Yvonne, what's a 'gender bashing debate'? I note from your first post:
°°If some of you misogynists would just take a cold shower..°°
But I see no evidence of misogyny in any of the posts. Who exactly do you think is a misogynist here, and why?

Maximus - "Men are more than twice as likely as women to be the victims of violence and are being physically or sexually assualted or threatened at the rate of up to 2incidents per second in Australia"

Who is perpetrating all this violence towards men. Is it other men?
Surely its not women sexually assualting men en masse. Kind of proves the argument that men are more violent. Women are raped at the rate of 1 every 5minutes. Men would also be doing this too wouldnt they? Unless women are being raped by women.

Women can certainly be abusive and cruel to their children. Why does the innoncent father not put a stop to her abuse. Answer, because in a lot of these cases the woman is left with all the responsibility of child care while the father doesnt do his equal share and I'm not talking about earning money here. I'm talking about hands on child care. Or the man cant handle the pressure that a baby puts on a relationship and pisses off without attempting to help with the care of the children. If the father was doing his job in watching over the children he would help the mother or get help for her to stop the abuse so where is he when this is happening during the marriage.
Suddenly when the marriage fails the father suddenly wants the children in his care(custody). Trouble is he never did any of the hard slog of hands on child CARE when he was in the marriage and now he wants CARE of his children. Huh?

Of course there will be exceptions to this but not in the majority of cases. I do not address this to the exceptions who do help with the physical care of their children before the marriage breaks up.

The article clearly assumes that using violence against women is worse than using violence against men.

From what I understand all children have both a mother and a father (oh, except the baby Jesus, of course). So I consider both men and women to be equally responsible for raising non-violent children and teenagers.

Cornflower,

Have you seen the report released by Vichealth “The Health costs of violence”

http://www.vichealth.vic.gov.au/assets/contentFiles/CAS-Short_summary.pdf

I would regard the report itself is a significant health hazard. The majority of the report is based on emotions and fears, which are subjective, intangible, and easily manipulated.

The actual data in the report is highly questionable in many areas, but overall the report is an exercise in physiological manipulation to make women feel fearful of men. Throughout the report it only portrays males negatively, and does not portray males positively in any way.

For example:-

“He used to threaten me constantly that he would send me back to Poland without the children if I did not do what he wanted. The lawyer the refuge found for me has told me that he can’t do that and that’s made a big difference to me. I can now plan for a good future for me and the children.”

That is a typical way men are portrayed in the report. Men are only portrayed as being violent and threatening to women, which of course makes women feel fearful and anxious of men.

If they are successful in making women feel more fearful and anxious of men, then the next time they carry out a study, they can now report that women have even higher levels of anxiety and fear of men.

So the system becomes self-perpetuating. It feeds the domestic violence industry, it feeds the divorce industry, and I would think it also feeds the psychologist industry.

Both the male gender and the female gender are worse off. Males have to bear the brunt of being portrayed so negatively in reports such as this. Females are manipulated into feeling more fearful, which then increases their levels of anxiety, and will probably lead to a range of anxiety related illnesses in future years.

The report itself is a health hazard, and doctors should begin to realize what is going on.

yvonne,

I also know a man whose wife poured petrol on him and set him alight, I have seen men who have been shot, stabbed and bashed with weapons or injuries inflicted to their genitals.

There is no doubt that when severe injuries are inflicted, men tend to do the most damage.

Drugs and alcohol pay a big part in this. Mental Illness does as well.

I remember one day reading a story about a male who had an acquired brain injury, who wound up in institutionalized care, because of his violence.

Sure in this society physical violence seems the mostly a male problem, so is drug and alcohol use, suicide or dying in a motor vechile accident. etc etc.

If we are going to talk about DV then DV covers a whole range of abusive behaviours, such as manipulation, psychological and emotional abuse, financial and sexual as well.

As usual when Dv is debated it always degenerates down to physical violence level.

And despite the rethoric of the epidemic of violence against women, the emergency departments are full of women who have experienced physical violence, the person in the ED who has been the victim of violence is most likely to be a young male.

So in reality there is an epidemic of violence against men.

The morturies are not full of women killed by DV, in fact there are not enough cadavers to go around all the morturies in Australia in a year.

In fact the body on the slab is most likely to be male.

Typically what happens in these debates is that the problem gets expanded outside the original arguement. Todd for examples took the incident where three people get shot in the melbourne CBD and includes this in his propaganda on DV. The shooting was a rare and extrodinary event.

Drugs and alcohol are factors in this shooting.

No-one should ever physically attack anyone else - and this goes for parents hitting children.
No-one should ever manipulate, intimidate or bully anyone else - you know, the old rifle on top of the cupboard thing. It never comes down, but everyone knows its there.
No-one should ever emotionally or psychologically abuse someone else.
However, we are all human and we all behave badly sometimes, especially when we are hurt, angry or afraid. The difference is that I am 5'1" and weigh 60 kilos. My husband is 5'11" and weighs 100 kilos. If I lose it and attempt to physically attack my husband (not that I ever have) he can simply hold me at arms length. If he loses it and attacks me physically ( not that he ever has) I would be in fear of my life. Yes, there are big women and small men, and then the situation would be reversed. Yes, if I had a weapon, it might also be different, but weapons generally take some premeditation whereas punches are easily and instantly thrown.
No-one is disputing that women can behave as badly as men, of course they can, its simply that the strength and size differential makes domestic violence by men against women have much more serious consequences. Isn't that what the article is really all about? Its not a women-are-good, men-are-bad thing, surely? Its simply a men-are-bigger-and-stronger-and -so-can inflict-more-damage-and-fear, isn't it?
How many men have ever felt fear rising as they walk alone on a street after dark and hear female footsteps behind them? Yet every single woman has had that feeling when she hears male footsteps in a dark and lonely place. Not because all men are bad, but because some men are and they are mostly stronger than she is.