"Oh, certainly. How many callers to the Centre have gone on to commit suicide? What is the raw suicide rate among rape claimants" Anti.

Surely you must be able to see the problem in measuring the need for a service based on how many people committ suicide after using the service? Obviously the aim of the counsellors is to discourage suicide/ self harm attempts. Where we differ is in our definition of crisis. For many people a crisis refers to the event (the rape). Where as I think there are 2 crises. 1) The event 2) the state of mind is in crisis following the event (PTSD). Recovery of PTSD is not like recovery from physical injury (gradually gets better over time). PTSD actually can get worse and worse over time if left untreated so by the time clients often call up (sometimes yrs after the initial assault) their life is in ABSOLUTE crisis.
On a side note you and many people here view feminists as seeing
"man as predator"."

OK I've wanted to address this for a while- earlier this week I put in a Govt submission relating to an inquiry into violence affecting young people. One of the criticisms I made of current antiviolence programs is that they DO tend to treat 'man as predator/ enemy'. I feel very strongly that Man is NOT the enemy and that feminists have made a serious error in alientating them. My own expereince has been that the overwhelming majority of men are just as disgusted by these crimes and that these men ought to be addressed and included in these debates as a very positive part of the solution. I really don't like being branded as a man hater. In fact I wrote the article 'angry, frustrated and powerless' (which you took exception to) bc I was very distressed by the way men are often portrayed as 'the enemy' in rape debates. I wanted to give voice to the fact that men are also hurt by these crimes (as either the victim or the supporter of the victim).

NINAF. I feel very strongly that man is not the enemy and that feminists have made a serious error in alienating them. Thankyou Nina and well said. I wish you could try and get this through to certain other posters on here.[ sjf,fractelle,tpp,suzeonline etc]. This is the point i have tried to make many times. Men are only reacting to the constant barrage of anti man/father propaganda that has been coming from the feminist lobby for many years now. Your experience that the majority of men are equally disgusted by these crimes is spot on, and its a heartening sign that it comes from some one so young.
As regards suicide its disgusting that while enormous sums of money are being poured into supporting women in all areas such as rape trauma,sexual and physical abuse, DV etc, little or nothing is being spent to correct the male/female suicide rate which is 5-1.
TPP. As far as the 14 year old girl and her mother are concerned they were reported by a MAN working at the hotel. He cared about the child even if her own mother didn't. Perhaps if child protection agencies in other states would publish their statistics we wouldn't have to rely only on figures from WA. Why won't they and what are they afraid of.
FRACTELLE. I havn't seen or posted myself that ONLY women are guilty of abuse and neglect either, only that more mothers than fathers are guilty of it which the only figures available to us prove. You show me where i have. I do believe that the child should be placed with the parent that is best able to care for him/her, but that didn,t happen in my case for 3 years and it doesn't happen in many other cases either, only recently we had a child placed with a father who was a known sex offender, no different than in my own case where the mother was known to have mental health, and alcohol abuse problems and was known to be neglecting and abusing our daughter.

ninaf:"Surely you must be able to see the problem in measuring the need for a service based on how many people committ suicide after using the service?"

There's no problem. If the raw suicide rate is higher than the rate of suicide among those "suicidal" people ringing in, then the Centre is helping to prevent suicides. If it's not, it's not.

I must say I don't know enough about PTSD to make a sensible comment on it. I'll read up on it before I do.

ninaf:"I feel very strongly that Man is NOT the enemy and that feminists have made a serious error in alientating them. "

And so do I. I've said all along that feminism is treating social change as a zero-sum game, which means that for every advance made by women, there must be a backward step taken by men. the disgraceful situation in Victoria, in which white men are to be discriminated against with the blessing of the anti-discrimination commission and the Government is just the latest example.

Unless feminists like yourself speak up, there will come an inevitable backlash and that may well result in a genuine "patriarchy" that brooks no argument. think of me and those like me as "the canary in the coal mine".

I want my daughter and my son to grow up in a world in which they don't have to be concerned about which gender they are - just live their lives. Far too much is made of the "gender divide" when in fact they're two sides of a coin - neither can exist without the other.

Anti:”I want my daughter and my son to grow up in a world in which they don't have to be concerned about which gender they are - just live their lives. Far too much is made of the "gender divide" when in fact they're two sides of a coin - neither can exist without the other.”

Agreed Anti, I don’t want my son or daughter growing up with any “concern” about which gender they are. So far I think they have the usual range of opinions about each other’s sex. Until reading stuff here I had no idea this argument raged on or people felt this way.

I want them both to embrace what gender they are and appreciate what innate qualities their own gender brings and acknowledge how each gender compliments the other, I don’t want either of them to be parents but I do hope through life they will stop and help others and with some very well honed skills in the practical side of caring for children I believe they could both do good or at the very least show others how.

And I want them to do what is right and not ever witness harm to a child and do nothing. But in reality they have watched their parents lose every fight with DoCS when trying to protect children and although I’ve never asked them it can’t have escaped their notice that it is adult females in this department and their decisions that my own children have witnessed hurt the children after they come in to care.

Nina

Thank-you for taking the trouble to follow this thread.

You made the point that teenagers are more likely to be propositioned by peers than by older strangers. Like many others, I was concerned by the way that young people who pursued other young people were discussed in a similar way to paedophiles. My question is exactly what factors do you consider when distinguishing acceptable sexual advances from the unacceptable? This information might help us to limit the number of females labelled as 'victims' without proper justification. I believe that society's tendency to label females as victims (requiring male villans) produces the unhelpful male vs female sniping that occurs here and elsewhere.

TPP.But in reality they have watched their parents lose every fight with DOCS when trying to protect children.
Yeah my own daughter watched me lose every battle with DOCS/fAMILIES SA and the family court, all that is except the final one, and even then she had to SHAME them into doing something.