Hmmm, time for a bit of dissasociation on my part, I think. This thread has taken an unusual twist.

I stand by my earlier post - I'm not interested in WRD, partly because I don't feel responsible for violence committed by other men, and partly because I don't like being told by the feminist army what I should be most cocnerned about, or that a campaign is "my campaign" and failing because I'm not active enough.

Having said that, I for one do not think that it is good enough to respond to concerns about violence against women by arguing, as many above have, that there is also violence against men, and violence by women against women. I also don't think that it's OK to argue, as some posts above *almost* do, that all women should bear some level of responsibility for violence by women. Finally, I don't think all feminists hate men.

Of course women campaigning for an end to violence against women don't talk about violence against men. Duh. That's like arguing that campaigns to treat breast cancer are somehow deficient because they don't also focus on prostate cancer. If there's a need for a campaign to stop female violence against men, then iniitate one.

For my part, I just think we all ought to keep our bloody hands to ourselves.

Ronnie Peters

you may have heard that during grand finals, domestic violence increase or that the leading cause of death for pregnant women is domstic violence.

Both are myths. Basically these sensational claims where used to launch campaigns.

Super Bowl Sunday
http://www.snopes.com/crime/statistics/superbowl.asp

Pregnancy Murders
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,142778,00.html

Daphne Patai in Heterophobia identified a technique used and that is inflammatory annologies, for example sexual harrasement is the same as rape, etc.

The media loves simple catchy phrases, it doesn't matter if it is not factual. Just as long as someone said it.

AnthonyMarinac Men also get breast cancer admittedly at a much lower rate than women, however men who have a female relative with breast cancer are at increased risk.

There is a campaign for men to have their prostates checked.

I agree that not all feminist hate men, however the ones we often hear are the ones who do, some feminist who like men write articles supporting men and challanging feminist misandry and myths, some have joined the men's movement etc.

But by and large their voices are silent in the media.

AnthonyMarinac - "I for one do not think that it is good enough to respond to concerns about violence against women by arguing, as many above have, that there is also violence against men, and violence by women against women."

I believe it is appropriate. As we can see from recriminations on here: violence breeds violence; bad behaviour breeds bad behaviour. Most domestic violence can be classed, rather than as initiated by one side or another as 'mutual combat'. That is, the *primary* cause of domestic violence is ... violence. Therefore, if these campaigners were serious about addressing domestic violence they would consider it as a two sided problem. With that in mind, domestic violence will NEVER end until it is.

Imagine if two countries are trying to broker peace.. think focusing on one country's violence only will work? This will solve the problems in the middle east?

By the focus being on women only, with law reform completely favouring them, in the US the system is so out of hand that false accusations overshadow legitimate cases, a man can be barred from his home on a woman's word and men who complain about battering are arrested themselves as a result of "primary abuser" assumptions in legislation.

And of course, the idea of "collective responsibility" is unfair. I would not argue this in a vacuum. But, we can see whether all men bear collective responsibility or not by looking at whether the people who are attempting to shame us for not taking that responsibility are at all willing to take it themselves.

"If there's a need for a campaign to stop female violence against men, then iniitate one."

Am trying right now. Am told the focus is on women. Typical of what happens. Here is a video of feminists disrupting a battered men's conference:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qodygTkTUYM

Zero media or government attention.

By accepting the focus being solely on men, men contribute to their own oppression and the oppression of their brothers, fathers and mates, and domestic violence will never stop to boot.

Contrary to what gender feminists would have people believe, violence against women by some men of Anglo-Saxon heritage is a flea bite compared with the very great bulk of domestic violence which is committed against children by their carers. For example, from newspaper reports,in the Gold Coast alone several thousand children suffer serious neglect daily.

It is reprehensible that gender feminists continue to hijack the debate on domestic violence for their own selfish purposes and may use government funds and positions to prosletyse their anti-male message, while thousands of children continue to suffer and in some cases die, in silence.

Shame, feminists, shame.

Anthony, "That's like arguing that campaigns to treat breast cancer are somehow deficient because they don't also focus on prostate cancer."

Actually it's more like arguing that campaigns about skin cancer would be deficient if they focussed entirely on female skin cancer. If all of the government money going into skin cancer safety awareness went to combat skin cancer suffered by women, if almost all of the money for skin cancer treatment was allocated to "The office of Women's Health".

There is ample evidence that men and women suffer DV in significant numbers. I happen to believe that the rates are quite similar but even the 80/20 approach still leaves a lot of male victims.

The deliberate and determined refusal by governments and the DV industry to address female initiated DV or to treat the issue in any kind of gender neutral terms is a massive slap in the face for male victims of DV.

It takes no extra effort and takes nothing away from the campaign against DV to speak out against all DV yet repeated attempts to have publicly funded campaigns speak out against all DV or to at least give some recogition to DV where the victims are male continue to be ignored.

Even for those who hold to the 80/20 view of DV should not have to much grief with the idea that some of the anti DV message should be targetted at helping the 20%.

I'm strongly of the view that the continued extreme genderisation of the issue is a deliberate ploy to maintain womens sense of oppression (keeping feminism relevant) and to help provide better outcomes through the family law system for women.

R0bert

Mark Richardson: I stand corrected- no intention to mislead. My mistake - not feminists. However, there is some dispute –note the last sentence of the various quotes below.

I hold that cultural acceptence of violence against women was not myth.

“…the common-law doctrine had been modified to allow the husband 'the right to whip his wife, provided that he used a switch no bigger than his thumb'--a rule of thumb, so to speak."
‘Our law’ did not permit wife beating, but set that aside. Martin clearly was using "rule of thumb" as figure of speech--she didn't claim it actually referred to legalized wife beating. As Sommers shows, however, this detail eluded subsequent retellers of the tale, the most egregious example being the title of a 1982 report on wife abuse by the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, "Under the Rule of Thumb." This dark interpretation is now an entrenched popular belief.”
"However, in Blackstone, as Sommers notes, there's no mention of the rule of thumb. We do find the following discussion: "The husband also, by the old law, might give his wife moderate correction . . . in the same moderation that a man is allowed to correct his apprentices or children. . . . But with us, in the politer reign of Charles the Second [1660-'85], this power of correction began to be doubted; and a wife may now have security of the peace against her husband." In other words, once upon a time in olde England, a man could beat his wife. But don't try it now.”

“It might be that he never made the statement that rendered him so notorious. Edward Foss, in his Biographical Dictionary of the Judges of England of 1864 says that to Buller “is attributed the obnoxious and ungentlemanly dictum that a husband may beat his wife, so that the stick with which he administers the castigation is not thicker than his thumb”, but says he can’t find any evidence Buller said it. But the Dictionary of National Biography and other standard works say firmly he did, as did contemporary biographies.”