I'm struck by the contradiction between some individuals' apparent concern for male victims of DV and their undermining of the systems which give male and female victims protection or redress. The fathers' rights (FR) movement presents the strongest example of this. As I've written elsewhere...

The FR movement’s attention to domestic violence against men is not motivated by a genuine concern for male victimisation, but by political agendas concerning family law, child custody and divorce (Kaye & Tolmie 1998, 53-57). This is evident in two ways. First, the FR movement focuses on this violence when the great majority of the violence inflicted on men is not by female partners or ex-partners but by other men. Second, the FR movement seeks to erode the protections available to victims of domestic violence and to bolster the rights and freedoms of alleged perpetrators, and this harms female and male victims of domestic violence alike.

The FR movement has sought to wind back the protections afforded to the fictitious ‘victims’ of violence and to introduce legal penalties for their dishonest and malicious behavior. The Lone Fathers’ Association and other groups argue that claims of violence or abuse should be made on oath, they should require police or hospital records, and people making allegations which are not then substantiated, and those who have helped them, should be subject to criminal prosecution. They call for similar limitations to do with protection orders (Lone Fathers’ Association 2004; DOTA 2005). FR groups also attempt to undermine the ways in which domestic violence is treated as criminal behavior. They emphasise the need to keep the family together, call for the greater use of mediation and counseling, and reject pro-arrest policies.

Such changes would represent a profound erosion of the protections and legal redress available to the victims of violence and the ease with which they and their advocates can seek justice. While FR groups claim to advocate on behalf of male victims of domestic violence, they seek to undermine the policies and services that would protect and gain justice for these same men.

RObert Of course it is wrong to hit anyone without sufficient reason – except to defend oneself. You make out like I agreed with that behaviour - I just noted it. I didn’t comment on whether it was right or wrong. It is generally wrong. However, in the law courts provocation is a defence. It is often an abused defence as often the provocation doesn’t warrant the often disproportionate beating a person will get. Maybe this law needs to be looked at.

JamesH Go and talk to your local Constable Care before you start trying to make out that feminists have nothing to be concerned about. Of the hundreds and thousands of articles written by feminists you can only come up with a few to discredit feminists. This in itself begs the question as to why you are so rabid in your quest to undermine the feminist movement. I think Betty and Brownyn’s article is sensible and timely. The attempts to indirectly undermine them with your questionable examples is wrong.
And Cornflower you are also wrong to chastise feminist for supposedly not caring about the issue of women being violent to men. I’d say that they have their hands full looking after abused women. It reminds me of the old attacks on conservationists who where portrayed as horrid people for caring about whales and not unborn children. I’ll call it diversional-cross-issue-holier-than-thou-emotional propaganda. It is a low tactic.
Domestic violence is a reality and feminists have done an excellent job of raising public awareness.
But seeing as you don’t trust feminists lets see what the police and criminologists say:

Three times every fortnight a homicide occurs in Australia in which intimate partners are involved. In almost four out of five cases the perpetrator is a male and the victim is a female (Australian Institute of Criminology July 1998).
What do you people really want from women and feminists? Subservience? Off you go JamesH I am sure there is a site somewhere that discredits the (AIC)

Actually MF, they are "undermining" systems which give FEMALE victims protection or redress only, which is where the fundamental problem lies.

If those systems were giving ALL victims an equal amount of protection or redress there would be much less of a problem.

The fact is, with the issue being one-sided, feminists have nothing to lose by making an accusation require very little proof and making the punishment as severe as possible.

Sounds like those groups are merely requiring "proof", rather than the word of a woman in order to have a man severely reprimanded. There is no undermining of the ways domestic violence is treated as criminal behaviour in that, as assault requires proof. The idea that justice is lost as a result of requiring proof of an accusation is laughable.

Are you suggesting we put the burden of proof on men, like NSW aims to do in terms of making the man prove consent in rape cases? Yes, let us violate Article 11 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights some more to satisfy the feminist hate movement's thirst for blood shall we?

