:46 PM
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On the face of it the idea of GPS tracking of proven high risk offenders in a whole range of categories of criminal behaviour would seem to make a lot of sense. DV in some circumstances maybe more so because it's more likely to be targeted.

On the other hand having spent a lot of years looking at the scam that is much of public policy around DV and the research that's favoured in the media I have serious doubts that GPS tracking would be applied entirely on the basis of behaviour, I suspect gender would be a bigger factor.

I suspect pushing for GPS tracking of a clients ex would become another tool in the arsenal of family law lawyers trying to up the anti and push said clients ex to a more desperate position possibly leading to the kind of breakdown or snap that gives the client an edge in the battle that the family law system is so determined to promote in relationship breakdowns.

GPS tracking as described is probably a good idea but having seen how poorly the topic of DV is handled by most so called DV support groups and government I doubt very much that it would be implemented in a way that actually reduced risk to life and limb.

My own sense is that the most controllable part of DV fatalities is the way the family law system promotes adversarial behaviour, the way it provides incentives for people up the anti in a separation or divorce, the way it's so ruthlessly exploited by many in the legal profession to maximise their own profits with no regard to any sense of fair play or the impacts on the parties involved of the escalated conflict all to often resulting.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Friday, 17 February 2017 9:35:18 PM
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I took a look at 'Not Now, Not Ever: Putting an end to domestic and family violence in Queensland', but I couldn't find the list of recommendations.

Personally, I think the investigations into understanding Domestic Violence are flawed, because they single-mindedly focus on the specific act of DV itself which makes almost any investigation an attack on men.

One might think I'm attempting to defend the perpetrators of DV, but this is not the case at all.
What I'm interested in is not looking at the DV itself, but how it gets to that point.

Two people are attracted to each other, enjoy each others company and start a relationship.
If women want to portray men as this: "Our relationship was going great, then suddenly without warning or any reason he woke up one day and just started punching me in the face", then I don't totally buy it.

It's not about the act of Domestic Violence itself, it's about the 'dance'; the things that lead to that physical altercation.

My personal opinion is that once police intervene and a person has been charged with DV, then the relationship is doomed (if it wasn't already long beforehand), only the participants may not completely aware, many cases both are still co-dependent.

You can't just blame the man, it's too easy.
Two people took the relationship to that point.

They say 'The women was disempowered and couldn't leave'.
But why would a man stay in that very same relationship if he knew he was looking at police involvement, arrest, court, potential removal from his home and potential jail time?
Is it not reasonable that he also felt trapped and disempowered and that he couldn't leave?

I think the real issue of DV is more of a two-way street involving 'emotional blackmail and manipulation' that causes men to feel trapped; and when a person's pushed into a corner eventually they'll lash out.

It's the two-way street that interests me, not this 'lets blame all men' one-way street.
Though I don't discredit the idea that some men are simply thugs with their women too.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Saturday, 18 February 2017 6:51:06 AM
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[cont.]

There's too many women on that panel, the only man was a cop.
I don't think a mainly all women panel should be getting together to figure out ways to punish men, though I'm not necessarily opposed to the ankle bracelets, I accept the relationship is toxic at this point and that both parties are doing each other harm and are both likely to be far better off separated.
Quite often though, couples that have seen police involvement will continue their relationship.

"We need to identify the triggers and how to stop acts of violence before they occur."

That's not likely to happen, because women want to blame men for everything rather than equally take a look at their own behavior in the events that lead up to DV.

Women discard many men immediately upon meeting them and they put them into the 'friend zone'.
But then they choose men who would mistreat and harm them.
It's women's 'filter' in choosing the wrong men which is just as much to blame, and what leads them into the situations they find themselves in.
If in their minds they 'are' choosing the right guy, and would still go back to them despite the DV, well they have themselves to blame don't they?
Posted by Armchair Critic, Saturday, 18 February 2017 7:29:51 AM
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Armchair Critic,

You have a point there where you talk about women preferring 'bad boys'.

Although later in life when they want a home and security, the same women make a bee-line for the men who have applied themselves to study, work, providing for the future and who are good citizens. It is up to these good men to reject such women out of hand. They are always poor choices for good men, as the 'bad boys' were to the foolish skanks who preferred them.

Isn't it a pity that few mothers educate their boys on what girls and women to prefer and why and how to identify the losers? Although those acquired tatts do help with that.

Some things are difficult to believe. Such as the women and media who wrongly buff up and ooze over 'bad boys', unethically presenting them to girls and young women as models of exciting prospects of manliness.

Here is a topical example and there is NO obvious redefinition or cries of horror from other women, nor from the feminists and DV industry for that matter,

Jeremy Meeks, allegedly a violent, sociopathic, career criminal AND totally 'hot' and 'desirable' to women, a model and an icon

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3488401/Criminally-handsome-felon-Jeremy-Meeks-deluged-modeling-offers-freed-t-half-way-house-weeks-come.html
and
http://www.thesmokinggun.com/documents/Jeremy-Meeks-criminal-history-687543

I have not posted any links to the flattering puff pieces from Australian media sources. Like the huge majority of good men who would never be involved in violence or harm to anyone, quite the reverse, I am NOT going to give local media mentions of this lout any further publicity.
Posted by leoj, Saturday, 18 February 2017 11:32:14 AM
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Obviously the above have no ideas on the subject.
I'm right. The triggers for violence of most sort, are drugs and alcohol.
Here is some practice advice. Out of four daughters ,only one was afflicted with violence from a partner. Guess what? He spent six months in hospital recovering from broken limbs.
Last I heard of him, his equally pathetic mother was unwrapping a rope he set around his neck.
None of my kids suffer from DV.
that's how you solve the problem .
Posted by diver dan, Saturday, 18 February 2017 5:12:48 PM
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Looking at the comments here, it's obvious we have a long, loooong way to go before recognising that DV is a crime, a criminal offence.

But no. It's just a situation that women bring on themselves, because they have some trumped-up attraction for violent men. Nice work, guys. Always blame the women.

Someone gets murdered? Oh, but that victim probably knew their murderer and maybe behaved badly to them, so the victim brought it on themselves. Murder victims have an attraction to people who are likely to murder them. So give the perpetrator some slack and let them go free. Someone gets robbed? Oh, they probably knew the robber and let them know they had money to rob. So they brought it on themselves. Theft victims have an attraction to people who will most likely rob them. So the robber can't be blamed. Let them go free.

None of this stands up to examination in a criminal court. People who commit criminal acts get arrested, tried and convicted. But DV is different. The victim had a relationship with the perpetrator, so they brought on their violent abuse themselves. The perpetrator can't be blamed, because their victim fell in love with them, married them, had children by them. So let's cut them some slack.

Stop deluding yourselves. DV is a crime, enacted by one human being against another human being. The victim is a victim of a crime regardless of context, like all other crimes. But in this case, the victim is on trial, not the perpetrator. By association, all women are on trial for the false crime of supposedly loving violent men.

As for tracking the movements of known DV perpetrators, it's a move that has long passed the point of sloppy recognition of democratic rights. DV perpetrators are criminals. Like most criminals, there is a high risk that they will continue to offend. Their past and potential victims need protection.
Posted by Killarney, Sunday, 19 February 2017 5:07:20 AM
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Killarney:

If you behave in such a way that greatly increases your chances of becoming a victim then you are to blame to that extent. If you put yourself in a position that you do not have to be in at all then you are completely to blame for your actions.

No one puts themselves in unreasonable positions where they are likely to be murdered or robbed and so they cannot be truly to blame. Perpetrators of these crimes should be punished and no real blame should be attached to victims.

If women put themselves in a position where there is an epidemic of violence then they are to blame for putting themselves in that position. It is no good denying that these women choose to do such things and should take responsibility for it.

In no way does this absolve the culpability of perpetrators of domestic violence. They are to blame for their actions and should be punished but it does not mean that victims of domestic violence should be excused for their reckless choices. No one is blaming women for the violence - they are being blamed for their poor choices which led to violence. The two issues are not mutually exclusive.

Women will never take control of their own safety until they stop putting themselves into dangerous places where they do not have to go.
Posted by phanto, Sunday, 19 February 2017 8:45:31 AM
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diver dan,

Drugs including alcohol do contribute to violence.

As a general comment, it is simply amazing that a boy who is exposed to domestic violence grows up to be a perpetrator,

BUT,

a girl who is exposed to domestic violence grows up to be a victim. Women could never be offenders or contribute in any way.

Or at least that is how the DV industry sees it and politicians who should know better go along with that.

RObert,
Thanks for another good post.
Posted by leoj, Sunday, 19 February 2017 10:43:30 AM
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Hi Phanto,

Speaking for myself, some blokes are devilishly handsome, charming and smooth talkers. Many of them are on the look-out for women. Many women are on the look-out for the right bloke.

But maybe, for women, it's a bit like X-Lotto, with say, a one in three or four chance of striking it lucky, so inevitably many of them may pick the wrong bloke. But they may not find that out until they are well and truly barefoot and pregnant. By that time, they are dependent, loaded (or about to be loaded) with all manner of home duties and kids, and crucially, with no independent income.

Maybe they sort of double their bet, if a bloke turns out to be a mongrel: they give him a chance, a few chances, while they get deeper into dependence. What are their options ? To go home to their parents, loaded with kids and the aggravation that their ex will keep bothering them - or to stay.

If they are lucky enough to meet an affluent milkman, maybe they can flit off together to north Queensland, but those opportunities don't come often. So they stay a bit longer.

I would guess that DV becomes more brutal and capricious over time. The bloke may also be pissed off that he finds himself saddled with a grumpy wife and kids when all he wanted was perpetual sex. He has his eye on a younger model, who is out of reach in his present condition. So he belts his wife and kicks the dog.

Of course, we can all exercise self-restraint, particularly in the case of dependants. Of course, DV is a crime, even for Muslims (sorry, my left friends, but obligations of care should extend to all men). Of course, such people as commit DV should undergo long courses of rehabilitation. Hopefully they may mature.

Maybe there should be a service for all young marrieds, like for young mothers, somebody going around just checking and counselling young marrieds ?

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 19 February 2017 1:20:38 PM
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Loudmouth:

I am talking more specifically about attitudes that women have before they enter domestic relationships.

They may not know how their relationship will turn out but they do know what the odds are. This author tells us there is an epidemic of domestic violence and other women are keen to tell us that one in three women will be victims of DV. Why would anyone subject themselves to such poor odds? Why are women not educated to face these terrible odds? Why isn't all this money spent on telling the truth about domestic violence to young girls?

Why are there so many shows on TV which glamorise domestic relationships, which promote domestic relationships as the ultimate attainment for a woman. Why do they present a fairytale when the reality is that one third of them will be a victim of violence?

Why do women stay in relationships where the odds are the same. Why don't they leave while they have the chance? Even women who can easily leave choose to stay even though the odds remain the same whilst ever you are in such a relationship.

You cannot have it both ways. You cannot promote domestic relationships as being the ultimate experience and also promote the fact that one in three domestic relationships end in violence.
Posted by phanto, Sunday, 19 February 2017 2:14:28 PM
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phanto

The statistics (depending on what you read and who is doing the research) are that one in three women will experience some form of gender violence over the course of their lifetime. This does not translate to one in three marriages being violent. The figure is probably more like 5-10% for female DV victims and maybe 1-2% for male DV victims. Maybe these figures could be higher, but overall they are still a lot lower than 33%.

Also, people DO put themselves in positions that leave them at risk of being murdered or robbed. A lot of young men go out on the town in packs and get blind drunk, which often leads to violence. A lot of people get mixed up in organised crime, which increases their odds of being murdered in gang wars. A lot of people strive to build wealth and live lifestyles that show off their wealth. A lot of people travel to poor countries, where their wealth makes them targets for robbery.

The law makes no concessions to the perpetrators. Murder is murder. Theft is theft. Rarely is the victim put on trial.

And to go slightly off topic ... yes, there is an overwhelming tendency for the culture to keep reinforcing the trope that women need romance and marriage (much less now than in previous generations). But if most women were allowed to be honest in all of this cultural brainwashing, the truth is that they marry for all the same reasons that men do - social acceptance, regular sex, mutual child-rearing and a best friend for life.

For every societal warning to women that their man of choice may turn out to be a wife-basher, there are just as many (or more) societal warnings to men that the woman of their choice may turn out to be an emasculating ball-breaker. But they still marry.

loudmouth

Although the second half of your comment went off into some la-la scenarios, I totally agree with your first three paragraphs.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 20 February 2017 12:03:05 AM
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R0bert

Only 6% of divorces end up in the Family Law Court.

Out of these, almost all of these 6% of cases award custody and asset distribution on a 50-50 basis (legislation introduced under the Howard government).

From my own experience of supporting friends in divorce procedures involving the FL Court, the judges were impervious to DV allegations and continued harrassment committed by the husbands. In one of these cases, the husband fired his lawyers no less than 4 times, refused to show up to court hearings, abused the court on the occasions he did show up, and abused the Family Law counsellor engaged by the court to do a psychiatric assessment. In addition, the court was shown evidence that he sent almost 60 unanswered text messages in one day to his ex-wife, accusing her of being a liar, a whore, a bitch and a danger to his child.

