The ugly secret that truly endures in Australia and nationally is that the domestic violence industry provides a funding source for a discriminative propaganda machine that denigrates men in our culture. This domestic violence industry continually ignores the wealth of research data and expert opinion that reveals woman as equal perpetrators of domestic violence.

Even a cursory investigation into domestic violence reveals that DV is not gender specific. Yet, the DV industry continues to publicise this advocacy research with 'data' twisted to their own political ends. Reports on male victims of DV have been systematically silenced for a very long time. Shootings, character assassinations and bomb, death and career threats have been experienced by some prominent researchers and social workers for discussing female to male violence.

Even Erin Pizzey, the founder of DV shelters in the UK 25 years ago and first to write about DV, had to flee her country because of feminist attacks against her. She was brave enough to report publicly, from her considerable experience, that "that women can be as violent as men and that women were a great deal more psychologically violent than men".

Our culture has swallowed the 'men are pathologically violent' message, without critical analysis of the dissenting research, and has conformed to a politically driven hysteria that will never help to end DV

The domestic violence industry is truly an industry … because it fabricates statistics, which in turn destabilise male / female relationships in our community ... thus promoting their political mythology.

chris_b, another perspective you might want to consider is the total lack of attention paid to female initiated domestic violence and the potential impact of that on the thinking of the perpetrators.

Any man hitting a partner is doing so in the face of widespread and clear public comdemnation of male initiated DV. Unfortunately some still choose to do.

A woman who hits a partner is often reassurred that she probably could not have hurt him anyway or that she must have had good reason to do so. The media continues to portray female initiated violence as acceptable if the female thinks she has a good reason. Think of the TV add's which feature women hitting men and try to picture similar scenarios being played when the aggressor was a man.

I've been on the receiving end of DV from my former wife. Pretty much impossible to get support or have the issue addressed. The whole subject is so impacted by the gender bias in the reporting and handling of the subject that almost nobody not directly impacted takes female initiated DV seriously. All of the relationship professionals (Relationships Australia, Centacare etc) have copious material on display about protecting women and children from men, almost none about female initiated DV.

Something made me very uncomfortable reading this article and it has taken me a while to work out what it is.

Statistics are not pure, they always need to be interpreted and this can be abused. But to assume that a pure, 'true' numerical picture can ever become available is absurd and to disregard all information and issues raised by looking at some statistics is a bit like throwing out the baby with the bath water.

I am not sure what the point of this article was.

Anyone working in domestic services will tell you that they do not have enough money to meet the need of their clients. Women and children in need of protection are still being turned away from hostels, short term accomodation and Department of Housing accomodation.

Domestic violence, whether between women, siblings, partners, children abusing elderly parents, men abusing women, women abusing men, is a negative, detrimental thing to all people involved and close to it. Turning the issue into a competition between victims is dangerous and counter-productive, for this reason I will not add to the arguement. The focus needs to remain firmly on the fact that we want to stop domestic violence in all it's forms.

Another thing that bothered me about this article was the apparent disregard for the impact that non-physical violence can have. Surely we have moved forward from the days of only seeing bruises and legitimate hurt and pain. I do agree that research and the subsequent results need to make it clear what is included as violence - and why.

No matter what we think of how flawed statistics can be, or what number of sufferers there should be before we give money and attention, the fact remains that hundreds of people live with violence, physical and mental / emotional, everyday and we need to ask ourselves if we are content to live in a society that does nothing about it because the surrounding issues are too political, or statistics too flawed.

Katrina
Providing more money or resources may not make much difference in reducing domestic violence. It is noticed that increased money and resources have been given to domestic violence organisations in recent years, but the domestic violence statistics (as reported) seem to be getting worse in time, not better.

This can only mean the following:-
1.The problem of domestic violence is not being overcome.
2.The statistics are being rigged or manipulated so as to get even more money.
3.Both of the above.

But whatever way it is looked at, the people involved in the domestic violence organisations are not doing a very good job.

If family violence is seriously studied, the majority of it occurs in a minority of families (eg. about 80% of child abuse occurs in less than 30% of families), but mentioning this seems too political, as there are certain sections of society who advocate these types of families

Dear Michael

Thank you for your article. It certainly has generated much interest already. I check out the Womens' Safety Survey to which you referred. No wonder your article sounded angry, to say the least.

What an "unsafe" survey tool! It looks as if it was written by a first semester first year student who did not have any experience in writing - let alone research. The Overview was incomplete. What was the Scope really saying? Where is a succinct definition of domestic violence? There is no Conceptual Framework - rather there is a string of words which are not directly linked and which have not been drawn together as a concept - let alone a conceptual framework. Basically the tool is totally disorganised and will do little to add theory to practice, assist further research - and most important of all, it is unlikely to assist any victim of violence.

My gut feeling is that your article will bring the radical leftist feminists running to it - like a red rag to a bull.

Well I hold some strong feminist views and some strong traditional views - both of which I think show a sensible balance.

I was a victim of domestic violence (physical and emotional/mental) by an alcoholic husband for 13 years. Thankfully I finally escaped over the border. I do not regard all men as potential bashers or perpetrators. Rather, I know that all people (male or female) can become victims of another person's emotional, mental, sexual, or physical violence.

I don't think this is a competition as one poster hinted. But I am glad that you have opened the subject for all of us to have a re-think.

Cheers
Kay

I recently worked with NSW Police on a domestic violence communication campaign. In the course of it, I was told, by ordinary cops in an ordinary suburban police station that 40% of their call outs were for domestic violence incidents. They said it was the single most likely incident they were called upon to deal with, not burglary or mugging, but domestic incidents serious enough to cause someone (the victim, a neighbour or other family member) to call the police. They did not specify whether they mostly involved male or female perpetrators, just that dealing with either actually violent or potentially violent incidents in families was, sadly, their most regular work.
And to Timkins point, one of the reasons domestic violence stats may be increasing is because the campaigns by the Police (as much as by anyone else) are working, and more people are reporting something they once used to put up with. Increased reporting may actually mean we are dealing with domestic violence better than we once did.
I believe that the phrase "rule of thumb" originates from the old common law rule that you could beat your wife, as long as you did not use an implement thicker than your thumb.
Hopefully, we've come a long way since then.