Ringtail, I agree that what happened to you is unforgivable. I can only imagine the pain, anguish and despair that you have suffered. You deserved better.

However, your ex- husband is not your average man!. That type of behaviour is so far from the norm that it isn’t funny!. He has a serious problem.

My heart aches for you but my head cannot help but ask “Why did you stay?” “He shouldn’t have been allowed the opportunity to abuse you so many times!”. What or who stopped you from getting away. I wonder, at which point in the process or in the system were you failed? What would have made the difference?

I don’t have anybody physically protecting me, I am safe because I wont drop my guard. I would never allow a man or woman treat me like that no matter what. Why men and women who are in this type of hostile environment stay for so long, is something that I struggle to get my head around.

Silversurfer,

Keep up the good work and may your surf be always up.

When we criticise societal views and systems, we often fail to recognise our own membership and responsibilities. When we blindly accept the status quo, be it within in our personal lives, or within false and biased stats, we join a conspiracy that threatens our children’s future.

There is no doubt we are in a transitional period. When all societal structures catch up to a current, consistent, and fair view, with gender-neutral rules and criteria, our children may begin to feel secure within such constructs. While we engage in artificial and unsustainable social experimentation/engineering, I remain fearful for those children.

Jolanda,

Well said. Nobody is denying the anguish experienced by those like Ringtail and the many other women who have suffered psychological and other abuse at the hands of some very nasty male individuals (I wonder to what extent they were (physical and psychological) school bullies - honing their skills on other male children and then gradually becoming more abusive until it later translated into their domestic relationships - an area for study I think).

The issue is however, how prevalent is domestic violence against women? And as you pointed to, why are the cited figures not fitting our life experiences? The violent and abusive men are not the average men. Are the stats being deliberately manipulated for other reasons. That is the very question Michael is posing, and that demands proper investigation. He is hardly the first to ask this question. For example, this (UK) article by Josie Appleton: http://www.spiked-online.com/Articles/000000005423.htm is asking a similar question - why is the experience of so many women not fitting the 'statistical evidence'? She (and Michael) are amongst a small but growing number of (informed) people who are asking the same thing – what the hell is going on here with these faked stats?

Feenix. Do you know why I think they fudge figures?. I think its because those in power want certain people in society to not trust each other!. They want us to believe that we are more violent and aggressive than what we really are so that we harbour ill feelings towards each other and we dont communicate and connect. They worry that if we connnect and are compassionate and caring and understanding that we might join the dots and realise that they are taking us for a ride and feeding us alot of rubbish. So they keep everybody neglected, hostile and aggressive.

Whilst society is destabilised, then the Government bullies are safe from having to answer and being made accountable for the mess that they have created through lack of duty of care and lack of accountability.

Jolanda, good observation!

However, it is often not really ‘the Government’, but the next layer down – powerful top level bureaucrats – who are running the agendas and sometimes duping politicians and the Australian public in the process (remember ‘Yes Minister’?).

They have fixed and ‘politically correct’ views based on their life ‘reading material’ (few have ever lived in the ‘real world’ outside of being ‘public' servants) and who have too often done ‘hatchet-jobs’ or otherwise to escalate their way to the very top of their ‘profession’ (bullies?).

Mostly, they are concealed as the grey suited (‘whispering’) men (and increasingly grey skirted women) who, in practicing the art of ‘gentle deceptions’, influence policy and laws at every level of our society. Ultimately, they control, administer and thus direct all public funding. Sometimes well directed. Sometimes badly directed.

Most senior bureaucrats are involved in an endless competition with each other to secure public funding for their own departments. It is a sad case of ‘bigger is better’ because bigger is ‘more powerful’ and Ministers play along because if their portfolio involves a bigger department then it underlines how important they as Ministers must be, within the ‘inner chamber’ of Cabinet (their own 'fishbowl').

Regardless, the end recipients of the funding inevitably must ‘play the game’. That is in part what is happening with the whole DV matrix. And why not? If your own job depended on recurrent government taxpayer funding and you worked in a DV area, then ‘playing up’ the ever increasing need for funding would become part of the ‘end game’. (And if political correctness says there are only female victims and not male victims then so be it).

A typical DV worker always says 'we don’t have enough resources', 'the problem is getting bigger!'. OSW wants more funding to help women (but in fact to increase their status within the bureaucratic ‘power regime’). Ministers play along either because they are being duped or because they need to increase their own political status.

Every need is served except those who are really in need. Truth is the ultimate fatality.

Feenix, great post.

There are also some gender bigots who are so focussed on better outcomes for women that they have given up on concepts like fairplay and truth. Some of these work for groups reliant on government funding but I suspect that for many the driving force is their bigotry rather than government funding.

It is pretty openly acknowledged in the family law "system" that DV claims are widely used as a tool to get better outcomes for women. Apart from the harm done to children and their fathers by this I suspect that the continued cries of "Wolf, wolf" are hurting some of those who really need help and may hurt a lot more unless this issue is addressed sanely and soon.

Do we really want to get to the point where claims of DV and or child abuse are routinely ignored? Where it is assumed that they are a tactic in a struggle for an improved property settlement outcome or welfare benefits or revenge?

I hope that we don't get to that point but rather we reach a point where the public rejection of misuse of DV and child abuse claims is such that only the lowest of the low would try it and where any claim of DV or child abuse is treated seriously because such claims are rarely misused. To bring that about the acceptance of such tactics has to stop.

Thanks again for your great post.

R0bert