Men be afraid, be very afraid – your greatest danger is from……….other men. Both in the outside world and on the home front you are more likely to be abused by other men. You have more to fear from your brother/father/son/mate than you do from your sister/mother/daughter/wife. As a paramedic, I see the reality of this every day. I do agree that male victims do not receive enough support. But the fault lies with both men and women.

Michael Gray no doubt has an agenda in his fear mongering, however I fear it is a regressive one.

There is no evidence on this thread or elsewhere that police, government and hospital stats are being manipulated. I submit the following:

“Australia Crime Facts and Figures
In 2002-2003, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia processed a total of 175,872 offenders, of whom 138,232 were male and 37,640 were female. Females made up 22% of all offenders in 1995-1996 and 21% in 2002-2003."

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/facts/2004/part4.html

http://www.ntv.net.au/ntv_four.htm

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/vt/vt2-text.html#5

http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/vt/vt2-text.html#6

“Women are as Violent as are Men, and Women Initiate Violence as Often as do Men
This factoid cites research by Murray Straus, Suzanne Steinmetz, and Richard Gelles, Those using this factoid tend to conveniently leave out the fact that Straus and his colleague's surveys …… consistently find that no matter WHAT THE RATE OF VIOLENCE OR WHO INITIATES THE VIOLENCE, WOMEN ARE 7 TO 10 TIMES MORE LIKELY TO BE INJURED IN ACTS OF INTIMATE VIOLENCE THAN ARE MEN.”

And following from Richard Gelles himself:

Rhttp://www.thesafetyzone.org/everyone/gelles.html
“To even off the debate playing field it seems one piece of statistical evidence (that women and men hit one another in roughly equal numbers) is hauled out from my 1985 research - and distorted - to “prove” the position on violence against men. ……The statement that men and women hit one another in roughly equal numbers is true, however, it cannot be made in a vacuum without the qualifiers that

a) women are seriously injured at seven times the rate of men and

b) that women are killed by partners at more than two times the rate of men.”

continued
“In the majority of cases, the women act in response to physical or psychological provocation or threats. Most use violence as a defensive reaction to violence. Some women initiate violence because they know, or believe, that they are about to be attacked….. are typically smaller than their husbands and less skilled in using weapons.
Thus, when we look at injuries resulting from violence involving male and female partners, IT IS CATEGORICALLY FALSE TO IMPLY THAT THERE ARE THE SAME NUMBER OF “BATTERED” MEN AS THERE ARE BATTERED WOMEN.”

I am not “male bashing” as a man myself I see the raw results of human frailty as a part of my job.

I am “male alerting”.

I do agree that more women are becoming more aggressive in asserting themselves, however as men are predominately more violent than women we only have ourselves to blame if women follow suit.

I agree with others that we shouldn’t just focus on physical DV.

Silversurfer it is appalling that you offer sympathy to male victims of DV who post here, but no sympathy to the female posters who have related their experiences of DV.

R0bert if you think that a woman shouldn’t defend herself by physical means if she is groped by anyone, then you really should be doing another think. You claim to be a DV victim yourself, yet you think that touching breasts – uninvited isn’t all that serious. Try being molested on your personal parts by someone twice as strong and twice your size. How would you react? Just saying ‘no’ doesn’t always work.

I predict vitriol directed towards me from the disenfranchised, however I find the bias here to be untenable and unrealistic. I am divorced – I don’t have custody of my children. But I still adore women and that ain’t gonna change. There are good and bad in both men and women. I don’t believe in feminist plots and am saddened that there are men who would promote such conspiracy theories rather than trying to work with each other to eliminate domestic violence.

Ambo, can you have a look at the Qld Health definition of DV I posted earlier to and relate that to your own admission that the rate of hittig is similar. It does appear that injury levels are higher for women in DV (plenty to suggest it is in degree's not large multiples though). The vast majority of DV does not involve serious physical injury and yet that aspect is being used to dominate the whole debate.

In regards to a woman hitting a man for groping. I'm not OK with the uninvited grope but neither am I of the view that it is appropriate for individuals to hand out physical punishments to others for actions they disaprove of.

If you think that is OK where do you draw the boundary. Is road rage involving hitting OK? Is it OK to beat the crap out of a burglar rather than restraining them until the police arrive? From there it's not to far from hitting the lazy b%#$h because she spilt your beer. How much of an ambo's work is cleaning up after people who thought they had a reason to hit somebody else?

Our society has moved away from corporal punishment, our courts do not hand out floggings as punishments neither should individuals.

R0bert

I found this definition

"Family Violence is an abuse of power perpetrated mainly (but not only) by men against women in a relationship or after separation. It occurs when one partner attempts physically or psychologically to dominate and control the other. Family Violence takes a number of forms. The most commonly acknowledged forms are physical and sexual violence, using economic abuse, using coercion and threats, using intimidation, using emotional abuse, using isolation, minimizing/denying abuse and blaming the target, using children to control the other partner, and relationships of mutual obligation and support."

It is all of the above that needs to be recognised in the courts -
Most of the time this all happens behind closed doors and when dealing with sociopathic personalities it is even harder because of their covert behaviour.

The other issue is that we are surrounded by the above behaviour in the media- TV and DVD games.
My 6 year old came to me the other day and stated that there is so much cruelty on TV and in the games.All the games are violent cuz you have to kill punch run over or do something that would hurt in real life.( He was playing SHREK)
I acknowledged his wisdom and we talked about how in real life it is not acceptable behaviour and people do get hurt and that we are all responsible for our actions and their are consequences for those actions.
This is a child who was sexually abused by his father and does not see any consequences for the behaviour he was subjected to.

Sachiel,
It is interesting to see where your definition has come from. In 1975 the definition of family violence was :-

“family violence” means conduct, whether actual or threatened, by a person towards, or towards the property of, a member of the person’s family that causes that or any other member of the person’s family to fear for, or to be apprehensive about, his or her personal well being or safety.

In the report “Children’s Contact Services: Expectations and Experiences” a definition now being advocated is :-

“Family violence is an abuse of power perpetrated mainly (but not only) by men against women in a relationship or after separation. It occurs when one partner attempts physically or psychologically to dominate and control the other. Family violence takes a number of forms. The most commonly acknowledged forms are physical and sexual violence, using economic abuse, using coercion and threats, using intimidation, using emotional abuse, using isolation, minimizing/denying abuse and blaming the target, using children to control the other partner, and
using male privilege. Family violence encompasses all forms of violence in intimate, family and other relationships of mutual obligation and support.”

So the definition has been considerably expanded in time, and now includes terms such as “perpetrated”, “dominate”, “male privilege”. These are all feminist propaganda terms that are widely found throughout feminist indoctrination text.

Feminist research into DV is now characterised by qualitative research, exclusion of males, anecdotal data, appealing to emotions, using leading questions, biased involvement of the researcher etc. In fact all the techniques that are condemned in most other types of research.

Where does it lead to. Feminists in the US aren’t satisfied with 50% of children being removed from their fathers, but want “mandatory arrests” (but this is only for males). Feminists in Canada want “Shout at your spouse, lose your house” (but this is only for males). Feminists in Switzerland want a “man tax” (but this is only for males). Feminists in Australia want imprisonment without bail (but this is only for males). And all this is based on the amazing world of feminist research.

Munchausen Syndrome, and Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP), could be as much to blame as feminism and other major causes.

When in domestic situations, all blame is heaped on men alone, we can be certain there are fishmongers in our midst.

The question remains - how do we reduce or eliminate the actual incidence of violence and abuse?