Yet, under the law, the court had no option but to award a 50-50 custody settlement and a payout to the wife based on a pro-rata assessment of the length of their marriage - two years. His considerable wealth barely suffered a sneeze, while her entire payout went on lawyers fees.

Even though all the professionals involved lost all respect for the husband - on one occasion, the judge completely did his block at him - there was absolutely NO bias shown to either party in the final ruling.

This is why I can't understand why you and so many others keep pushing this Family Law bias argument. There was once a time when wives might have been given more sympathy, because few married women had financial independence, but that time has long gone.

I notice that much of this rhetoric is coming from the US, where the divorce laws are totally medieval compared to most Western countries. In the US, marriage partners can still use high-paid lawyers to push DV allegations to win 100% child custody and take their ex to the cleaners, but this is no longer the case in Australia or most western countries.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 20 February 2017 1:01:37 AM
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Maybe we should give them the 'weapons of war'?
I say 'weapons of war' because in a way it's like giving them 'weapons for self defense', but also 'weapons they can use to harm others'.

I'm talking of course about empowering people to understand all the potential situations in a relationship either party may find themselves in.
A basic reference or handbook if you will, of 'fair play', and of how to handle situations when the other half won't 'play fair'.
Based around the idea that it may take a few failed relationships until one learns how to get it right; but also focused on providing enough insight to keep an existing relationship amicable.

War Arsenal:
Emotional Blackmail, threatening to kill yourself if your man leaves.
Entrapment: Deliberately misleading your man by secretly not taking contraceptives in an effort to get pregnant.
Insecurities: Blaming a man or acting in a controlling manner towards a man based on a past experience with a previous partner.
Undermining: Deliberately undermining your man in an attempt to keep him trapped and prevent him from leaving.
Irrational Emotional Behavior: Compulsively starting fights and constantly pushing your man away from a feeling of damaged pride or disrespect.
Ultimatums... Insensitive... (Two sides to that story).

This list could go on and on.

There could even be a list for the other side of things.
Build Emotional Trust...
Don't say things you can't take back.
Try your best so you don't have regrets.
When to call it quits.

All that stuff....
Posted by Armchair Critic, Monday, 20 February 2017 2:25:59 AM
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Killarney it's some years since my own direct experience with the court aspect of it. I'll allow for the possibility that aspects of that may have changed (although I've seen nothing that gives me any confidence that the basic tactics of lawyers has changed). It still appears to be a confrontational system and friends I've spoken to quite recently going through the process seem to be facing many of the same challenges with a system that seems to encourage an adversarial approach. It may be that's more about lawyers maximising their chargeable time than what the courts actually "reward".

I've found it very difficult/impossible to get any sense of having the full story when it comes to the circumstances surrounding some of those publicised partner killings. What I have seen from the broader summaries is that a lot are around the time of a separation or following it.

Not so long since my last dealings with CSA and utter mess that system is. That is a system that takes no account of peoples actual financial situation, how and why they got there etc and can be utterly ruthless in it's application. Another massive source of conflict that all to often seems designed to stop people moving on. That in itself is a long discussion but as a quick summary I think we either need to ditch the system on the basis of the overall harm done or put something in place that reduces the impacts on all involved of choices they can't control. The current system prolongs conflict while often not creating a very uneven responsibility for the financial upkeep of children.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 20 February 2017 5:46:07 AM
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A large population worldwide is affected by bipolar disorder and the heritability stands at around 80%.

A recent medical research published in Sri Lanka Journal of Psychiatry, which is available on the Sri Lanka Journals Online platform supported by INASP, has assessed the association between family history of bipolar disorder and the risk of violence among patients admitted to the hospital for mania.

The study found a strong correlation between family history and risk of violence.

"Patients with a family history of bipolar disorder were significantly more likely to engage in violence than those without family history," says the lead author of the article Dr Miyuru Chandradasa, of the Department of Psychiatry at University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. "The findings will be helpful in better allocation of resources in hospital wards as patients who are more likely to be violent can be identified at the time of admission and nursing and other care can be arranged for."
Posted by Wolly B, Monday, 20 February 2017 6:27:55 AM
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Killarney:

That is not the way the figures are presented. The one in three mantra makes no qualifications at all. We are just left to interpret it as a worst case and that is why the figures are presented in a deliberately vague way. The women who do that should be challenged, and by other women, for exaggerating. 5-10 per cent still does not tell us much about the level or frequency of the violence. Either way using words like ‘epidemic’ are either true or meant to manipulate.

Lots of people take risks but they also take responsibility for taking those risks.

“The law makes no concessions to the perpetrators. Murder is murder. Theft is theft. Rarely is the victim put on trial.”

The law makes no concessions for DV perpetrators either and nor should they but the law does not put DV victims on trial either.

“But if most women were allowed to be honest in all of this cultural brainwashing, the truth is that they marry for all the same reasons that men do - social acceptance, regular sex, mutual child-rearing and a best friend for life.”

Women are allowed to be honest – nothing is stopping them except the fear of other women and their families. If they marry for the same reasons as men then why are men not subject to the same brainwashing? Where are the reality shows, movies, drama and fiction aimed at men for the same reasons?

“For every societal warning to women that their man of choice may turn out to be a wife-basher, there are just as many (or more) societal warnings to men that the woman of their choice may turn out to be an emasculating ball-breaker. But they still marry.”

But men should also take responsibility for their decisions whatever the outcome. Both men and women should always take responsibility for their actions even if the outcome is violence.
Posted by phanto, Monday, 20 February 2017 8:10:04 AM
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Hi Phanto,

Hmmmm ..... slight contradiction there:

"Why are there so many shows on TV which glamorise domestic relationships, which promote domestic relationships as the ultimate attainment for a woman. Why do they present a fairytale when the reality is that one third of them will be a victim of violence?"

and

"Why do women stay in relationships where the odds are the same. Why don't they leave while they have the chance? Even women who can easily leave choose to stay even though the odds remain the same whilst ever you are in such a relationship."

Which is it, media persuasion, or contrary but rational decision-making ? Maybe it's neither: nobody can know the future, so intelligent people enter relationships and stay in them in the hope that their partner will improve his ways, out of love - if not for the woman only, but for the kids as well. But for many women, the passing of time means more obligations to stay (kids, lack of alternatives) and fewer means to leave. And for many men, the passing of time brings yet more long-term, inescapable burdens.

Like anybody else, women may be hopeful AND rational. They're (I hope) not as easily conned by dopey TV shows - I would think that 'Married at First Sight' or 'Undressed' etc., etc., would have most women climbing the wall in frustration at the supposed dolly-bird stupidity of 'the average woman', or at least, young woman as portrayed on TV.

Why do I buy a ticket in the occasional big X-Lotto, like last Saturday's ? Yes, there's little chance but you never know. Looking into the future with a partner is a bit like that for many women. There's the chance that it will go belly-up, you've done your money, so to speak. But you can't know that beforehand, can you ?

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 20 February 2017 8:59:34 AM
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Loudmouth:

I don’t see the contradiction. Media cannot persuade a rational person. Women get caught up in the glamorisation of domestic bliss and make an irrational decision based on that glamorisation. They do not assess the media reasonably.

You say that no one can know how their relationship will turn out but they do know that one in three relationships become violent. If you take on those odds then you have to also take on the responsibility for your actions. No one forces you to buy a Lotto ticket but you have to take responsibility for your action of parting with your own money.

If you take on the risk of entering a domestic relationship then you also have to take on the responsibility of owning your own decision. You cannot avoid that. Most women will not have a bar of that and immediately decry it as victim blaming. They are victims of domestic violence but they are not ’victims’ of their own choice to enter domestic relationships.

If more focus was directed at the reasons why they enter those situations then they might be much more cautious. Young women and girls in particular need to be challenged about their fantasy of domestic bliss and then perhaps they will have their eyes wide open. This challenge is certainly not coming from other women.
Posted by phanto, Monday, 20 February 2017 9:50:01 AM
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"Where are the reality shows, movies, drama and fiction aimed at men for the same reasons?"

phanto, from what I've seen "reality show" probably don't form part of an entertainment mix for many men. Overall though I do think the general portrayal of a successful straight man is married with kids. the message is targeted to push some different buttons to the ones pushed for women but in my view the message is still out there and fairly strong.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 20 February 2017 11:04:49 AM
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RObert:

I think there have been historical reasons why women have been ‘encouraged’ to pursue domestic relationships more than men. In the past women needed to be provided for and the common way was to seek a domestic relationship with a man who could earn a living and take care of them. Men did not have this dependency and so the urgency was not there for them.

This should no longer be the case. Most women are now capable of meeting their own basic needs from the fruit of their own labour and so do not ‘have’ to be in a domestic relationship. Despite this they still seem pre-occupied with finding one so the question needs to be asked why? Men do not have this need because they are not financially dependent on women and never have been. Nothing has changed for them.

The urgency for women is not rational and yet they continue to idolise and fantasise domestic relationships and this is mirrored in the culture. What is going on there and if it is not rational then what is it? There is obviously pressure coming from other quarters and this leads them to behave irrationally in regard to their own safety.

I do not see the ‘successful’ man as being portrayed as married with kids. I see the portrayal as a man who is free of the urgency to get married and more likely to follow other ways of attaining ‘success’.
Posted by phanto, Monday, 20 February 2017 11:30:15 AM
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We tell the young girls they are 'little princesses'.
In doing that we are reinforcing the required need for a 'prince'.
They are all looking for their 'knight in shining armour', but the real truth is it's unlikely any of them will ever actually be princesses.

We impose the colour pink on them.
That tells them they have to get what they want by 'looking nice'.
That the most they can aspire to is getting what they want by being 'appealing to others'.

Just my 2 cents...
Posted by Armchair Critic, Monday, 20 February 2017 12:25:48 PM
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This DV epidemic is being strung out by amateur and professional lawyers and sundry social engineers as if it was an unsolvable problem.

It's not. DV happens because violent criminals commit it. That's common to all instances irrespective of what non-violent behaviour is supposed to have led up to it.

GPS gear is unnecessary - the perps should simply be in prison where there is no question about their whereabouts or of their gaining access to their victims. Say, 10 years first conviction of DV assault, no parole, and release thereafter only if and when the victim permits it.

Tap for DV criminals turned off and public attention focused back on the many issues not so dead easy to address at the expense of petty tyrants.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Monday, 20 February 2017 2:13:49 PM
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EmperorJulian:

"DV happens because violent criminals commit it."

They are not criminals until they commit violence or do you view every man as a criminal because he is a man? Would not that include you? Either all men are already criminals before they lift a finger or they are not so which is it?

You are not a criminal until you do something which is a crime. Your statement makes no sense at all. If it is true then you too are a criminal.
Posted by phanto, Monday, 20 February 2017 9:01:36 PM
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//We tell the young girls they are 'little princesses'.//

Well that's disturbing. About an 8.5 on the 'Michael Jackson' scale, or 7.3 if you measure on the 'Rolf Harris' scale. I sure hope you're not allowed to work with kids.

//but the real truth is it's unlikely any of them will ever actually be princesses.//

Wow, really? And here was I thinking that the number of countries with monarchies was rising in direct proportion to the female population. Good thing we've got AC around to point out the fake news for us.

//We impose the colour pink on them.//

Make that 9.1 Michael Jacksons.

//That tells them they have to get what they want by 'looking nice'.
That the most they can aspire to is getting what they want by being 'appealing to others'.//

At creepiness levels of this magnitude the Michael Jackson scale becomes non-linear; and we are forced to start measuring things in degrees Saville.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Monday, 20 February 2017 9:34:49 PM
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Yes well your comment rates highly on the imbecile scale Toni.
Haven't you ever heard of the movie 'Frozen', Princess Elsa and Anna?
Or are you too out of touch with stuff and that's the reason why your comments are just nitpicking?

And don't talk to me about creepy when you spell your name like a woman but talk about testicle problems in your scout days...
Posted by Armchair Critic, Monday, 20 February 2017 10:53:08 PM
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FFS, phanto, someone who commits a violent crime is a violent criminal immediately before, during and after the instant the crime is committed.
English 101. Violated only when indulging in ridiculous contortions to exculpate the guilty.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 21 February 2017 12:52:16 PM
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EmperorJulian:

Sounds like I struck a nerve there!
Posted by phanto, Tuesday, 21 February 2017 12:54:47 PM
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Phanto, sounds more like your humbug in defence of violent criminals was caught out and skewered.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 21 February 2017 1:13:21 PM
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phanto

‘If [women] marry for the same reasons as men then why are men not subject to the same brainwashing? Where are the reality shows, movies, drama and fiction aimed at men for the same reasons?’

The simple answer is …everywhere. Virtually all films, TV series and works of literary fiction that target male audiences still portray women as the protagonist’s romantic sex partner. The victorious male gets the girl and the happy ending assumes they will marry once the villain is vanquished.

While men have been culturally brainwashed to resist marriage as an impediment to their freedom, they still defy the patriarchal dictates and marry in huge numbers. About 95% of people marry, half of which are men. Men remarry on average about 18 months after a divorce, whereas women remarry on average 6 years after a divorce. So which of the genders is really hooked on marriage?

‘Young women and girls in particular need to be challenged about their fantasy of domestic bliss and then perhaps they will have their eyes wide open. This challenge is certainly not coming from other women.’

