Anti:”That focus on male misbehaviour has lead to vilification of men becoming the norm. As a secondary consideration, there has long been a "secret women's business" denigrating men. The endless "mere male" stories that my Mum and nan used to cackle over with their friends existed long before Feminism and made it much easier for those who seek to vilify men to suit an agenda.”

I get it Anti, I grew up listening to my father and uncles go on about useless women and how they shouldn’t be allowed in the workforce to take men’s jobs, only good for one thing etc. Money saved for my brother and handed over at 18, car at 16, thoughts of higher schooling for boys only.

It’s horrible what they did to us.

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Personally I'm happy to believe that there are as many abusive, vindictive women out there as there are abusive vindictive men but when it comes down to it, the abuse that women dish out tends to be psychological and its scars psychological, whereas the abuse that men dish out leaves scars that tend to be of the kind that are far easily recognised by the courts and police.

Not that physical retaliation is ever a justified response to psychological abuse. The only justified response is to leave your partner if they refuse to seek counselling- preferably before there are kids in the picture.

No one should ever feel an obligation to get married or have kids, and if they aren't suited to it, should not feel or be made to feel that there is something missing from their lives because of it- there are lots of other worthwhile callings on this Earth.

Every person who is considering having kids should be encouraged to ask themselves some very hard questions about whether they really have the skills and aptitudes required for the task.

Having a child in the hope that it will transform a partner is probably the worst reason one could bring a life into the world and a sure sign of trouble ahead.

Most often, marriages fail because people who should have never gotten married to each other did, and child neglect and abuse occurs because people who never should have had children did.

Thankfully, with parenting in the gay community, those who have neither the aptitude nor inclination to raise a family are under no social pressure to do so, so those gay and lesbian couples that do have kids tend to be the committed ones and the cream of the crop- the hurdles they have to jump through in order to have a child ensure they've thought things through properly and made all the right preparations.

Andrew wrote: 'the abuse that women dish out tends to be psychological and its scars psychological, whereas the abuse that men dish out leaves scars..'

Thats more traditional folklore regarding the 'softer sex' rarely physically abusing, at least not today. Contemporary Aussie research and crime stats tell that women are equally *physically* violent against males/children, and indeed in against other women in public places. In other words the ol line that men physically abuse / women emotionally abuse is a misleading cliche.

The government facts on "physical violence" against children provides conclusive proof:

http://www.mensrights.com.au/dads_not_the_demons.pdf

These official government figures show that women are in fact more violent towards children than males. Thats right more, even if marginally.

Until we accept that women are violent the children will continue to be disbelieved when they disclose that mum bashes them. Do we want this?

Piper

Men and women have probably been sniping at each other for centuries. What has changed has been the rise of feminism. It is no longer socially acceptable to discuss women in the same way that those men in your family used to. I doubt that you know many men who still denigrate women in that way. On the other hand, we are still getting a pretty dim portrayal of men from a variety of sources.

Television routinely denigrates men in a variety of ways, partly because men don't watch as much television except sport and advertisers know that men don't control much spending. Current affairs and crime programs like their victims to be female and their villans to be male. Soapies and comedies are full of unhealthy relationships, where female chatacters constantly abuse male characters for wrongdoing. Much advertising follows the same pattern.

Many articles and posts on OLO also paint an unfairly poor view of men and these forums give us a chance to defend ourselves. If others portray domestic violence as men bashing women, then some of us blokes will defend ourselves by discussing data and personal experience that shows that women are just as violent.
Others might insist that sexual assault must always be seen as male villans assaulting female victims. Many incidents have shown this model to be flawed and some of us feel a need to say something in the defence of the men involved.
We are also routinely told that men are lazy and don't contribute enough to their families. Some of us blokes know this is unfair and wist to discuss the extra paid work that many men do.
Others might insist that men tend to be overpaid. Many studies have found that this is due to men having extra experience and working longer hours.

We don't go out of our way to criticise women, we just see a need to counter untrue statements made by others that criticise men unfairly.

As several commenters want to laud the potential abilities of gays as good parents (a sentiment I do not disagree with) they should be included in this conversation about physical violence. Unfortunately I do not know the prevalence of violence in gay relationships. Does anyone know the *official* violence levels proven in gay relationships/families?