Antiseptic,

The grief of a family who have seen a person killed not relevant? Weird. All deaths are a tragedy no matter the cause and no matter the frequency of that cause.

I might equally ask what relevance has your simplistic accountant's approach to public funding? "If a problem creates 10 times the death/injury," you say, "then it should have approximately 10 times the funding."

Governments make budget allocations for all sorts of reasons including their assessment of cost-effectiveness and capacity to prevent escalating negative consequences. If it were as simple as applying your kind of mindless formula, we may as well let the ABS run Treasury.

Hey, now there's a thought!

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?'

It's not as if anyone is suggesting that quoting statistics is a way to comfort people. That's a bit of a red herring. In fact I don't think anything you say would be of comfort to people with such a loss. I've heard the argument used in DV topics that many more women are victims than men. I don't think that would comfort male victims, but it's neither here nor there with respect to the topic at hand.

'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.'

Sure. But the catch is, people have a finite amount of time for worthy causes. Governments have a finite amount of money. So they must choose. The squeeky wheel gets the grease and all that. The effect of all these choices by people and governments reacting to those choices makes some lives worth more money/votes than others. Why do you think everyone keeps 'raising awareness' with stupid gimmicks?

Houellebecq,

"It's not as if anyone is suggesting that quoting statistics is a way to comfort people. That's a bit of a red herring." Absolutely right. That was my point.

"In fact I don't think anything you say would be of comfort to people with such a loss." Ditto.

"I've heard the argument used in DV topics that many more women are victims than men. I don't think that would comfort male victims, but it's neither here nor there with respect to the topic at hand." Agree, but that was not my point. Why did you introduce it?

So your post comes down to the squeaky wheel argument? Have you got a suggestion to offer? Or were just in need of a whinge, again?

Pynchme, if a writer is misleading by ommitting relevant data then the way to deal with it is by filling in the blanks not by attacks on his or her personal life and restricting professional opportunities in other areas.

I've not seen the original article nor the book refered to in the article which was linked to, my issue is primarily with the means described by the author to silence him. I get the impression that I would not agree with him regarding the role of feminism from what I read in the piece I have seen. My issue has been with the lack of concern over the methods he claims have been used to silence him and any other male who makes similar claims.

Deceipt by deliberate ommission is deceipt, I've not got the background to make sense in the short term of the point that you make about the difference between timings for men and women and weigh that against the real impacts. I'm hapopy to accept your version pernding further information if that lets us move on from the rights and wrongs of his arguments to the values stuff. If he is omitting critical material which significantly alters the picture then his aqrguments lose value.

Is it OK to attack an opponents private life if they publish material you disagree with or consider incorrectr? Is it OK to try and deprive an opponent of their income in unrelated area's if they publish such material?

R0bert

The reason I broke down the stats and compared a relative mortality rate is to put a perspective to it.

Grief is a personal experience and any sense of perspective flies out the window, it doesn't really matter how a person died, or whether they are male or female, there will people who will experience this loss very deeply.

It is totally natural in the case where the death is caused by another party to feel anger towards that other party or even anger at god.

Pynchme posted a quote where it was deemed that because men in theory only tiny numbers of men experienced DV, it was not worthy of attention.

To look at another angle, roughly 6 women are killed in workplace accidents each year, compare that to around 100 men, would it be fair to say that just because the number of women is small, workplace safety is not a big enough issue for women, because only a small number die from workplace injuries?

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

Correct Spikey, if what you mean is looking at ALL aspects and factors!

Now I am going do a 180.

"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."

Now lets look at a hypothetical.

Imagine two married women, both with the same surname and are married to lets say Doctors.

Imagine now that one is happy and content with her life and status, the other feels miserable, insecure and is unhappy.

Now there are a number of factors that can influence a persons feeelings of well being, personality and how that person views or sees life has a big bearing on this.

The first wife feels happy and content even if her husband works 60hrs a week, the other feels unhappy and resents the fact that her husband works 60 hours a week.

One of the biggest sellng books "The Secret" hit the nail on the head when it showed that if a person looks at life in a positive manner good things will happen and if all they see is negativity, that is all they will find.

Sometimes meaning is attributed to something that is not there, for example viewing women as a inferior sub group (it is true that women were once seen as being the gentler and weaker sex), If a woman believes this, there is nothing any man can ever do to prove other wise. Because his actions and the actions of other men will always be viewed from the perspective that this woman or women as a group have chosen to take.