About 40 or 50 years ago rock and roll was blamed for misleading the youth and encouraging promiscuous behaviour, before that I believe Jazz was to blame.

Teenagers will be teenagers unless they are neutered.

TurnLeftThenRight,

Was shocked to scan through to-days comments and see that you remain recalcitrant: still no apologies for that disgraceful "ilk" denigration.

Though not from the north of England myself I know how seriously they take the matter of ilk there - you may even have heard a mournful lament which details the course of a young mans downfall when he is injudicious enough to wander alone and hatless on the moors where wild ilk used once to rampage and frolic as is their wont?

While once considering your posts balanced and thoughtful I will have to reassess this judgement if no apology is forthcoming. In this day and age for one adult person actually - and in print - to accuse another of being an ilk is a shameful renunciation of all the work being done throughout the world to stop prejudice. I am sure that all reasonable posters to OLO will be forced, despite the bitter taste and the now-scientifically proven side effects(I have read many treatises on Wikipedia on this but just can't bring URLs to mind right now), to ingest vast quantities of umbrage if you do not correct this vile injustice.

Sam said, you're welcome to judge my posts however you wish, it doesn't offend me. Debate should be able to encompass disagreement without descending to rancour. Calling me a "tool" or a "rouge male" just undermines your argument and makes you sound ill-humored and petty. Is name-calling really the best you can do?

Thanks HRS for your link. Plenty of food for thought there and I'll certainly admit that perhaps I've been too hasty to dismiss female violence. However, this doesn't seem to tally with criminal statistics, such as these http://www.aic.gov.au/publications/facts/2006/04_selected_offender_profiles.html Assaults by males were nearly 800 per 100,000, compared to females at 150 per 100,000.

Likewise, it doesn't tally with my own personal experience of violence. I've been bashed unconscious and then kicked in the head while on the ground. I've been mugged with a knife and I've been threatened with a rifle (later found out it wasn't loaded). And guess what? In every case the perpetrator has been a male (I won't dignify these scum by calling them men). The only woman who's ever laid a hand on me has been my mum, who stopped smacking me when I was about 4.

Johnj, there is often interesting material linked out of a DV advocacy site at http://www.mediaradar.org/ . They are not my prefered style in editorial approach but do sometimes reference some very good material (and some fairly bad stuff).

You might also look at substantiated child abuse stats http://www.abusedchildtrust.com.au/facts.htm#3 or http://www.aihw.gov.au/publications/cws/cpa05-06/cpa05-06.pdf
Some relevant material around "Table 2.12: Substantiations, by type of family in which the child was residing, states and territories, 2005–06 page 31" I suspect that child abuse stats are less likely to be influenced by the social issues which impact on DV reporting.

You could also have a look at a summary of one Australian research project at http://www.fact.on.ca/Info/dom/heady99.htm or a US Department of Justice site with a summary of relevant material titled "Findings About Partner Violence From the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study" at http://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/170018.pdf

If you are interested in a better coverage from someone who I believe to be a feminist writer try Patricia Pearson's "When She was Bad". Some deny that she is feminist but my impression is that she is feminist.

The studies which find that women commit violence against intimate partners at similar rates to the rates that men do generally use a methodology which some disagree with. I've read a number of the arguments against, some of the points were valid for early research and have been addressed in more recent research. Otherwise the main argument seems to be that the methodology does not factor in what those who don't like it believe about DV. From memory there is some material about this on the Radar site.

A couple of the rebuttals are at http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/topics/topics_pdf_files/Men_as_Victims.pdf and http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/RR_docs/seeking_safety.pdf

I've seen an article by Michael Flood attacking the Australian study I referenced earlier but can't locate it at the moment.

R0bert

Romany
I was also concerned when posters are suggesting that there should be greater concern for women, but then be totally dismissive of males by calling them “ilks”, or in the case of another poster in another forum, by calling them a vulgar term.

Kinda makes one feel that there could be hypocrisy occurring.

JohnJ
I personally have been in about 20 different countries and have been involved in many activities, but the only direct injury I have received from another male was when they accidentally stood on my finger in a football scrum and broke it, but was quite apologetic afterwards.

In this country, I have also never once seen a woman with a black eye or split lip, or even any sign of being physically assaulted.

The danger is that with all the “education“ of girls and women that the male is nearly always the perpetrator of abuse or domestic violence, young girls or women will begin to think that they can do whatever they like.

So in the future a woman or girl could be hitting or abusing a male, and the male will have to accept it, because everyone knows that abuse is only carried out by a male.

ilk is an offensive term?

I've not heard the reference. The reference I found was thus:

like: a kind of person; "We'll not see his like again"; "I can't tolerate people of his ilk"

If it is indeed a slur, then I wasn't aware of it and I apologise and rephrase the sentence as "and others of your like".

I didn't refer to him as an 'ilk' but others of 'his ilk' if that changes the context.

I've heard many people use the phrase and it hasn't been derogatory in any way, but if there is indeed a cultural reference that I'm not aware of then I retract it.

But I don't retract anything regarding the meaning of that post - I still don't see it as insulting and I don't see any issue with the discussion in relation to men's rights.

In relation to offensive rhetoric, I suggest you visit the flipping burgers thread to see what it looks like...