It IS coming from other women – all the time! Have you read any feminist websites lately? Even female MSM journalists continually raise these challenges (despite the lifestyle sections being full of bridal porn). But challenging fantasies of domestic bliss is translated to man-hating by the anti-feminist backlash network. Rape and DV culture is deemed to be just something that man-hating feminists make up.

Also, your assessment of ‘domestic bliss’ discounts the biological imperative to mate. It also discounts the fact that women are as much controlled by their hormones as men are. Women kiss a lot of frogs in their time, not because they are brainwashed by fantasies of romance and domestic bliss, but because they need sex and intimate companionship just as much as men do. In a society that demands marriage or cohabitation as the accepted norm, it’s unrealistic to expect them to live isolated non-married or non-cohabitive lives just to avoid being beaten up.
Posted by Killarney, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 1:52:52 AM
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R0bert

Yes, the Family Law legal system is atrociously adversarial, as is the entire legal system. The 6% of divorces that end up in the Family Court should not be arbitrated by lawyers. That is something that desperately needs to be reformed. Lawyers and courts should be kept right out of family matters, as they serve no purpose whatsoever. Even the most sympathetic of them are in it for the money.

By law, all court appearances by divorce parties require the services of a barrister in addition to the family lawyer – their fees being in the high four figures for a single court appearance. It’s plain ridiculous, not to mention plain theft, for a desperate divorce partner to have to pay these astronomical fees, plus court hire, just to have their case heard.

There should be a free-service independent body of counselling professionals whose (medium salary) job is to arbitrarily apply the 50-50 law (for the 6% that is), unless there is an overwhelming case against a particular party, substantially backed up by police reports. So far, I’ve been impressed enough by the system that the professionals involved – both legal and non-legal – do not automatically respond to the heated accusations of the parties involved in a divorce process.

Even the jerk I described in my last comment to you seems to have been a decent enough father post-divorce. The son, now 13, appears to be able to take each parent at face value, according to how they behave towards HIM – understandably his main priority. As he once told his mother: ‘In Dad’s house, we’re rich and happy. In your house, we’re poor and happy.’

So why did his parents have to end up paying more than a quarter of a million in legal fees just to have him come to that assessment?
Posted by Killarney, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 2:14:29 AM
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"Rape and DV culture is deemed to be just something that man-hating feminists make up."

Please show examples of where Rape and Domestic Violence is openly and publicly championed and celebrated or retract your statement.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 5:43:25 AM
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Killarney:

Let’s say then that the urgency for men to marry is as strong as it is for women. Is this urgency so strong that you would ignore all the danger signs being presented and decide to enter, or remain in, a domestic relationship?

What could be more important than your own physical safety? This seems to apply specifically to women. Domestic relationships are obviously not as dangerous for men. The figures make this clear.

What is it that pushes women to defy all reason and embrace this kind of relationship? There must be something going on that makes them behave so illogically.

What do you think it is?
Posted by phanto, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 10:07:21 AM
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Generalising about male and female genders doesn't address the problem of violent crime in which, in DV, the identity of the violent criminal and the victim is known. The problem is very easily solved. Prevent the violent crime at the violent criminal's expense by locking up the violent criminal. How is the violent criminal identified? By committing the violent crime of assault.

The purpose is not to restructure society, not to educate anyone, not to deter anyone, just to solve the problem of violent domestic crime by locking up and not releasing through a revolving door those who choose to commit it.

It's not rocket science, it's not a difficult social engineering problem, where does the stubborn reluctance to solve the problem and move on come from? It must be from an ingrained fellow-feeling with violent criminals.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 11:42:26 AM
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EmperorJulian:

You have said this same thing so many times I am starting to wonder who you are really trying to convince.

Perhaps you are afraid that there might be a violent criminal lurking just below the surface in your own personality and you want to be locked up before you hurt someone.

It is the only thing that makes sense of your repeated need to tell us what the simple solution is. It is all getting a bit desperate.
Posted by phanto, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 12:26:25 PM
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When BS irrelevant to the issue clutters the thread it is necessary to keep on with reminders of the issue - domestic violence. The BS is a diversion from confronting the violent criminals who actually do domestic violence.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 1:07:52 PM
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phanto

To Emperor Julian: 'You have said this same thing so many times I am starting to wonder who you are really trying to convince./ Perhaps you are afraid that there might be a violent criminal lurking just below the surface in your own personality and you want to be locked up before you hurt someone.'

Resorting to this kind of psychobabble is a low blow. Considering what you accused him of, EJ's reply to you was a lot more restrained than you deserved.

YOU are the one who is saying the same thing over and over. No one here is embracing your argument, so just agree to disagree. To co-opt another well-worn psychobabble trope - get over it and move on.
Posted by Killarney, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 9:27:24 PM
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phanto

I've just re-read EJ's previous comment to you. I must have overlooked this part at the end: '... where does the stubborn reluctance to solve the problem and move on come from? It must be from an ingrained fellow-feeling with violent criminals.'

So, I acknowledge he provoked you by firing the first shot. Even so, your presumed argument is not making a lot of sense and constant repetition does not enhance it in any way
Posted by Killarney, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 9:46:17 PM
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Killarney:

I think EmperorJulian is quite capable of defending himself without your patronising assistance.

Is there something else that is really bothering you?
Posted by phanto, Wednesday, 22 February 2017 10:39:10 PM
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Yeah Killarney,
How about you back up these statements about rape and DV culture?

Please show examples of where Rape and Domestic Violence is openly and publicly championed and celebrated or retract your statement.
Don't you realise this is why no-one takes feminist rhetoric seriously?
Prove your argument or don't say it.

Also not impressed about you putting words into my mouth earlier.
You state things as if others said them when they didn't say them, then use those statements as a cue move into your 'play the victim' spiel.

Also I think many of you don't truly understand the full spectrum of this issue.
If I showed just one instance of where the guy standing in the court for DV was as much a victim of the woman's actions as the woman is a victim of the mans DV (possibly only verbal abuse) then your whole premise that its always 100% the mans fault goes straight down the toilet.

DV need not be physical abuse, it can be verbal and emotional abuse.
A woman's insecurities, manipulation, emotional blackmail and emotional abuse can very much be the cause of what pushes a man over the edge.
In a case where the woman emotionally blackmails a man to kill herself if the man leaves, then a mans verbal abuse when pushed into a corner is not unreasonable.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 23 February 2017 10:21:43 AM
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The OP asked why the Queensland Labor government ignore the recommendations of its own task force.

The answer is that Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk heads a government that is long on rhetoric and reviews, but doesn't do anything.

Palaszczuk did move to ban some young backpackers' cheap vans though. That was fake virtue signalling to the feminist old bangers who resent vulgarity they are not responsible for themselves.
Posted by leoj, Thursday, 23 February 2017 11:57:35 AM
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"DV need not be physical abuse, it can be verbal and emotional abuse. "

If that were true it would be Domestic Abuse not Domestic Violence.

Switching to verbal and emotional abuse neatly ducks the question of domestic violence.

I notice a Moslem "community leader" has just sounded off on domestic violence saying is't OK if the partner is stubbornly disobedient. We need laws to make it quite clear that our culture has advanced 1400 years beyond Moslem culture and that Moslem culture is a blot on our landscape along with all violent domestic tyranny (in the accepted English meaning of violence).
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 23 February 2017 12:28:54 PM
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Hi EJ,

"Stubbornly disobedient". Isn't that the usual excuse for DV anyway ? Can Muslim women beat their husbands for being "stubbornly disobedient", Yasmeen ? Would it even make any sense to many (but of course not all) Muslims ?

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 23 February 2017 12:38:31 PM
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I want to make a point regarding what I said earlier; I'm not in any way defending domestic violence.
There can never be a situation where abusive behavior can be considered acceptable.
What I'm saying to the woman is essentially this:

'If you play stupid games, you win stupid prizes.'
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 23 February 2017 4:24:16 PM
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Emperor Julian

‘I notice a Moslem "community leader" has just sounded off on domestic violence saying is't OK if the partner is stubbornly disobedient.‘

But this is not confined to Muslim cultures. From many of the comments here, the Christian West is still mired in this thinking, despite its claims to have progressed on this issue.

English Common Law, the basis of Australian law, stated as late as the early twentieth century that: 'The husband is prohibited from using any violence to his wife other than that which lawfully and reasonably belongs to the husband for the due government and correction of his wife.'

There are many more proverbial equivalents in England and in other countries. 'If he beats you, it means he loves you' (Russia), 'Women and chops - the more you beat them the better they'll be' (German), 'Clubbing produces virtuous wives' (Chinese) and 'Women, like gongs, should be beaten regularly' (US and England).

Then, of course, there is the 'rule of thumb' proverb which supposedly relates to the width of a rod that was legally allowed in beating one's wife. Although this interpretation is disputed, the very fact that it HAS been largely interpreted as a legal basis for wife-beating indicates the strength of the traditional belief that a man is entitled to physically ‘discipline’ his wife.

The issue of domestic violence is still deeply embedded within this traditional thinking. This is why the law continues to drag its heels in recognising DV as a crime like any other crime, and that its victims are victims of a crime like any other victims of a crime.
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 23 February 2017 11:51:28 PM
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leoj

‘Palaszczuk did move to ban some young backpackers' cheap vans though. That was fake virtue signalling to the feminist old bangers who resent vulgarity they are not responsible for themselves.’

Off topic, but an issue that needs addressing. Fake virtue signalling to feminist old bangers?? ('Bangers' - OMG ... you mean some middle-aged feminists might actually have sex?!)

I quote:

‘Life sucks if your girlfriend doesn’t’

‘In every princess, there is a little slut who wants to try it just once.’

‘Fate chicks are harder to kidnap.’ (Whoah! Sinister!)

‘A wife: An attachment you screw on the bed to get the housework done.’

‘I wouldn’t trust anything that bleeds for five days and doesn’t die.’

Imagine if ‘feminist old bangers’ launched a fleet of campervans with slogans like this (just devil’s advocate arguments, Graham, so please don’t delete me):

‘Life sucks if your boyfriend doesn’t.’

‘In every charming prince, there is a rapist who wants to try it just once.’

‘Fat guys are harder to knee in the balls.’

‘A husband: An attachment you screw on the bed to get the mortgage paid.’

‘I wouldn’t trust anything that leaves a wet patch in my bed, and expects me to wash the sheets.’

Nasty. Horrible. Vulgar. Man-hating. Yes, absolutely! Men would be rightly up in arms about this. The slogans would go viral as living proof that feminists are the man-hating scum of the earth. The law would crack down on this campervan filth with such speed, it would make the male ego spin.

But when this campervan filth is directed at women, it’s normalised as traditional laddish humour. Nothing to get upset about, folks. Boys will be boys.

Rubbish. This is the sick double standard that allows men to say and think whatever filthy crap they like about women. But if women do not treat men with the utmost reverence and respect, they are sluts, ball breakers and man-hating feminists – or a combination of all.

Is it any wonder that, in this skewed gender-political universe, DV is still considered a semi-justifiable crime of entitled-male wifely discipline?
Posted by Killarney, Friday, 24 February 2017 1:12:08 AM
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Killarney stop being an apologist for Islam and pushing the 'evil white male' BS, I'm so sick of hearing it.

You know why I decry your stupid feminism attitude?
Because I save my outrage for genuine issues of inequality of women not the fictional ideals and attitude that you have which only serves to divide.
Try this:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-sex-slaves-lamiya-aji-bashar-nadia-murad-sinjar-yazidi-genocide-sexual-violence-rape-sakharov-a7445151.html

You know what, I think western white males have probably given women more freedoms and liberty than any other group in history.
You want a Feminist world go live in Sweden, the government are Feminists.
They're also idiots because their country is now considered the rape capital of Eastern Europe.
Did you hear about the liberal left girls who went to the Stockholm Festival to welcome the migrants; and were gang raped for hours by migrants while police and security looked on?

You dare talk up a non-existant western rape culture but support and welcome Islam (as the left does) whilst playing down its culture of rape?
Posted by Armchair Critic, Friday, 24 February 2017 1:15:20 AM
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Killarney:

You are beginning to sound rather bitter now. Anger might be reasonable but bitterness is not. You are nit-picking and trawling far and wide to find evidence of man’s inhumanity to women but what of women’s inhumanity to other women?

I asked you why women continue to throw themselves into domestic relationships when there is an avowed epidemic of domestic violence taking place right now. You avoided the question but instead tried to attack me under the pretence of defending EmperorJulian.

If you really care about women you will want to understand what it is that propels them into such dangerous situations. You will be looking for answers so you can help them to stop doing it. It seems though that you are not as concerned about the plight of women as you are about maintaining your rage against men.
Posted by phanto, Friday, 24 February 2017 8:28:43 AM
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phanto

I acknowledged Emperor Julian provoked you, so put that Munchhausen-by-proxy argument to bed. You both resorted to psychobabble to accuse the other of having latent violent yearnings within your deep psyches. People are allowed to voice opinions about any form of violence without being told they are supposedly defending violence because they are violent criminals at heart. That goes for you and anyone else on this forum.

As for the rest of your comment, I am routinely accused on OLO of being bitter, man-hating and full of rage (yawn) - my record being six 350-word posts in a row from one commenter, interrupted only by the OLO daily limit. If it had the effect of silencing me, I wouldn't be here. So why don't you just stick to arguments, instead of psychobabble ad hominems?

