Violence Against Women - Australia Says No.
Violence Against Men - Australia Says Nothing?

Men would be more interested in white ribbon day if women took the same sort of responsibility and made a day to prevent violence by women against men.... the idea of which happening is laughable.

No. All we get from feminist organisations and supposed domestic violence prevention organisations is denial of mountains of evidence of gender symmetry, often using quite underhanded tactics.

Many of such tactics can be found at Murray Strauss' website in the paper:

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CTS44G.pdf

Where the most common criticisms are answered. More than likely the claim that Gelles recanted some of his earlier work was the result of a rather underhanded tactic like the following:

"Another irony is that despite these denunciations, many feminist researchers use the CTS. However, having used the CTS, they re-affirm their feminist credentials by routinely inserting a paragraph repeating some of the erroneous criticisms. These criticisms are then cited in other articles as though there were empirical evidence."

You can also see large amounts of criticism of the UN report mentioned in this article, which also biases the issue, and blames it entirely on men, for example:

http://www.ifeminists.net/introduction/editorials/2006/1018roberts.html

So really with a climate of feminist denial of women's violence against men can you really expect men to care or support campaigns about the contrary, when their compassion would clearly not be reciprocated?

The thing that really gets me about this is the fact that eliminating the responsibility of one side of the problem simply encourages it in that side. Rather than subsidise their own oppression in this manner men are more likely to engage in grass roots movements to bring attention to the true nature of the problem, for example, by putting out video evidence of women's violence, such as the following:

http://www.antimisandry.com/vbdr/bullbusters

Have any of you guys managed to get hold of the free Bull Busters video going around? It's called Violent Women and it is very powerful.

While reading this piece, I found myself feeling very antagonistic towards the author. In turn, this made me somewhat puzzled at myself. After all, it's not as if I condone or conduct violence against women. Nor am I aware of any of my friends or colleagues doing so. So why was I feeling antagonistic instead of agreeing wholeheartedly? I think it came down to two lines in the piece.

The first was "collective responsibility for male violence, whether committed by them or not." This is a very worrisome notion. I do not feel that I am responsible for violence conducted by otehr men. Applying the same logic, should we hold all muslims responsible for islamic violence, whether conducted by them or not? Should we hold all indigenous Australians responsible for public drunkenness, whether committed by them or not? Should we hold all single mothers responsible for welfare dependence, whether committed by them or not? Of course we should not. Applying this sort of collective responsibility logic just gives people an "out" to avoid their own personal, individual responsibility for their actions. And tarring me personally with the brush of violence because I am male, made me antagonistic.

The second was the reference to "men’s active involvement in their own campaign." By the evidence presented in this article, WRD is not "men's own campaign". Men are voting with their feet by ignoring WRD in droves. In Australia at least, WRD is a women's campaign to try to change behaviours in men. And that's fine, but let's not be laying guilt trips on men for failing to getting involved in "their campaign" when it's actually nothing of the sort.

Grrr. I still feel antagonistic towards the author. I don't want to, but nothing in the article makes me want to get involved in WRD either.

It gladdens my heart to see people challanging the misandry, the bias and prejudice.

AnthonyMarinac, you are right. The way the author puts it about collective responsiblity, is if some bloke on the moon assaults a woman then any bloke on earth can be held responsible and punished for the crime committed by another.

“Their main(arguement) was that the studies showing equal violence between the sexed used flawed methodology. Yet the same methodology has been used in studies which show women alone to be the victims of domestic violence.

Similarly, they complained about the ‘validity of self-reported data’ which were possibly compromised by failures of candour or memory’ because there was no consensus about the use of terms like ‘hit’ or ‘grabbed’ or ‘used a knife’, or what violence meant. Precisely the same terms, however are used by researchers who claim that women are abused by men. So once again their criticism was highly selective.”
Melaine Phillips the sex change society p.138

I reiterate if we are really serious about dealing with the issue of violence then there must be a holistic approach, not the piecemeal fashion. If you do not treat the underlying cause of disease, people will still get sick.

Are phrases 'Human Rights' and 'Social Justice' meaningless and empty? Being selectively applied only to women.

