Now I bought into this debate after SJF posted this generalization;

"After living under this system for a while, I wonder to what extent you would start to feel that the quintessential human being was female and that men were an inferior sub-group. I wonder if, over time, you would start to feel inferior to women and if your confidence as a human being would start to wane."

Pynchme posted;

"It's a great pity that people who want to live in the idealized 1950s are resorting to steeping themselves in hate speech"

Now I linked the Neil Lyndon case as an example of real hate speech, again Pynchme made generalizations.

I, like Neil Lyndon once supported feminism, in my search for answers and understanding I have read a wide variety of authors, the first male author I read was David Thomas's 'Not Guilty'

< Arming these men with warped statistics to fuel their already warped world view is unethical, irresponsible, and quite simply lethal.”>Pynchme.

Lets look at warped statistics, for every woman murdered in a DV situation in australia, approximately 4-6 men die in work place accidents, at least 62.5 people will be killed in car accidents.

More people will win lotto in a month, than women killed in DV over a year.(actually I exaggerated the lotto bit, it more like every two months)

JamesH,

You sure have provided "warped statistics".

The phoney juxtapositioning of woman murdered through domestic violence, men dying in work place accidents and people killed in car accidents are an artificial and cynical construct of your own choosing.

Whether there are more deaths caused by one or the others is irrelevant. Every death by domestic violence and every death by workplace accidents and every death by road accidents are all equally tragic. We need to do all that we can to prevent all such deaths and not play debating games with relative statistics.

I think relative statistics put things in perspective. Too often we concentrate on one area because it's more sensationalised, or political or 'awareness raised' and ignore other areas. Like people who are scared of flying but have statistically more chance of being killed if they drive somewhere.

Look at people's reaction to 3000 deaths on September 11 and the current attention the war in Gaza is getting, and the lack of reaction to deaths via malaria, AIDS and war in Africa. I think we have to face it that lives do have different importance. Well that's what an alien looking down on Earth would think. White western lives are more important than African or Middle Eastern lives. It could be said that female lives are more important than male lives too.

Not wanting to fan the flames, but how many times do you hear of the 'innocent' civilians comprising only women and children. Men, whether they're in the army or not aren't ever considered innocent. I once even heard a news report on a death toll from a natural disaster relate the tragedy that women and children were amongst the dead! Just like when they say 300 people were killed somewhere in the world, and 2 Australians are amongst the dead! Or sometimes you even hear 'no Australians were involved' (so, nothing to get upset about then).

Houellebecq,

The general point you are making is valid. What I struggle with is the practical consequence of the relativity argument.

What comfort is it to the family of a woman killed by her partner to learn that many more people are killed somewhere else by workplace accidents, road accidents, 'natural' disasters, war, famine or disease?

I don't believe that some lives are more important (Australian or otherwise). But I do argue that all preventible deaths are a tragedy and we should do everything we can - wherever we are and at whatever level we are able - to agitate and take steps to minimise such deaths.

Action on domestic violence is not an alternative to action on other senseless killing. We can and should work on many fronts.

Spikey:"What comfort is it to the family of a woman killed by her partner to learn that many more people are killed somewhere else by workplace accidents, road accidents, 'natural' disasters, war, famine or disease? "

What relevance does that have? The point is that some well-publicised issues, such as DV and breast cancer, receive far more funding and far more attention than their relative prevalence justifies. If a problem creates 10 times the death/injury then it should have approximately 10 times the funding, yet the DV industry receives many times the funding per incident that other, more serious problems do, especially problems that mostly affect men and not women. Whay do you think that is justified?

I'd have thought in this modern day and age no-one would fret over such a trifle. Keep your name if you want. Change it if you prefer. Make it double-barrelled if you can't decide (your grandkids will be called Sydney-Funnel-Webb-Spider-Bites-Finger)

Whassat, Poly? The bible doesn't tell you what to think, so you don't? Get some substance, man. Be daring. Have an original thought someday!