In actual fact, reducing the requirements on proof reduces the protections and services available to sufferers of domestic violence as the legitimate sufferers are overshadowed by false accusers:

http://www.thepriceofliberty.org/06/10/02/terri.htm

Seems to me that looking at punishing false accusers is a gender neutral suggestion, so men would be just as subject to it as women, that is of course, unless we're not because men's claims are dismissed out of hand due to the overwhelming "focus" being staunchly maintained on women as victims only.

Again, no problem if the issue was dealt with in a gender neutral fashion without the bias, but that's not on the cards is it? Men want a win - win agreement, but feminists will not accept anything but win - lose with the domestic violence situation unaffected. Good luck getting men to be so gutless as to injustly do themselves over for no apparent reason.

Oh and re your Kaye and Tolmie reference to sound credible:

http://www.mensrights.com.au/page24e1.htm

Nice try.

Floody you are a mischievous little devil.

According to what you write men are much more likely to be victims of violence than women, because they are subjected to violence from both men and women.

“Second, the FR movement seeks to erode the protections available to victims of domestic violence and to bolster the rights and freedoms of alleged perpetrators,”

Clever bit of scare mongering. Is trying to raise the profile of biased and manipulative research eroding the protections of the ‘real’ victims?

In fact according to DV advocates abuse is more than physical. Is not making false and misleading statements DV? If as a male, I made false and misleading statements to the police, I would be punished. So why should women who make false and misleading statements have political immunity.

Now I really wonder if we planted hidden camera’s inside the houses of every man who had been accused of DV, what will we really see?

What sort of scenarios would be played out in front to those hidden camera’s?
Maybe we should just subject everyone to a lie detector test. Including you.

Ronnie Peters

Go to
http://www.mediaradar.org/
http://www.franks.org/fr01060.htm
http://www.csulb.edu/%7Emfiebert/assault.htm

The restrictions here do not allow for an extensive post. Google Erin Pizzey, Murray Straus.

I know a number of police men and women who tell me that in their experience women are just as likely to be the perpetrator as the man.

What you write is correct about the homicides, I understand however where the wife hirers a hit man to do the job for her, this is not classified as DV. Recently in the news has been an investigation about a bloke who has disappeared and another where the son helped the mother to either kill or dispose of his stepfathers body.

Recently in Brisbane it looked like a murder suicide attempt, it turns out the daughter stab both her mother and her father. But public perception is such that it is assumed the male did it. As it was in a successful murder suicide near Bathurst.

ronnie peters said: “And Cornflower you are also wrong to chastise feminist for supposedly not caring about the issue of women being violent to men”

Ronnie, you may be thinking of someone else. My responses were otherwise (and I will lift sections as quotes):

(1) 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 proselytise their anti-male message, while thousands of children continue to suffer and in some cases die, in silence; and
(2) There is little dispute about the existence of lesbian domestic violence but there is dispute in the literature and research about how widespread it is. In the USA some studies estimate that 17% of
lesbians experience domestic violence while others estimate the numbers to be as high as73% ((Marguiles 1996). In Australia there have been no prevalence studies which makes it difficult to
estimate the extent of lesbian domestic violence. However anecdotal evidence would suggest that it is widespread.

What I am saying is that it suits some gender feminists to represent domestic violence as being solely about white Anglo-Saxon men (as perpetrators).

Such narrowing of the definition of domestic violence is deliberate and self-serving. It counteracts the efforts of policy makers and health workers who are concerned about all forms of domestic violence and especially child neglect which is being encountered in endemic proportions and is increasing. It is a myth that a mother or other carer of a child would not harm the child.

Again, there are other victims of domestic violence who do not get attention (and may not be believed) through myth. A good example is lesbian couples where violence is common and a victim could go without assistance because of a prevailing and demonstrably wrong belief that violence does not occur in same sex relationships. It does and victims are badly injured.

Like any thinking person I am concerned about all forms of domestic abuse and all victims.

In fact the red that the women are seeing is on the ribbon.

When the men buy a white ribbon these days they normally pull out a felt marker and promptly draw a thick red line down her centre of the ribbon before pinning it on.

When asked why they answer, thats the spilled blood of all the unreported husband bashings and child abuses.