So far, you haven't given any substantial arguments to prove 'women's inhumanity to other women'. The only 'evidence' on which you base your claim over and over again - i.e. that one in three marriages are violent - is demonstrably false.

So come up with some substantial arguments and perhaps this supposed bitter, angry, man-hating commenter might actually engage with you on some reasonable, rational level.
Posted by Killarney, Sunday, 26 February 2017 12:49:38 AM
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I think it's fairly easy to ascertain that the feminist government in Sweden has policies which lead to the rape and sexual assault of hundreds of women and children.

They aren't helping women, they're 'useful idiots' helping George Soros with his Open Borders and currency trading ideologies.
Crapping in their own and everyone's else backyard to make foreign elites richer.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Sunday, 26 February 2017 6:39:44 AM
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Hi AC,

Hmmm ...... that's perhaps a stretch: a government with a relatively high proportion of women ministers leads to an increase in rape statistics ? I suggest that we suspend belief until reliable statistics can be provided to demonstrate this.

It shouldn't be that difficult: Sweden has had predominantly-male, even all-male Cabinets over the years, and now has one with a high proportion of women. Stats can easily be found to contrast the two situations. Good luck, AC.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 26 February 2017 9:51:26 AM
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//Hmmm ...... that's perhaps a stretch: a government with a relatively high proportion of women ministers leads to an increase in rape statistics ? I suggest that we suspend belief until reliable statistics can be provided to demonstrate this.//

I concur, Joe. And any consideration of rape statistics from Sweden must take into account that they reformed their sex crime laws in 2005, and widened the definition of rape considerably. Part of the reason Julian Assange is hiding like a rat in a hole. With the broadening of the definition, the numbers of people convicted of rape unsurprisingly went up.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Sunday, 26 February 2017 10:54:34 AM
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Hi Toni,

I don't know, I think rats are much maligned and very under-valued.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Sunday, 26 February 2017 12:21:32 PM
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Killarney:

“I acknowledged Emperor Julian provoked you”

It is you who said he provoked me. How did he do that? I was simply offering another explanation as to why he needs to say the same thing over and over again in the hope that he might see the error of his ways and stop clogging up the forum with his own emotional needs.

“People are allowed to voice opinions about any form of violence without being told they are supposedly defending violence because they are violent criminals at heart.”

This is obvious as should be my right to question their motives. There is no rule on these forums about using ‘psychobabble’. Why should psychobabble bother you any more than any other type of babble?

If you are not bitter or it has no effect on you then why do you need to tell me to stop? That doesn’t make sense at all.

“The only 'evidence' on which you base your claim over and over again - i.e. that one in three marriages are violent - is demonstrably false.”

So domestic violence is not a problem then? Why don’t women stop complaining about it if it is not a problem? Either it is a problem and women are avoiding the most obvious solution or it is not a problem big enough to complain about it. Which is it?

If it is a problem then why do women continue to embrace those relationships which is the question you refused to answer when I asked you before? If it is not a problem then what are you doing here?
Posted by phanto, Sunday, 26 February 2017 12:39:31 PM
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Way back when, Alexander Downer paraphrased his party's manifesto (The Things that Matter) by referring to DV trash as The Things that Batter. He copped a storm of self-righteous abuse for it but I thought what he said was very apt. All we lack is laws to ensure that the Things that Batter are locked up out of reach of their victims. Pontificating about statistics and femmos etc. doesn't carry any proposals to stop DV.

The reason Assange is in the Ecuadorian Embassy is the Swedes' stubborn refusal to guarantee they wouldn't send him to America for a Yank kangaroo court once he was on Swedish soil, not to dodge the trumped-up rape charge (his condom broke FFS) that he could easily see off in a Swedish court. The Yanks want him so bad for outing them that they feel real pain.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Sunday, 26 February 2017 12:42:55 PM
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//I don't know, I think rats are much maligned and very under-valued.//

My brother's girlfriend breeds them, for show and for sale to laboratories. They do have their uses, but I still dislike them.

I am not sure if Julian Assange has any uses any more. Even his relevance as an amusing figure of ridicule is waning fast - when was the last time any professional satirist took the piss out of him, even on a slow news week?

Poor little albino rat... everybody's forgotten about him, and all he's got to show for it is a severe vitamin D deficiency.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Sunday, 26 February 2017 9:56:07 PM
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phanto

‘Why should psychobabble bother you any more than any other type of babble?’

Because it’s a form of abuse. Also known as ‘gaslighting’. It takes the form of convincing people that their reality is a form of false consciousness and, thus, manipulates them to doubt themselves and how they see the world. The gaslighter seeks control, not interaction or understanding.

‘If you are not bitter or it has no effect on you then why do you need to tell me to stop?’

I never asked you to stop (although that wouldn’t be a bad idea). I suggested that you interact with actual arguments, instead of manipulating people through psychobabble.

‘So domestic violence is not a problem then? Why don’t women stop complaining about it if it is not a problem?’

Unbelievable! I never said anything of the sort. I have only objected to your framing of DV as something women bring on themselves because they choose to marry or cohabit.

‘If it is a problem then why do women continue to embrace those relationships which is the question you refused to answer when I asked you before? ‘

I did answer that question – at length. Go back and read my previous posts. You just used my arguments to frame your next psychobabble attack.
Posted by Killarney, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 8:19:33 AM
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Emperor Julian

'Pontificating about statistics and femmos etc. doesn't carry any proposals to stop DV.'

Quite right. Women are dying. Many more are living lives of domestic terror, because there is a continued lack of funding to provide refuges for them to go to. (And, yes, to preempt the what-about-the-male-victims argument, a tiny number of men are DV victims too, but they don't die at the rate that women do. Neither are they terrorised in equal proportion.)

Death at the hands of an intimate partner is one of the leading causes of death in women aged 25 to 45. More women will die by intimate partner homicide than by terrorist attack. And yet, Western governments pour hundreds of millions into the war on terrorism, but DV shelters are starved of funding.

I read recently that in the UK, the government spends more in one week on advertising and PR than it spends in an entire year on DV protection. What is going on? Why are women's lives deemed so worthless?
Posted by Killarney, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 8:39:30 AM
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Killarney:

“It takes the form of convincing people that their reality is a form of false consciousness and, thus, manipulates them to doubt themselves and how they see the world.”

They would have to be very feeble-minded to be so easily convinced and if they are feeble-minded then perhaps they need to take responsibility for their own state and do something about it. Maybe they should not be on forums such as this if that is the case. There is no shame in acknowledging your own weaknesses.

“I suggested that you interact with actual arguments, instead of manipulating people through psychobabble.”

You have a very patronising attitude to other posters if you think they are so easily manipulated.

“I have only objected to your framing of DV as something women bring on themselves because they choose to marry or cohabit.”

No you objected to my 1 in 3 description of the prevalence of DV. The author called it an epidemic of DV. If it is neither of those things then women should not say it is and other women should correct them. Just how bad is it though? How bad does it have to get before women consider not entering those relationships? You seem to suggest it is not bad enough for them to consider that yet. If it is not bad enough to act upon then why keep raising it as an issue? Either it is big enough to act upon or it is not. It is what you do about a problem that shows how important it is to you not what you say about it. It would seem to me that the most reasonable action to be sure of not being victims of violence is to steer clear of a known situation where violence is so common.
Posted by phanto, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 12:17:12 PM
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It's not only psychobabble, it's also sociobabble and on top of that is econobabble about spending money on shelters etc to oblige the victim to hide somewhere. Just lock the violent perps up where they can't get at the victims until the victims give the nod to release them (which they should be heavily advised not to do.)
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 28 February 2017 6:20:33 PM
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phanto

‘They would have to be very feeble-minded to be so easily convinced and if they are feeble-minded then perhaps they need to take responsibility for their own state and do something about it.’

It’s not about being feeble-minded or otherwise. It’s about derailing commentary by the use of psychobabble. The accusee is left to defend their psychological health, while their arguments are cleverly sidelined.

‘Just how bad is it though? How bad does it have to get before women consider not entering those relationships?’

You are presenting an argument that sets women up to fail. That’s the whole point. Women marry, as do men, because it's a fundamental basis of the society in which they live. This supposedly makes women responsible for a man’s choice to beat them up or kill them. However, a man's choice to marry carries no such responsibility.

You are absolving men from their choice to beat up and sometimes kill their intimate partners. Of course, it’s the woman’s fault for choosing to marry them.

There are few words to describe the sick logic of this fallacy
Posted by Killarney, Thursday, 2 March 2017 4:56:30 AM
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//Just lock the violent perps up where they can't get at the victims until the victims give the nod to release them (which they should be heavily advised not to do.)//

And how are we going to pay for that, Julian? Do you know how much it costs to keep somebody in prison? I don't have exact figures to hand (and I cannae be bothered googling them), but I do know that it's a shite-load. And we're going to need lots of shite-loads, and apparently the nation's finances are in such a dire way that we even have to squeeze money out of the poor bastards on welfare. So how are we going to pay for all this? Raise taxes? Catch a leprechaun and steal his gold? I know - why don't we just get the mint to print some more? A few extra runs of the nice new $10 note they're bringing out and we should be all sweet, eh Julian?

Killarney has proposed some sort of funding mechanism for the strategies she'd like to employ: cut defence spending and cut spending on Government advertising. What do propose to fund your much more expensive strategy? Cuts to spending? If so, what is to be cut and to what extent? Or extra revenue raising? Where is this extra revenue to come from and how is it to be collected?

//There are few words to describe the sick logic of this fallacy//

I can think of a quite a few even without reaching for a thesaurus. Most of them will be flagged as a profanity. But experience tells me I'll be able to use one word which neatly sums up phanto's victim-blaming shite:

Bollocks.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Thursday, 2 March 2017 6:41:02 AM
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Killarney:

“It’s about derailing commentary by the use of psychobabble. The accusee is left to defend their psychological health, while their arguments are cleverly sidelined.”

The accused is under no obligation to defend anything. Nobody has to answer to me. If they disagree then they should just ignore my comments. Nor can I sideline anyone’s comments. People should just ignore me and continue on with their comments. If they are so easily affected then they are too feeble-minded. You seem to have a very patronising attitude to those who read my pyshobabble.

“That’s the whole point. Women marry, as do men, because it's a fundamental basis of the society in which they live.”

No it is not and you are just blaming some irresistable force over which women and men seem to have no control. Millions of people do not feel like they have to marry. Even if it were true it would not be more urgent than self-preservation and the instinct to protect yourself from violence.

“However, a man's choice to marry carries no such responsibility.”

Men have a responsibility for their violence and for their choice to marry – they are two seperate issues. There is nothing about getting married that men need to defend since they are not victims of violence. It is reasonable for them to enter into domestic relationships. If they were being beaten up at the rate women are being beaten up then it would be just as irresponsible for them to enter such relationships.

“You are absolving men from their choice to beat up and sometimes kill their intimate partners. Of course, it’s the woman’s fault for choosing to marry them.”

Now that is sick logic. Where have I absolved men of anything? Men are to blame for their violence and women are to blame for their lack of self-care by entering into domestic relationships knowing full well the odds of becoming victims of violence. You want to absolve women of their own responsibility for their behaviour and I thought you were a feminist.
Posted by phanto, Thursday, 2 March 2017 8:09:30 AM
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Hi Phanto,

Women are, of course, at least as intelligent as men, but I don't put much store in their ability to tell the future:

" .... women are to blame for their lack of self-care by entering into domestic relationships knowing full well the odds of becoming victims of violence."

So perhaps your implicit suggestion, that women should cease entering any sort of long-term relationship with any man, since they could, on the odds, become victims of violence, and probably when they are at their most vulnerable, pregnant and penniless, should be seriously considered.

I'm confident that many women would have already made just that calculation.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 2 March 2017 8:20:14 AM
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Toni Lavis:

‘victim blaming shite’

If you knew that there was an epidemic of violence or a 30% chance of being assaulted would it be responsible to take on those odds? When you gamble you accept that you could lose but you do not blame the nature of gambling for your losses.

Women enter into these very dangerous relationships and they are not in any way coerced to do so. We cannot stop being victims of life unless we first admit that we are responsible for our decisions. Domestic relationships have a high probability of violence, so we are told by women themselves, so any person who enters one should think long and hard about what they are doing.

Men should take responsibility for their violence because it is violence and not because it is domestic violence. All violence should be taken responsibility for but so too should all relationships be taken responsibility for. It takes two to form a domestic relationship and both people must take responsibility for their choice to enter such a relationship.

No matter how much you focus on the violence it does not absolve women from their decisions about which relationships they enter into. It is not victim blaming since women are not victims of domestic relationships.

If you care about women you will want to know why they take on such ridiculous odds in regard to their personal safety. You will want to get to women before they do it and hopefully help them overcome all the un-conscious forces and emotional pressures in society that lead them to ignore their own well-being. If you focus solely on preventing violence you are ignoring what is best for women and that is their safety. That should be the foremost issue – men’s violence is a much bigger but totally different problem.
Posted by phanto, Thursday, 2 March 2017 9:05:28 AM
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Billions of dollars are being demanded by the save-the-perps movement for mental health programmes, education programmes, shelters, DV policing, rehabilitation programmes, marriage guidance, fancy GPS gadgets, societal reconstruction etc to protect the "things that batter" from the consequences of their violence.

