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.)

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

//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.

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.

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

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.