Thank you Garra

It appears that certain posters love to dish it out but can't take it.

kalweb - if I find posters contributions juvenile and insidiously pushing a subversive line I will say so. I have suffered enough from domestic violence I will not tolerate further abuse from the extreme members of this forum.

To tell me how I should write my posts is abuse. To deny my experience is abuse.

Ringtail,
So now other posters are being subversive are they?. As well as that they have been labelled as being supremists, extreme, insidious, men’s rights activists, and they carry out excessive bleating, and they should “get out more”, “get real” etc.

Anecdotal evidence doesn’t mean much, as it can lead to misrepresentation of the true situation. For example, I used to live next-door to a family where one day I saw the mother whipping one of her children with a piece of broken clothesline wire. The same mother would tie her baby into the pram with a piece of rope when she went to the shops.

Now that family was of a particular ethnic group, and I could write clever propaganda and convince others that this family was representative of all families in that ethnic group, and I could even convince people that all family violence came from this one ethnic group, but all this would be based on anecdotal evidence, and people could justifiably complain about it.

A typical example of a current domestic violence research would be the latest research conducted by the Australian Domestic Violence Clearing House. The research is titled “Staying Home, Leaving Violence” at http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/PDF%20files/SHLV.pdf

“The aim of the research is to explore how women leaving a domestic violence
relationship could remain safely in their own homes with their children, with the
violent partner being removed.”

From this research, it makes a number of recommendations. However the research was based on interviews of 29 women only (and not also men who had been victims of domestic violence) and these women had been “nominated” by various organisation (instead of being randomly selected).

Anyone involved in responsible research would immediately have to regard this as being probable “advocacy research”, but that research is highly representative of domestic violence research presently being carried out, and any complaints about that type of taxpayer funded research are highly justifiable.

Timkins:

You love to twist and manipulate the words of other posters, provide vague links to back up your claims and generally avoid actual discourse despite the efforts other posters such as Ringtail.

Fact:
"* In 2000-2001 Victorian Police received 21,622 reports of incidents of family violence. Of victims, 77% were women, while men made up 89% of perpetrators (Victoria Police, 2002).

* In 1998-99 there were 21,817 applications for Intervention Orders in Victorian Magistrates Courts. Of these applications, 70% involved women as the victims of domestic violence, and 78% involved men as alleged offenders. Victims of stalking made up 21% of victims (Department of Justice, 2000)."

Source: http://www.dvirc.org.au/resources/Statistics.htm

As Ringtail said this could turn into a war of hyperlinks - proving nothing.

The above are accurate statistics.

The issue argued by Michael Gray is that DV stats are being manipulated to obscure the true facts, well the above facts are true.

If anyone is doing a spin job on DV it is a rather small and frightened band of pro-male posters who relentlessly verbally bash anyone who dares to proclaim themself a feminist.

Trinity,
“You love to twist and manipulate the words of other posters, provide vague links to back up your claims and generally avoid actual discourse despite the efforts other posters such as Ringtail.”

Is this a fact is it?

You have simply made a statement, but have provided no supporting evidence or examples. Just making statements or providing anecdotal evidence is not debate, it is simply making statements or providing anecdotal evidence. I try and supply supporting evidence to my statements, by linking to other sources, and I look at a wide variety of data and articles, so that I don’t become narrow minded or brainwashed. {NB. This may be coincidental, but I have noticed that if I make a negative comment about the male gender on OLO, there is no complaint}

However you don’t seem to like my reference links, so could you please supply a list of web-sites that I can reference. And also a list of the domestic violence surveys that I should unquestioningly believe, so I will not have to look through a wide variety of data before I form my opinions.

The “facts” about applications for domestic violence intervention orders can be viewed as being rather suspect. If someone does make an applications for a domestic violence intervention order, then a breakdown of the marriage or relationship will likely develop. In a way, the intervention order formalises the breakdown of the marriage or relationship.

However in the present system, 91% of child support payers are the fathers, while about 75% of non-custodial fathers will only see their children every second weekend or less, and about 30% not at all in the future. In such circumstances, few fathers will likely make an application for an intervention order, even if they are victims of domestic violence from their spouse, because the father has too much to loose.

The domestic violence intervention system is a useful system to have if you are not a father. (NB. I don't have a domestic violence intervention order against myself, if someone wants to view my opinions as being biased].

Trinity,

You say: "The issue argued by Michael Gray is that DV stats are being manipulated to obscure the true facts, well the above facts are true."

No! I don't believe they are true. You refer to reporting of domestic violence to police. Sorry the police don't determine actual cases of domestic violence - the courts do. The police only have indications of "alleged" perpetrators of domestic violence. If you looked at those figures closely, you would find that there is double counting of the same individuals, reporting of fathers making minor infringements of the conditions of "ex parte" orders obtained on the basis of uncorroborated evidence, etc etc, rendering the police figure only useful for propaganda purposes.

Further, There are no public wife demonising campaigns funded through an Office for the Status of Men, to encourage men to report even trivial domestic violence incidents. What you also have failed to take into account is that what lack in comparative physical strength they can usually compensate by lying and misleading the police and court

Timkins wrote:

"all effective propaganda must be limited to a very few points and must harp on these in slogans until the last member of the public understands what you want him to understand by your slogan"

At least he practises what he preaches!