Cost of prisons for them? For a start they can be in lockup 23 hours a day except when busy in work gangs under armed guard to pay some of the costs. No privileges. But beyond that, empty the existing prison accommodation by abolishing the violent penalty of prison for all non-violent offences, and establishing non-custodial penalties in its place.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 2 March 2017 11:01:16 AM
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Loudmouth:

“I'm confident that many women would have already made just that calculation.”

So they take responsibility for their choices. Why do you think it is called ‘domestic’ violence rather than just violence? I’m just thinking out loud here. It can’t be just a description of the location of the violence since violence is violence wherever it occurs. It does not make it any worse.

Perhaps people are trying to suggest it is worse because it takes place in a relationship where they think it should not take place. Perhaps they have an attitude to that relationship which they do not have to other relationships. Perhaps they have romanticised that relationship and they are bitter not so much because of the violence but because their romantic notion of domestic relationships which they have built up over many years prior to entering such a relationship has been invaded. Their fantasy world has come crashing down and this is what angers them so much.

Violence happens in many places. We accept it as a reality. We don’t like it but it does not stop us from going about our lives. If our dreams are destroyed then we might become quite angry and aggressive in response but surely we should take responsibility for framing our own dreams.

The outrage about domestic violence far outweighs the outrage about other types of violence but why should it? It all hurts and pain is pain. Why are these women who seem angry about domestic violence not as angry about other forms of violence even when the victims are equally as far removed?

All violence is bad but being confronted with the demise of your self-made dreams can make you respond out of all proportion to the problem
Posted by phanto, Thursday, 2 March 2017 12:33:51 PM
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I read this interesting article on DV the other day, maybe some of you saw it.
I was going to share it earlier, but didn't get around to it.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-06-02/police-domestic-violence/6488828

Theres a lot that can be discussed and taken from this article.

Firstly I want to address this 'victim blaming' and 'why don't women leave' issue.

Earlier in this thread I made an argument that seemed to almost defend the perpetrator, without actually doing so.
I argued that two people are responsible for a relationship breakdown, and against the idea that it's always 100% the perpetrators fault.
I argued that if there was just instance of where a perpetrator found themselves in court for DV as a result of the victims 'manipulation' and 'emotional blackmail' then this idea that it's always 100% the perpetrators fault could be dispelled.
With the point being - we need to look deeper because there's obviously more to the story, that is if we really want to get to the bottom of it.

I want to be crystal clear about my position.
I'm asserting that there are some situations where the victim IS CERTAINLY to blame for the relationship breaking down; that through 'manipulation' and 'emotional blackmail' they have pushed their partners into a corner, made them feel trapped and created a situation upon where they will eventually lash out.
Although I recognise that a victim might be largely responsible for creating the conditions upon which their partner will eventually 'lash out', I will not defend the actions of the actual 'lashing out'.
To do so would be arguing that two wrong can make a right.

Phato argues 'Why doesn't the woman leave when she knows theres a good chance of DV reoccurring'?
The Police Officer in the article was in this situation.
I'd argue 'Why doesn't the man leave when he knows there's a good chance of cops and court appearances'?
Theres obviously more going on.
[Cont..]
Posted by Armchair Critic, Friday, 3 March 2017 11:58:33 AM
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[Cont..]
"She says when she finally left her partner, she felt conflicted about it. She didn't feel entirely relieved and had many misgivings about what he might still do to her. When he found out she was training to become a policewoman, he took out a domestic violence order against her. Shaw describes this kind of reversal of orders as a control tactic he was attempting a full year after they'd broken up, trying to thwart her career in the police force."

Now if a person who is both a Woman and a Police Officer is willing to recognise 'control tactic's', then why is it not reasonable that a man too can be pushed into a corner due to a woman's 'control tactics's;'
Why then it is not reasonable to consider the real truth that the perpetrator may not always be 100% to blame?

You can't blame a man for being a man.
If the woman was a man and the man was a woman, pushed into a corner she'd likely be acting the same way.

"Shaw says her early relationship helped her learn to spot the signs of a possible domestic violence perpetrator. After the first, she would notice the signs when she was dating other men, and as soon as there were any signs of them exerting control, she'd get out, awareness that needs to be taught to other women."

I support the awareness she wishes to teach other women, but it's a two-way street, men need to be taught the same thing as well, when a woman behavior is unfair and unacceptable.

They say a person needs a few failed relationships to learn how to get it right.
Maybe there's wisdom in that, the officer obviously thinks so.

Which goes all the way back to my first comment; teaching them the 'Weapon's of War'.

My final point:
Do you want to get real and get to the bottom of this, or do you want to merely scratch the surface and screw around?

Here's a good one for Killarney.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-03/one-in-three-young-people-in-prison-have-fasd-in-wa/8319724
Try talking women's way out of that one...
Posted by Armchair Critic, Friday, 3 March 2017 11:59:49 AM
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AC: "My final point:
Do you want to get real and get to the bottom of this, or do you want to merely scratch the surface and screw around?"

Pre-zackerly. Round and round the mulberry bush suggesting ever new ways to dun the taxpayers for more and more money without stopping DV by just putting the perps out of business by locking them securely away from where they'll ever get near their victims again.

Some may remember a TV picture of woman sitting in front of a white screen telling her story to a camera off screen. She described how a "thing that battered" kept barging into the home in a drunken rage and inflicting a range of bruises and broken bones. So she left him and went to her mother but the garbage followed her there and beat the bejesus out of her mother with more bruises and broken bones. That was the life the woman had to live to preserve a legal system soft on the "things that batter".

"One night he came home drunk and bashed me before falling in a drunken heap. So I got the shotgun and blew his f&#@& head off."

At this point the scene widened to show the interviewer and the walls of the gaol cell locking the victim up.

(A woman has just left Greenough Prison early after doing time for offing her basher husband)
Posted by EmperorJulian, Friday, 3 March 2017 1:48:28 PM
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AC:

Whilst your discovery may go some way to understanding violence in general it does not really explain the exaggerated level of outrage that we see from people like the author of this article.

People are being killed all over the world because of violence. Nearly all them are strangers to us but we do not have the emotional energy to let it affect us. We have to filter a lot of it out because we just cannot cope – that is human nature.

When people react to violence toward complete strangers as if the violence were happening to them then it is reasonable to ask why. Somehow it must be hurting them and I suspect that the ‘hurt’ is because it shows that their ‘fairytale’ view of domestic relationships is fundamentally flawed. Almost from birth young women in particular are fed such false views of domestic relationships. They are always wondering when it will be their turn to ‘win’ the ‘reality’ date or husband. This creates in them expectations which can never be fulfilled and some are more disappointed than others.

This is the real pain for them. They have to come face to face with reality in the real world. Their dreams are just that and domestic violence is a stark reminder of that. It is much easier to lash out at men than it is to face reality about relationships.

Even if we took EmperorJulian’s solution it would not satisfy them because there are other men waiting in line to shatter the dreams of these outraged women. Even if every man was locked up in prison these women would still be angry because it would be the death knell for their dreams.
Posted by phanto, Friday, 3 March 2017 2:41:12 PM
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//empty the existing prison accommodation by abolishing the violent penalty of prison for all non-violent offences, and establishing non-custodial penalties in its place.//

That's not a bad idea.

Although you wouldn't want to be the Attorney General that has to announce you're letting ice dealers back out onto the streets if they have no convictions for violence. The Terrorgraph would have a field day.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Friday, 3 March 2017 2:52:32 PM
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Hi Phanto,

So ...... it's not right if strangers wreak violence on each other I agree), but it's more or less women's fault if their partner, someone who they loved and had committed themselves to, and who they thought loved them, used violence against them to get their way ?

So what .... Love is a lottery ? No wonder many women become lesbians. I certainly wouldn't blame them.

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 3 March 2017 2:59:17 PM
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Loudmouth:

No it is not OK and all the fault for violence belongs with the violent person.

How do you explain their anger though and outrage? Anger is a response to the denial of rights. No one has a right to being loved by any particular person. Love is a gift and if the other person no longer wants to give that gift then they are free to stop doing so. That does not mean they are free to be violent. If you think you have a right to another's love then that is part of the illusion that women and men take on board and they need to take responsibility for taking it on board.

If you think you are entitled to love then you will always feel angry but if you treat it as a gift you will not be angry when you do not get a gift.

They do not have to be lesbians they just need to face the reality of relationships in the real world. Perhaps they might be pleasantly surprised how much enjoyment you can have with a man when he is not under pressure to fulfill your fantasies.
Posted by phanto, Friday, 3 March 2017 3:32:27 PM
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//No matter how much you focus on the violence it does not absolve women from their decisions about which relationships they enter into.//

It's funny, because when somebody's car gets nicked, nobody ever questions their decision to buy a flash a set of wheels instead of a dinged up old van that nobody would want to steal. It's the thief's choice to pinch it that's the problem, not the victim's choice of car - even though that would have been a contributing factor to the crime.

And when a man walking by the side of the road gets run over by a drunk driver, everyone is naturally appalled by the actions of the driver - but they never question the actions of the pedestrian. And yet, surely, the pedestrian is aware that walking beside a road is the the second most likely place to be hit by a car after on the road? He would have been far safer staying at home, but chose to endanger his own life and limb next to a road! Idiot. But rather than question his choices, it's all about the choice of the other bloke to drive under the influence.

Yes, it's funny how we apportion blame some time. Run over pedestrians and former car owners? Nah, definitely not their fault. Just poor innocent victims of crime. Women that get beat up by their husbands? Well, it's their own fault really isn't it? The thug is still a thug, but gosh, these women do to have take some of the blame for being so silly...

Victim blaming shite.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Friday, 3 March 2017 3:50:56 PM
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Hey Phanto,
"Whilst your discovery may go some way to understanding violence in general it does not really explain the exaggerated level of outrage that we see from people like the author of this article."

I wouldn't say it's my discovery, I'm just winging it here..
And, no of course not, some blokes are just messed up, violent angry thugs.
(and that said, some girls seem to like that, but it's a totally different argument.)

I'm not in any way defending violent behavior.
It should be obvious to all that when a person is at risk of being physically harmed then there's good reason for the parties to be separated, and police are right to intervene.

...The whole purpose of my argument;
The reason I'm trying to push people past this shallow-ignorant 'blame' type of thinking isn't because I necessarily disagree with them.
It's because I want you to move past it, because we HAVE TO GET PAST IT to actually get to solutions that will make a difference.
You throw this mess onto young people often on drugs who lack the skills to have good relationships and resolve their problems, of course you're going to have problems.
And there will be statistics.
Lives changed irrevocably.

I'm trying to get past this 'blame' so we can get to the solutions.
Solutions where both parties have to 'wise up', to prevent their relationships from getting to that point in the first place.
I hope you all understand my point.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Friday, 3 March 2017 4:25:19 PM
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Toni Lavis,

Licensed firearms owners are made responsible for the theft of their property and that includes where the offender breaks into the home or vehicle, or even threatens the owner or family. The very consideration is charging the victim if s/he can be found to have 'contributed' to the theft in any way, even by having a club membership sign on his/her vehicle.

Doubtless though you would make exceptions where it suits your prejudices.

phanto does have a point though when he questions why women ever entertain being alone with a man let alone partnering, that is if the shonky research statistics of the feminists are to be believed at all.

Maybe phanto should say that instead. My guess though is that he has probably tried that before, but it has fallen on deaf ears.

The DV industry sucks a lot of dollars from government and there are those who jealously guard their slice of the cake and look forward to long careers, courtesy of gender politics.

It must be safer for women to partner same sex. Hold on a minute, what was that about the prevalence of violence in lesbian relationships? Hmmm, what does Rosie Batty say about that?
Posted by leoj, Friday, 3 March 2017 4:33:51 PM
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That should be, 'The very FIRST consideration and line of enquiry is...'
Posted by leoj, Friday, 3 March 2017 4:35:41 PM
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phanto

You keep pushing this ridiculous scenario that one in three intimate partners are DV perpetrators.

And I have spent several comments arguing that this is simply not true!

Statistically, about 5% of men or less are DV perpetrators. And an infinitesimal number of DV perpetrators are women.

For the sake of argument, if the one-in-three premise were true, you might, just MIGHT have a case. But it's not true, so you have no case.

Other OLO commenters who have accused me many times of man-hating, simply because I'm a feminist, take note. I am defending men here, because in this instance, they deserve defending
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 4 March 2017 4:42:08 AM
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leoj

'The DV industry sucks a lot of dollars from government and there are those who jealously guard their slice of the cake and look forward to long careers, courtesy of gender politics.'

The allocation is $118 million over the four years 2014 to 2018 out of an annual budget of $37 billion. OMG! Let's declare the country bankrupt! Now!

Why don't you get off your high horse? Women are dying. A lot more women and children are living in terror. This is because the government does not see their plight as worthy of funding. They have other spending priorities - as do you.

This is not about 'gender politics'. It's about saving lives and giving DV victims the right of protection.
Posted by Killarney, Saturday, 4 March 2017 5:16:50 AM
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Thank you, Killarney.

Best wishes,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Saturday, 4 March 2017 10:14:03 AM
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Killarney,

It is about politics. Otherwise you wouldn't be obliged to 'defend' men. Whereas you should really be criticising the government supported interests that rely on that sloppy research for funding.