To me the WRD is not about ending violence, it is just another tool to use to just bully men and beat them into submission.

Dear bronwyn,
Let's not beat around the bush- men are physically active with an inbuilt ability to be violent- sometimes with little provocation or on short notice .This is an essential part of their nature as defenders of the family and their home .
Usually they can get agression out of their systems with their work and sport .It is not natural for men to be violent towards their wives or girl friends if they have a reasonably satisfying working, sex and family life, and wives or girl friends that understand men's basic needs and characteristics .
Possibly, some women want less of that boredom of life that anchors men, as they are evidently responsible for initiating some over 60% of divorces .This to me is tragic and terribly for the cohesion of our society .
Can you tell me how the crop of fatherless boys and girls will react to the strains and pressures of life and love as adults?
I do not know why so many women want children so much, but then find their partners so easily dispensible it appears - perhaps in the interests of a happier Australia you could put some of your research dollars towards making our natures more understandable to the opposite sex.
Why are men so jealous??
Can women exert psycological and sexual pressure on men - i think so !
To me, women are reacting to our evolving society - men are handling changes badly in many cases -possibly as they have not enough male and female friends to support them .
Women have been and are today wise, strong and independent - they need to be . However women have a great responsibility to society to help maintain a PEACE [if uneasy], between men and women in their relationships, for all our sakes .

Violence is violence.

This article is simplistic and poorly argued. I agree that many of the victims of DV that are reported are women and understand that a man is generally capable of greater harm when they are violent.

While women are victims of violence, to deny the legitimacy and existence of men as victims of violence tells only part of the story.

Men who are victims of violence are silenced by the feminist movement- their experiences nullified by the feminists.

However, until violence is recognised and challenged as violence nothing will change.

It is not ok for a person to strike, abuse etc another person, and is particularly repugnant when a person enacts violence against those they profess to care for.

I know of many violent women and men, and in a domestic situation people can be taught/learn ways to minimise the chance that arguements will escalate into violence.

From my personal experience I know of men and women who have been and/or are violent.

I experienced extreme violence from my female parent when I was a child. I witnessed her enact violence on my male parent with knives, spears, gun, furniture etc, while he was a 'gentle man' and did not hit a woman.

As a mature woman myself, I reject the simplistic notion that only men beat up on women. It is up to each individual to reject violence as a way of life. My husband and I have been together for more than 25 years and have not had an arguement (pretty amazing as we are both stong personalities) - we do not always agree but we do not argue for we both exerienced violence as children.

Women are capable of violence against men.
Women are also capable of violence against women and children.

It never ceases to amaze me how these messages are always aimed at the mainstream, white culture.

Why is the message never aimed at minorities?

Do they not have domestic violence?

Just as western feminists bizarrely ignore issues of forced marriages, female genital mutilation, as well as the general status of women in backward Islamic societies, this issue must be hidden as well.

Don't you know that domestic violence rates in Islamic communities are the lowest in Australia?

Well, yeah, but the escape rate from prison is low too. Just as domestic violence was considered the norm in western society up until about forty years ago, even culturally acceptable, it is the same in non-western communities.

So then, with White Ribbon Day upon us, and numerous advertisement campaigns on television about domestic violence at the moment, what are such groups doing to stop it in non-western communities?

Given that domestic violence occurs at too high a level in mainstream Australia, even though women are our equals, what are those behind such campaigns doing to educate the many Australians from non-western cultures, which are so behind on the topic it is neither debated nor reported?

Even the Muslim Women's Network had an article on their website recently by a visiting cleric stating that a woman can't refuse her husband sex in Islam, which shows how much work needs to be done. Muslim clerics often denounce women, as did the leader of Australia’s Islamic community Sheik Taj Din el-Hilali recently, and given that he hasn’t been removed, indicating a significant number of Muslims support his views, how is domestic violence in such communities being dealt with?

Or is this issue going to be taboo just as ethnic gang violence, racism from non-whites, and the disasterous policies of multiculturalism - which by stopping genuine criticism of barbaric practices within non-western cultures means it protects rednecks within such cultures, are?