Atman:

Yes, but you made one HUGE error. Its MEN who are more likely to be the victims of assault across ALL AGE GROUPS. Its actually MEN who have most to fear.

http://www.aic.gov.au/en/statistics/violent%20crime/assault.aspx

Good to see references unlike a lot of blog posting. In the first paragraph it states:

The ABS defines assault as the direct infliction of force, injury or violence upon a person, including attempts or threats. It excludes sexual assault.

Note the last sentence. I suspect that the statistics would look a quite different after this is added in.

Another couple of points re: the assault figures.

1. As pointed out, those figures exclude sexual assaults (of women and men I presume). How much higher they'd be if women exercised all the freedoms that they are socialized to forgo; but which males accept as their automatic right - like walking alone late at night; staggering home drunk from pubs (sometimes in the company of newly acquired friends); camping out in the open alone or in small groups; sleeping in cars; chatting to strangers; catching the last bus or train home alone; walking to their cars after work.

In all of those and other scenarios, there is a cost to anyone who does them - many men are mugged and robbed and raped, however when they are - few people blame the victim. It is widely understood that male citizens should be able to walk the streets in safety. Most men can't imagine (as previous posts show) what it is to be constantly looking over one's shoulder; to have to plan one's movements around daylight hours; being careful not to encourage conversations with people one doesn't know who might pose a threat, and always considering when and where it's safe to travel and so on. These are not occasional events for women - they are the fabric of every day life.

2. In contrast to the freedom of movement that males enjoy, women cling to the safety of their homes and yet the figures for assault are still comparable. Also, while men are more likely to be mugged or get into a punch up with a stranger; women are more likely to be assaulted by someone they know or to whom they're related. Big betrayal. Yet women still get blamed in most cases.

3. The biggest threat to the safety of women is men. The biggest threat to the safety of men is OTHER men.

Houellebecq: No, I didn't miss your earlier post. There was nothing in it that was interesting enough to warrant a reply.

In your most recent one, however, I see where you are helping Antiseptic tune up his little violin - egging him on while he sobs again in his hanky about his victimhood.

Hoellebecq:"I think you should be kinder to pynchme"

I'm being very kind indeed, believe you me...

Pynchme:"he sobs again in his hanky about his victimhood."

LOL. Another strawman from the quintessential victim-rider designed to avoid any discussion of the fact that women are as responsible for their own behavious as men are for theirs. Of course, now it's been pointed out, I'll be accused of misogyny for suggesting that women aren't generally poor helpless, hapless victims and men aren't generally oppressively dominant patriachs. Not much in it for the victim-riders if their favoured vehicle turns out to have wobbly wheels...

Women's violence against men is rising at an enormous rate today,according to the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics, with male victims of female violence now making up over 30% of DV-related hospital presentations. I believe that there is a causal link between the constant advertising about violence against women that implies women have a "special" status. some women seem to have taken that message to mean "He isn't allowed to retaliate", with predictable consequences.

How many men will have to suffer violence at the hands of women before our politicians, ever-desperate to pander to "the woman's vote", start telling those violent women that throwing boiling water or a saucepanful of hot oil over their husband is not acceptable?

Phanto:"This is another cry of helplessness."

Exactly. "Grrls can do anything (except take responsibility for themselves)"

Ema and others

I can assure you that I am quite concerned about domestic violence. I would love to see an intelligent response to this issue that has a real chance or reducing its incidence. Currently, the most common idea about domestic violence is that any females must be the victim, any men must accept all of the blame and all of the responsibility for fixing the problem. This seems to be your thinking, Ema and that of Caroline, who wrote this article. This model is badly flawed.

The first problem is that it is very simplistic. Extensive research has proven that men and women are roughly as violent as each other and that women are more likely to initiate the violence. Therefore, any solution to this problem must involve both partcipants.

This leads me to the second problem with the victim/villan model. We are discouraged from considering what she could have done different, because it is blaming the victim. If we accepted that she could have handled the original argument better, then we are starting to see her as able to reduce the number of violence directed towards her. I believe that these women she be offered the same training in conflict resolution and anger management that men are offered.

Lastly, nothing stops conflicts from being resolved better than one party hopping onto their high horse. If both participants acknowledge their mistakes, then it creates an environment where issues can be resolved.

I hope Ema, that you can now see the difference between actually resolving issues and blindly following feminist orthodoxy.

Pynchme -The biggest threat to the safety of women is men. The biggest threat to the safety of men is OTHER men.

That might be true if the only threat came from physical violence. There are many other things that can threaten the safety of people and these can be delivered by women just as equally as men.

Violence is only one form of aggression – which is an attempt to inflict hurt upon someone else. If other methods were not equal or even better weapons people would not use them. You can recover from a punch in the mouth but you may not recover from years of systematic bullying and harassment. Men use violence against women because in most cases they have an advantage. A woman can have other advantages over men and can use those to inflict some of the cruelest pain. Men have vulnerabilities and although they have to take responsibility for them it does not stop many women taking advantage of them to inflict pain and even threaten their safety. Our safety is threatened when our basic needs are threatened. Many men have had their safety threatened by women who have power over them in the workplace or in institutions or even in the home. The biggest threat most males experience comes from their mothers and this is very often carried over into adulthood. Aggressive women can take advantage of that and perpetrate the power imbalance to their own ends.

Some women want to keep the discussion about domestic violence on the boil because it keeps attention focused away from the real issue which is aggression. Of course the ABS does not keep statistics on this and so it cannot be proven. Most of it is not discernable to scientific analysis. If women were honest they would admit they are capable of inflicting just as much damage as men. Some of them even gloat over the fact and seek destructive revenge for no other reason than a man does not want a relationship with them.