The violence affecting women is horrendous. So too is the violence affecting children (neglect too) and men.

Queensland
When Labor's Annastacia Palaszczuk assumed the reins of government in Queensland, her odd first priority was to overturn the successful VLAD anti-bikie law. Around the same time as she and her government were neutering the VLAD law and calling off police, a bikie who was notorious for violence and was one of the offenders in a brawl in a public restaurant on the Gold Coast, received a slap on the wrist from the Southport court for his part in it.

Not long later, the same lawless brute killed his partner in public by bashing her to death with the lid of a telecom post after running her off the road.

Whereupon Premier Palasczcuk and Yvette D'Ath herAttorney-General and Minister for Justice and coconspirator in shelving the anti-bikie laws, immediately rushed to make the public announcement that the cold-blooded murder was in fact 'domestic violence' and she and Yvette would be proposing tougher DV initiatives.

DV? Or was that what the police were saying that the VLAD was aimed at preventing?

Palasczcuk and D'Ath are still receiving trenchant criticism from the police, business and the public for being soft on bikies.

This thread asks why the Qld Labor government of Ms Palasczcuk hasn't lived up to that tougher DV promise. Of course it is all about politics.
Posted by leoj, Saturday, 4 March 2017 12:39:50 PM
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Killarney:

“You keep pushing this ridiculous scenario that one in three intimate partners are DV perpetrators.”

The one in three was a mantra used by many groups trying to raise ‘awareness’ of DV. They said that one in three women will at some time be victims of domestic violence. Unless most of these women have hundreds of partners it stands to reason that one in three men are perpetrators. How often they perpetrate and how violent they are is conveniently ignored. The figures are deliberately misleading. If you have not heard the “one in three” mantra then you simply are not listening.

http://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures

It doesn’t matter whether or not they are telling the truth. What really matters is that this kind of mud-slinging sticks and the effect it has on men is very negative. All men are suspect or at least 33% of them are. This is simply dishonest and counter-productive towards any solution to the problem.

Why are women exaggerating this scenario? What are they really so angry about? They should own their own disenchantment with their own Cinderella fantasy and stop beating up on men for what is not their fault. It is not the fault of men that women buy into the romanticisation of domestic relationships.

Yes women die and get injured but they are not the only ones who die. People die from cancer and road accidents and heart disease and the support for domestic violence should be in proportion to the numbers affected by it. More people die from rock-fishing. Exaggerating the numbers or the effects out of proportion is dishonest and manipulative. Women do it because they are disillusioned with romance and not because they care about the victims of violence.

Perhaps you don’t do any of these things but there are many who do, like the author of this article. Its time women started to reign in those who exaggerate this issue and to force them to deal with the facts and not their hurt feelings in regard to their fantasy.
Posted by phanto, Saturday, 4 March 2017 3:27:16 PM
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"Other OLO commenters who have accused me many times of man-hating, simply because I'm a feminist, take note. I am defending men here, because in this instance, they deserve defending"

Hey Killarney,
Yes, I saw... you eaned yourself a brownie point.
Keep it up and I might be forced to ease off my feminist criticisms... but only a little.
- But you can't blame others for being judgemental; feminists are typically very judgemental too, typically known for man-hating and acting irrational and you make the choice to identify as one.

But yes, credit where its due, nice job.

Yours and Phanto's discussion does put a focus not only the importance of accurate data, but the need to convey the statistics in a way that does not misrepresent the truth.
I myself would not assume that one in three women purportedly being victims of DV in their lifetimes equates to one in three men being perpetrators, but I accept the point phanto made.

I think that playing 'the blame game' won't help us prevent DV..
When playing 'the blame game' we tend to employ a 'cure' mentality rather than a 'preventative' one and if the real aim is prevention then we must look at how the relationship unravelled.
There's always 3 sides to the story; His, Hers AND THE TRUTH.
I think that if we're going to entertain the blame game, we need to play it fairly.
Both sides need to have an opportunity to blame the other if we're going to get down to the truth.
Both parties need to understand and accept the others point of view, and know when they have themselves acted unfairly and contributed to the breakdown.
And we need to know whats really going wrong in order to develop the right strategies to prevent it happening.
[Cont..]
Posted by Armchair Critic, Sunday, 5 March 2017 11:52:24 AM
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[Cont..]

It's only through this process that both parties will understand and acknowledge theirs and their partners mistakes, to understand how and why things broke down and start to behave in a way where they're 'mindful' and make changes to their relationships so that the chances of DV occurring are truly reduced.

Only by hearing the perpetrator defend themselves and lay their own blame, can we sort out which excuses were reasonable and which ones weren't; in regard to understanding how the relationship breakdown; and therefore getting a 'bigger picture' of how the DV came to occur.
(And don't take that the wrong way; I already said earlier I'm not actually defending violent behavior)

The police officer in the earlier article changed her own behaivior in order to prevent it ever happening again.
I don't know the truth of how her earlier DV relationship unravelled but she (the victim) took active steps to now prevent it from happening again none the less.
And this tells you that there are things women can do to prevent putting themselves in bad situations.

I came across another article this morning that puts a different light on this problem.
Anyone hear about the woman from Deniliquin who apparently drowned one of her kids while another looked on?
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-04/mother-to-face-court-charged-with-sons-attempted-murder-moama/8324598?

We need accurate data on the perpetrators in regards to also understanding how they were raised.
I know this is a touchy subject, but I want to know how many perpetrators of DV were raised by single mums; or violent fathers.

I could probably come up with some strategies that might work towards a reduction of DV, if anyone is interested.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Sunday, 5 March 2017 11:53:04 AM
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Here are some back-of-the envelope figures.

1. ABS (2014):

Total DV homicide victims (rounded) = 1,140
Total road fatalities (rounded) = 1,150

Average annual government spending on road safety (including infrastructure improvement) from 1970 to 2010 = $4.5 billion

Average annual government spending on road safety awareness (excluding infrastructure improvement) from 1970 to 2010 = $600 million

Average annual (and allocated) government DV spending, from 2014 to 2018 = $23 million

2. Re statistics on the number/percentage of violent marriages (ABS 2014)

Percentage of population married = 49%
Percentage of population cohabiting =10%

Therefore: 59% of the total population of 22 million = 12 million that are married or cohabiting. So, there are approximately 6 million married/de facto relationships in Australia.

ABS (2014)
Total DV homicide victims = 1,140
Total reported DV assault victims = 54,000

Therefore:
DV homicide as a percentage of all marriage/de-facto relationships = 0.019%
Reported DV assault as a percentage of all marriage/de-facto relationships = 0.9%

This means that, based on police records, approximately 1-2% of all marriages/de facto relationships are violent. This, of course, does not take into account the number of unreported assaults or the fact that the same perpetrator/victim may account for several reported cases. But it would be safe to assume that the number of violent marriages/de facto relationships is still in the low single-digit percentile.

3. Translated into actual numbers, approximately 60,000 to 200,000 Australians are violently assaulted by their intimate partners in any given year. Though the percentage is small, that is still a significant number of violent assaults. While this does not constitute an ‘epidemic’, it DOES constitute a major social, criminal and legal problem.

4. Re feminist ‘exaggeration’ of DV violence:

The problem with the ‘feminist exaggeration’ argument is that it deliberately conflates FOCUS with EXAGGERATION. Feminists FOCUS on DV because women are PROVEN to form the substantial majority of victims in all countries studied. This feminist focus is also based on lingering historical-cultural attitudes and legal precedent (i.e. laws that ‘allowed’ a man to physically ‘discipline’ his wife).
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 6 March 2017 3:06:54 AM
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Thank you, Killarney. Those stats put everything into perspective.

As I understand it, the purpose of DV is not so much to kill a partner as to keep 'the little woman' in line. A violent partner wants things their way, only their way, and will terrorise their victim to keep getting it. It makes them feel like a big man. They get off by domination, so why would they go to the extreme of killing off their major source of satisfaction ?

Thanks again.

Regards,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 6 March 2017 8:16:54 AM
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Whoops! Very red-faced. Got one of my statistics catastrophically wrong!

The Australian DV homicide number for 2014 was 150, not 1,140. Not sure what I did. I was looking at several websites and may have inadvertently grabbed a US or UK statistic. Don't know.

Should have realised the figure I gave was way too high. Sorry.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 6 March 2017 9:04:32 AM
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Hi Killarney,

I made the same mistake :) I didn't really look carefully at the homicide figures and ask, 'Hang on, that doesn't seem right.' But 150 is still three every week, one every couple of days or so. That is truly appalling.

Of course, there are many cases of non-physical assault, harassment, hectoring, badgering, brow-beating. The point surely is that usually the female partner is in a far more vulnerable position, less likely to be the bread-winner (and controller of the Household Purse), and more likely to be saddled with all of the tasks looking after the kids.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 6 March 2017 9:30:45 AM
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Hi Joe

Yes, despite my statistical blunder, the amount of government spending on DV awareness is still grossly dwarfed by funding for road safety awareness.

While I'm not an advocate of throwing taxpayer money at any and every social problem, government spending often reflects social values and attitudes. DV deaths and injuries, let alone the enormous psychological damage to children, just don't seem to register high enough on our list socio-political priorities.

We are still having to fight these age-old prejudices that DV is a private matter between intimate partners, that DV victims somehow provoke the violence and/or that DV victims should, and can, simply up and leave in order to avoid assault.
Posted by Killarney, Monday, 6 March 2017 10:31:41 AM
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It's hard for me to write this comment on the back of 3 deaths a week.

I'm not sure 'hang the evil male bastards' is altogether the right general message, not on it's own anyway.
I'm sure the 'scum' stigma is probably beneficial in some way but you don't want to go to war with 'all men'.

Just as you sell the idea of 'preventing violence towards women';
You should sell the idea of 'preventing court and police involvement (and imprisonment) for men'.

That way you aren't coming at men with pitchforks in concert with all the other agendas of blaming men for everything.
This way you're making it a 'society issue' rather than specifically a 'gender issue'.
- You're looking out for both parties.

It's not mens fault that they're physically stronger, and are more prone to acting physically towards one another in a confrontation.
They learn this growing up just as they're also taught to look down upon and make fun of 'weakness'.
We all do this, even women do in filtering out and making fun of 'weaker' men.
Women need to also understand that if they back a man into a corner he might just eventually act like one.

Women need to stop tying to fix the problem by feminising men, and instead accept that we are what we are just as women are what they are.

I believe that 'education' is a big part of preventing Domestic Violence.
The female police officer mentioned earlier found a way to educate herself.
We just need to find a way to educate people without them having to firstly live through it.

Life involves opportunities and obstacles.
Sometimes I think I could teach kids more in a week of 'How not to fail in life', as I could in 10-12 years of teaching them 'How to succeed in life'.
And sometimes young people really aren't yet prepared enough for the obstacles that are going to be thrown their way.
Relationships and all it entails, the good and the bad can certainly be one of those things.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Monday, 6 March 2017 10:41:44 AM
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AC has just come up with an elaborate "blame the victim" on the assumption that bashing is a "men's thing" and that something has to be done to protect men from imprisonment.

But the vast majority of men are not bashers and wouldn't entertain even a passing thought of bashing a domestic partner (or anyone else for that matter). Domestic violence is the work of a very small number of inferior people (scumbags) who choose to commit the crime of assault.

Attacking DV by locking up those who assault partners is not the slightest threat to men, only to inferior men.

This avoids waiting till doomsday and wasting taxpayers' money to hide victims in shelters. It also avoids conscripting schoolchildren into lectures about something that will never enter their lives. It avoids time and money wasting inquiries and royal commissions etc into the crimes committed by a very small number of scumbags. It also brushes aside the ducking and weaving and victim-blaming of those who sympathise with "the things that batter".
Posted by EmperorJulian, Monday, 6 March 2017 12:59:35 PM
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Killarney:

$4.5 billion spent on road safety (including infrastructure improvement)!

That’s a nice bit of figure fudging if ever there was one! How much is spent on each part? Road safety and infrastructure? Perhaps that much is spent getting people from A to B on suitable roads.

Why is domestic violence called ‘domestic’ violence? All violence is as destructive as any other so why not just call it violence? Is violence in a domestic situation worse than violence on the street? When you get bashed the effects are exactly the same whether you get bashed by a partner or a stranger. Why the emphasis on the domestic part? Is it to attract attention to the domestic relationship in the aim of pointing out that somehow it should not happen there and should be less prevalent than in other situations?

Are women trying to make domestic violence appear worse than other types of violence? Try telling that to someone who has been ‘sucker-punched’ or beaten senseless while walking down a lane way. Is the idea to elicit more sympathy so as to heap more blame on men for ruining the dream of domestic bliss? A dream which lives in the imagination of so many women?

As AC says men are bigger and stronger than women in general and will naturally resort to violence when pushed. If women were bigger and stronger what would they do? It is easy to blame men because there is no way of knowing what women would do if the odds were in their favour but violence is a part of human nature and not just men’s nature. Put a whole bunch of women together and see what happens and let’s not talk about violence to children.
Posted by phanto, Monday, 6 March 2017 3:23:36 PM
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Hi Pahnto,

You ask: "As AC says men are bigger and stronger than women in general and will naturally resort to violence when pushed. If women were bigger and stronger what would they do?"

Yes, interesting hypothesis: if elephants had six legs, what would you call them ? If eggs were cubic, could they be packed differently ? If Australia was up near Iceland, would Aboriginal people be Sami or Inuit ? Probably, to take your question seriously, if women were bigger and stronger than men, then it would be probably men who bore and raised the children - and perhaps they would be called "women".

There was a Muslim sect in north and west Africa in the century around 1850-1950 which believed that the real Messiah was yet to be born, and would be born to a man, not to an inferior creature like a woman. So they all dressed in very baggy trousers. I'm not sure if they understood human biology and how a man could give birth. Perhaps you could have advised them, Phanto :)

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 6 March 2017 3:39:47 PM
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Loudmouth:

To answer my own question what would women do if they were bigger and stronger? They would use violence like they do on their children.
Posted by phanto, Monday, 6 March 2017 3:54:06 PM
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Hi Phanto,

Hmmmm .... I think they call that 'projection' in psychology :)

The fact is that women tend to be smaller than men. Maybe you could turn your logic around and say, that, if men were the same size as women, they would treat them far more equitably. One might have to add: " ... and shared all the work of raising the kids ..... " and had equal access to the credit cards.

The bottom line is that everybody has to work at improving social relations between men and women, between people with different roles even in modern society, which are bound to throw up different opportunities and attitudes. So we all have to appreciate these different roles better and try to even out any inequities inherent in those differences.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Monday, 6 March 2017 4:22:26 PM
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Loudmouth:

No, I think they call it violence in psychology too.

We are not talking about raising the kids or sharing the credit cards - we are talking about violence.
Posted by phanto, Monday, 6 March 2017 5:06:22 PM
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phanto the more credible question is to ask what happens when you have massive social and legal consequences for one gender and very little for the other around family violence.

Size is a factor but not the overwhelming one when one believes they have a free pass to use violence against a partner and the partner is likely to be considered at fault if they report the violence, if they respond in kind (and not the use of the phrase in kind), if they walk out (stigma around children deserted by their father) etc.

That belief in a free pass can and does eventually fail for some but that factor does not negate the underlying problem of the refusal of so called anti-violence groups, politicians, advertising campaigns etc to credibly speak against all violence regardless of the genders involved.

R0bert
Posted by R0bert, Monday, 6 March 2017 7:12:42 PM
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//To answer my own question what would women do if they were bigger and stronger? They would use violence//

Really?

It's important to bear in mind that when we talk about men being bigger and stronger than women, it isn't true in all cases. It's just an average figure. On average, men are bigger and stronger. But some women lift weights and do UFC and throw hammers and shite, and I'd bet my last dollar that they're stronger than the lot of us here.

It's at times like this I wish I could draw on the screen, to demonstrate the overlap of the male and female Guassian distributions of strength and size. Sadly I can't, so just imagine it instead. We'll colour the area under the male curve pink and the area under the female curve blue to be traditional. See that huge swathe of mauve in the middle? That's where the two sexes overlap. Let us assume people couple randomly (I know it's a fairly poor assumption - cut me some slack: I like physics, so my natural inclination is to assume they're perfect spheres in a vacuum.)

What you end up with is a majority of couples where males have the strength and size and advantage (but still only a tiny minority where the scumbags use that as an excuse for barbarity), but a still sizeable minority of couples where it's the woman with the physical advantage.

So it isn't so much a question of what WOULD women do if they were bigger and stronger as it is what DO women do when they are bigger and stronger. Which they are, in a sizeable minority of cases. And it seems what they don't do is beat their husbands - or at least, not nearly so eagerly as husbands beat their wives. Which rather shoots a hole in your notion that it's all just down to the physical advantage one party has over the other.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Monday, 6 March 2017 8:29:05 PM
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//Put a whole bunch of women together and see what happens//

Spontaneous outbursts of knitting? In my experience, what one can expect is entirely too much cleaning: give it a rest, ladies. We're not impressed, so unless you're doing it to impress each other, what's the bloody point? Seriously, it's like your whole sex has OCD. Nobody died from a bit of clutter.

But all this silly conjecture is the sort of thing that should be discussed in a philosophy tutorial after a nice big spliff.

EJ's got the right idea: turf all the non-violent offenders out of prison, and lock the thugs away. They're no use to anybody, save perhaps for medical experimentation or organ farming.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Monday, 6 March 2017 8:31:22 PM
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phanto

'Is the idea to elicit more sympathy so as to heap more blame on men for ruining the dream of domestic bliss? A dream which lives in the imagination of so many women?'

Well, I can't speak for all women. However, I got married almost thirty years ago, because I was in love with my husband and was very eager to embrace 'domestic bliss' - as was he. Lucky for me, he turned out to be one of the 95%+ of men who don't beat their wives. Phew! What a close shave!

Sorry. I know I'm sending you up. But your arguments are so send-uppable.
Posted by Killarney, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 4:44:51 AM
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Hi Phanto,

Come off it, you know that it's a lot more complicated than that: You might say that marriage is between one package called a 'man' and another package called a 'woman', who will have different roles in that marriage, despite all efforts to somehow equalise its duties and pleasures between the two.

The woman will be the one to get pregnant, spend nine months lugging a growing belly around, giving birth, spending 20 hours each day looking after a baby, and into the future; while, on the whole the man will go off to work, flat-bellied, come home and have a meal on the table, before he retires to the TV, a day's work well done. Isn't that so ?

When we talk of DV, we're talking about inherently unequal social relationships in the best of marriages. It doesn't even have much to do with the fact that men tend to be bigger, heavier, louder and freer. Men have options that women don't have. isn't that so ?

So there is a power differential, or certainly the potential for one, built into every marriage. In that differential, women have obligations that men don't, and men have opportunities that women don't. So, for any equitable marriage, both partners need to work hard. In a sense, equilibrium, doing nothing extra, tips the balance of power in favour of men, and the burden of duties and obligations 'in favour' of women. Isn't that so ?

Surely we all know this. It's dodging the issue to go on about how big people are: DV is not just a function of body size, but of the problems in relationships inherent in any marriage.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 8:36:45 AM
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RObert:

I can understand your anger because I think you have good reason to be angry but your anger seems to be with the justice system.

I do not understand why Killarney, Toni Lavis, EmperorJulian and Loudmouth are angry about men’s violence toward women. As I said anger is a response to injustice. How is violence toward women unjust towards them?

I suspect that they all have different reasons such as the need to identify with feminism, the resentment about violent fathers, the need to ‘protect’ the little lady etc. The responses are very personal. None of them have a dispassionate answer to the problem of what to do and emotional detachment is what is needed here. They are not reacting to the violence but to their own personal need to do something about their own particular problem.

There is very little concern here for the victims of domestic violence and a hell of a lot of anger and resentment towards more immediate relationships.

I think the justice system of which you speak is coloured by this personal response to domestic violence. Judges, advocates, women’s groups and even men’s groups are all reacting in anger and this wrongly determines their perception of justice. No one should be angry here except the victims who have a right to live in peace. Unfortunately a lot of people have agenda’s for or against members of their own family. Others want their father locked up and for the key to be thrown away. Others want their mother to be protected. Some want themselves locked up because they fear they might be a danger to women. Others have a need to belong to some group who ride on the back of domestic violence and it clouds their judgement. Without that belonging who are they?

With all this personal stuff happening we are never going to make good decisions until individuals learn to deal with their own anger.
Posted by phanto, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 8:40:38 AM
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phanto

'How is violence toward women unjust towards them?'

Excuse me?? WTF?

As the joke goes ... What do you say to a woman with two black eyes? Nothing. She's been told twice already.

'I do not understand why Killarney, Toni Lavis, EmperorJulian and Loudmouth are angry about men’s violence toward women.'

OK. Toni, EJ and Joe. Let's all meet up in a church hall and watch meditation videos, followed by a deep and meaningful discussion. You bring the wine. I'll bring the pizza.
Posted by Killarney, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 10:51:03 AM
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//How is violence toward women unjust towards them?//

Christ on a bike...

Ask Keysar Trad, phanto.
Posted by Toni Lavis, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 11:07:50 AM
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Hey EmporerJulian,
"AC has just come up with an elaborate "blame the victim" on the assumption that bashing is a "men's thing" and that something has to be done to protect men from imprisonment."

You're taking what I said out of context so let me be clear, again.
Think of 'relationship' as being separate from 'acts of violence'.
I AM willing to 'blame the victim' for their part in the 'relationship'; depending on the exact circumstances of how that relationship broke down.
- I'm happy to blame both parties , verbally 'knock their heads together' if it avoids a tragedy.

I'm NOT willing to discount the idea that the 'victim' may have driven their partner over the edge.
But I'M certainly NOT willing to blame the victim for 'acts of violence' against them either.

If I were to hypothetically consider entertaining that idea, I would in effect be entertaining the idea that 2 wrongs can make a right; and that would not be a position that I'd support.

There's a fine line there.
If a man finds himself in such a position where he has been 'driven over the edge' by a woman, it's at this point he should either remove himself from the situation or seek outside help before things get out of hand.
It DOES NOT justify "She had it coming"; Two wrongs do not make a right.

[Cont.]
Posted by Armchair Critic, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 3:27:08 PM
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[Cont.]
What do you really think about when thinking about domestic violence?
Are you thinking only about the victims livelihood?
I don't personally know either party, what do I really care about them?
But I do care about society and I do care about fairness, and I don't really care to see either party physically harmed.

I'm thinking about 2 peoples lives here, I want both parties to live happy and fulfulling lives, and I want society to be better for it.

Think about the officer in the article who learned to avoid certain behavior;
The fact that she learned from the experience and changed her behavior was by no means an admission that what she'd gone through previously was her fault.

If there's no focus on 'prevention' then what's the point?
It just sucks taxpayers funds like a cash-sink to feed the DV Industrial complex.

'Laying blame' takes away from need to look at one's behaviour within the relationship with a real mind towards 'prevention'.

Someone earlier mentioned drugs being a factor.
Well maybe it's not 'drugs' it's 'relationship'.
I'm sure plenty of people take drugs and have relationships but don't resort to domestic violence?
Maybe instead of banning or regulating drugs, we should ban or regulate 'relationships'?
I mean if there's a potential of harm or even death right?

We don't allow people to drive on the road without a license...
They might harm themselves or others.
There's always pro's and con's to everything.

You need to test all these scenarios to foolproof a plan that will actually work.
All I've been doing is pointing out scenarios that show where you line of thinking will fail you and get you nowhere.
Point the finger or ignore me if you want; it really makes no difference to me.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 3:32:08 PM
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AC, nobody is driven to assaulting someone other than in response to an immediately prior assault. Bashers who assault people are those who actually commit violence. If it's in a relationship it is still violence but gets a special title of "domestic" violence to leave an option of blaming the victims to keep the heat off those who actually DO it by committing assault. When someone is in court defending a charge of assault, non-physical provocation is disallowed as a plea of mitigation.

Once, in South Carolina, murder was allowed if the court could be persuaded that the deceased "needed killin' ". That could be argued if the killer was a white overlord and deceased was black and uppity. The basher defenders giving voice on this thread use the old South Carolina defence for when the basher is "driven" to violence if the person being bashed is female, foolish in entering a relationship with a man, and uppity. The DV defender brigade go on to insult men in general on the ground that bashing uppity women is just something that men do. Boys will be boys. A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Tuesday, 7 March 2017 5:20:02 PM
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EmperorJulian,

All I'm saying is that if 'Laying the Blame' and 'Punishing the Offender' after the fact is the best strategy they can come up with, they might as well give up now.
They might as well just accept Domestic Violence as a fact of life.
I have serious doubts as to whether they're really going to change much whilst relying on this strategy.

If they really want to prevent Domestic Violence, (otherwise why bother spend the money) they need to empower people with the tools and knowledge to have good relationships, to identify and understand behavior that my lead to an unhealthy one, to give people the tools to try their best in relationships, resolve their problems on their own and part company amicably if and when the time comes...

I don't know that young people are ever given the tools to have good relationships.
It's more sex-ed based.

'This is a penis, this is a vagina - now off you go and have fun; don't forget to practice safe-sex.'

[Cont.]
Posted by Armchair Critic, Wednesday, 8 March 2017 4:20:12 AM
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[Cont.]

"When someone is in court defending a charge of assault, non-physical provocation is disallowed as a plea of mitigation."

I think that's interesting, and it kind of leads me to think about where these higher statistics of men killing themselves comes from.

As I've said time and again 'two wrongs don't make a right'.
I won't support acts of violence but there is some 'grey area' in the idea that 'non-physical provocation' is disallowed.

Disallowing it essentially gives a woman a free pass to do all sorts of manipulative stuff without any recourse.
Men need to be made aware they can be used, manipulated, emotionally blackmailed, entrapped, and have their partner deliberately undermine them and destroy them emotionally based entirely on (the females) own insecurities, as well as using their kids and finances as weapons and even then they cannot say anything about it.

Yet the female police officer rightly acknowledged controlling behavior as a catalyst of an abusive relationship, did she not?
If it's good enough for the victims side, why isn't it good enough for the other side?

If you want to prevent this stuff, you need to educate men on what to avoid in placing themselves in situations which will get them into trouble with the law, as well as educating women on what to avoid in placing themselves in situations that might see them physically harmed (like the female police officer) as well as empowering both sides with the knowledge of how to handle situations that can eventuate through little or no fault of their own.

You don't do this on the basis that one party might be harmed, you do this on the basis you want both parties to have good relationships and happier more fulfilling lives.
Isn't that essentially what you're aiming for?
Posted by Armchair Critic, Wednesday, 8 March 2017 4:26:59 AM
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AC: "You don't do this on the basis that one party might be harmed, you do this on the basis you want both parties to have good relationships and happier more fulfilling lives.
Isn't that essentially what you're aiming for?"

More ducking and weaving in the form of amateur marriage counselling to protect "the things that batter".

No. It's for stopping DV perps from assaulting anyone, given that they will commit assault if they can get to their victims. That is, it is for actually tackling domestic violence.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Wednesday, 8 March 2017 9:29:16 AM
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Hi AC,

So, are you suggesting, in a roundabout way, that if men can't use violence against 'their' women, they might kill themselves ? Am I reading too much into what you're asserting ?

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Wednesday, 8 March 2017 9:30:15 AM
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You're all missing my point.
My whole argument is NOT defending perpetrators;
It's PROMOTING EDUCATION to PREVENT Domestic Violence...
You can't move to that position whilst you 'Lay the Blame'.

EmporerJulian "More ducking and weaving in the form of amateur marriage counselling to protect "the things that batter"."

Loudmouth "So, are you suggesting, in a roundabout way, that if men can't use violence against 'their' women, they might kill themselves? Am I reading too much into what you're asserting ?"

That's not exactly what I was saying, but I suppose it's not entirely incorrect either.

What if the maximum effectiveness of the 'Laying the Blame and Punishing the Perpetrator' strategy could achieve was equal to 25% of the problem, and 75% was left unaddressed?
Would you consider that acceptable?
But what if educating women (just as the female police gained to avoid the wrong behavior in a partner) could be taught and this knowledge could be equal to another potential 25% effectiveness?
- Meaning our 'Maximum Effectiveness' has increased to 50% over the problem.
And what if educating men properly in the same way way in avoiding the wrong type of behavior in women and how handle certain situations better could also be equal to another potential 25% effectiveness?
Meaning our 'Maximum Effectiveness' has increased to 75% over the problem (from a point of no intervention at all or 25% with the original strategy) and we have 'critical mass' over the problem.

If 'non-physical provocation is disallowed as a plea of mitigation'; then there's no accepted legal foundation with which to identify areas that lead to DV; and that results in limiting the ability to create a framework that would more effectively prevent DV; don't you see my point?
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 9 March 2017 11:15:54 AM
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[Cont']

I'm not saying non-phyical provocation should be allowed as a defence of physical harm inflicted, but it should be a consideration of 'relationship breakdown' in creating strategies for reducing DV that work.

Why would you settle for a system thats maximum effectiveness is only ever going to be 25% when a better strategy could increase that effectiveness 3 fold? (Don't know the real statistics)

Not only that when you have a strategy that is much more effective in removing the ones that should never have been there, and gain critical mass over the problem, you EARN the right to then crack down harder on all the bad offenders.

If you don't prepare people properly for relationships, then we can't get too upset when things go wrong.

'If we don't prepare men for the potential that they can be used, manipulated, emotionally blackmailed, entrapped, and have their partner deliberately undermine them and destroy them emotionally based entirely on (the females) own insecurities, as well as using kids and finances as weapons and even then they cannot say anything about it.'

If we don't educate men on this, is it not just as irresponsible as letting an unskilled unlicensed driver on the road?
What's the difference?

I don't want to support a system that only seeks spend taxpayers money locking people up.
I want to support a system that prevents the bloke from ever ending up in court in the first place by changing his thinking before he finds himself in a situation harmful to himself and others.
He's probably a taxpayer too.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 9 March 2017 11:19:46 AM
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Hi AC,

That's a very good point: it reminds me of so much in Aboriginal policy: to wait for a problem, then find someone to blame (usually 'colonialism', no matter what), and to patch up the horrific consequences of letting a problem fester, but only if the victims are still alive.

Yes, surely it's better to have pro-active, preventative, policies, than patch-up, remedial, dumb-down policies ?

Yes, your suggestion of education programs in the media to educate women and men as to their rights and responsibilities, and how to improve relations with partners, how each can appreciate the roles and responsibilities of the other partner - this could be done in many different ways, from the elementary to the more reflective and philosophical.

After all, equal rights is probably the most outstanding achievement of the long-fought-out Enlightenment.

If we started early enough, and kept at it, hopefully we could push that target up to 100 %.

Cheers,

Joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Thursday, 9 March 2017 11:30:23 AM
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Lets go back to Killarney's earlier relating that the guy in that court case was 'acting like a complete jerk' sending a multitude of abusive text messages etc.
- But she also said he 'Seemed to be a good dad when the court case was over'.
She argued over the huge expense of the court case.

Well you must remeber there's 3 sides of the story.
His, hers and the truth.

How do I know she wasn't sitting on the couch saying.
"I don't care that we've only been together a year, I'm going to sit on this couch spending your money on hairdressers, pedicures and expensive designer clothes, and if you don't like it and want a divorce I'm gonna take half your shite."

I imagine that's going to drive him up the wall until it's settled.
What about the idea he had to spend a fortune protecting herself from a woman who attempted to take more than she deserved?

Who had much better support around her, and the idea that court would traditionally argue in her favour?

We can all say he was jerk for going off, but did he not have reasons for doing so?
I don't know the whole story.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 9 March 2017 11:31:21 AM
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An act of domestic violence - which is what this thread is supposed to be about - is an assault. We still have calls from those who want to protect assailants to forget about the assault and what makes it possible - the assailant has access to the victim. The only sure fire way of making it IMpossible is locking up the scumbag who assaults. Here are some of the substitutes for actually stopping the assaults that constitute domestic violence:

#Restructuring society
#Getting victims to hide away in shelters (with or without the kids?)
#Inflicting lectures on schoolchildren who have never encountered DV and never will
#Waiting for gender equality
#Insulting men by claiming that men in general are violent scumbags
#Insulting women by claiming women seek relationships with violent scumbags
#Funding a marriage guidance industry
#Coming up with cures for lunacy (PC term "mental health issues")

The list is endless as sympathisers with violent scumbags - the basher lobby - seek protection for their bashing access.

These non-cures leave DV unimpeded and drain national budgets.

Like any enemy, "the things that batter" cannot be defeated by appeasement.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 9 March 2017 12:34:16 PM
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Hey Loudmouth,
I'm real glad someone was able to see my point.
I think we could get to around the level of efficiency I suggested, but with immigration and different religious and cultural issues there's always going to be a number of people that you'd expect to have problems with.

"Yes, your suggestion of education programs in the media to educate women and men as to their rights and responsibilities, and how to improve relations with partners, how each can appreciate the roles and responsibilities of the other partner - this could be done in many different ways, from the elementary to the more reflective and philosophical."

I didn't actually put forward any recommendations for a strategy or course of action just yet.
I was thinking along the lines of:
At School - '1 lesson per week on 'relationships' during Year 10 for a least' two of the four terms.
Around 20 classes plus a 80 to 100 page handbook.
There's a lot of topics, issues and examples to cover which I won't outline here.

Is that too much? Is one term and 10 classes to little?
The I'd have a Website and App, with more info and access to more support.
With Police: Both Parties involved in DV are given the updated handbook, access to support organisations and the original information is reinforced.

A media campaign could indeed promote these services.

I thought a little more about this topic and I came up with this 'compound interest' type of idea.
I say 'compound interest' because I can't find a better word for it but the idea I'm trying to express is more like 'emotional baggage accumulation'...

Lets say we taught kids all this info right from the get go - at school - before they ever start having issues.
If we prevent them from having messy breakups to begin with, we will also inadvertently be preventing them carrying baggage onto following relationships, and from those issues spreading out poisoning more and more relationships like cancer.

Does that make any sense?
The lawyers will hate me.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Friday, 10 March 2017 6:51:10 AM
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Hi AC,

Yes, that would be a good beginning. There's a couple of things we have to remember:

* men and women will be together, one way or the other, forever. Each can't do without the other for long. Nobody can say "Go back to where you came from."

* Gender relations can't avoid being of becoming power relations: especially if and when children come along, men are going to have different life and career pathways to women, if women are the ones who have to carry and bear the children, raise them, and by default therefore be stuck with all the humdrum domestic responsibilities, rather than the man in a relationship.

So we all have to work constantly on being aware of inevitable power differences (especially if children are involved) and how to counter them, and to make efforts to share domestic duties.

Jeez, I should talk :(

Regards,

joe
Posted by Loudmouth, Friday, 10 March 2017 8:45:23 AM
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I've still got this need to challenge the idea that men are always 100% to blame.

I think about the number of kids being raised by single mums, the predominance of women teachers at schools and the high rates of bullying at schools.
Where are these kids learning bullying if men aren't in their lives?
Where do they get it?

Is it learned behavior or are they just frustrated kids who's percieved needs are not being met hence acting out?
Feeling hurt and in response hurting others?

I think about the mothers who kill their kids;
A woman drives her kids into a lake;
Another drowns a child while her other child watches on;
Another mum killed her 4 yo and then herself yesterday;

These women aren't stable.

How do we know the kids that grow up to beat women weren't mistreated by them as kids?
How do we know women arent themselves contributing to the problem they later complain about?

I don't want to hassle women, really I don't.
Raising numerous kids on their own can't easy.

But this thing is far from being black and white and I truly think we have a long way to go before we get it totally figured out.
On this issue I'm afraid that scratching the surface with 'blame' is as much hindrance as help.

There was a comment I heard during a documentary on Autism I watched the other night.
"The reason they become aggressive and dangerous in some cases is because they have no ability to communicate.
If you were not able to express your needs your wants your desires your happiness and so on you would become aggressive."

That got me thinking...
I really wonder how many relationships descend into a downward spiral; a power struggle, simply because one or both parties lack the words or wisdom to communicate themselves adequately?
Posted by Armchair Critic, Tuesday, 14 March 2017 10:09:11 PM
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Here's another one.
http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/imam-told-mum-her-toddler-was-possessed-by-evil-spirit-before-alleged-murder-20170315-guyqzg.html
Posted by Armchair Critic, Wednesday, 15 March 2017 6:19:45 PM
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Ok, lets go back to this and compare the laws:

"When someone is in court defending a charge of assault, non-physical provocation is disallowed as a plea of mitigation."

We'll use another case of a mother killing her child.
Sofina Nikat in the killing of her daughter Sanaya; she deliberately took her child to the local creek, suffocated her and threw her in and then said an African stole her baby, starting a manhunt based on her lies.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-03-15/killing-of-toddler-sanaya-sahib-appears-infanticide-court-told/8355238

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infanticide
http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/legis/vic/consol_act/ca195882/s6.html

A couple of points to make.
Firstly the wikipedia entry says that women are statistically more likely to kill their children.
I'm not sure it's right to assume, but it would seem to be a reasonable assumption that women may in fact physically discipline their kids more than fathers.
I'd like to see some good statistics on this to know if women's parenting is in any way contributing to the issue of DV through the way in which they raise their kids.

And secondly, why are men not allowed a partial defense for DV if women are allowed to have a partial defense for murdering their kids?
Maximum Imprisonment 5yrs

(Once again, I'm not trying to defend the perpetrators, just contrasting ways laws apply differently for men and women.)

Also note:
"You don’t have to make physical contact with someone to be charged with a violence-related offense.
Placing a person in fear that you will be violent towards them can also be an offense, including:
Threatening to harm someone
Being physically intimidating, such as standing over someone.
It does not matter whether you intend to harm the other person or not, as long as you intend them to believe that you will."

-emphasis- 'intend them to believe you will'

Now back to bullying and where does it come from?
- How many single mums act physically intimidating towards their kids, such as standing over them?
The exact thing considered to be DV.
How do we know these men committing DV didn't learn that behavior from their own mums?
Not saying they do but it's still a valid question.
Posted by Armchair Critic, Thursday, 16 March 2017 5:50:40 AM
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Don't try to tell me women never do anything wrong, or that they would never try to mess with they boyfriends when their needs aren't being met.

Woman Threatens to Lie and Say Boyfriend Beats Her
http://youtu.be/Igw0_5z6pj0?t=15s

Woman Bashes Herself and Blames Ex-Fiance
http://youtu.be/YPQCOtA8adM

Woman Sexually Assaults Man Then Falsely Accuses Him of Raping Her
http://youtu.be/JDgc1n8E3P8

"Open The Door or I'll Kill Myself!" Crazy Girlfriend Breaks Door and Wont Leave
http://youtu.be/Lx5vqvr_BZc

Woman Puts On An Act After Trying To Get Her Husband Killed
http://youtu.be/-DxMO9DcT3Y
Posted by Armchair Critic, Sunday, 19 March 2017 10:07:39 PM
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Four in a row from AC ducking commitment to any proposals on putting a STOP, this side of doomsday, to those who actually commit DV. It would be interesting to learn what he proposes and how long he wants the victims to have to wait, starting today, before they are freed of a life of bashing.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Sunday, 19 March 2017 10:28:31 PM
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