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Where are all these women who support violence against men? I find it very hard to believe your figures that for every one women facing DV each day four men are also victims.

While I understand men may be less willing to admit to experiencing violence for all the old cultural reasons ie. feelings about masculinity, strength etc, I cannot see my peer group of women going home each night and abusing their husbands. In fact I know they don't. With some exceptions, I have generally found men to be more aggressive than women. I am not imagining these things they are just my own personal experience.

I am not sure how I feel about women being painted as 'the more violent gender" by one poster. People can't have it both ways arguing we are the weaker sex on one hand and then when it suits coming up with that sort of statement just to suit your own argument.

Men who paint this sort of picture are no better and just as radical as women who argue that all men are capable of rape if they knew they could get away with it.

It would be very difficult to live with someone suffering from a mental illness or drug problem and thankfully I have never had to face those experiences.

Thank you Warwick for your balanced and well written comments. We need to get some semblance of responsibility about figures and stats if we are to give support to any victim of violence, women or men.

At the end of the day it is the violence and the perpetrators we should be focussing on rather than obsessing on gender.

Dave

Of course you are the villain. You are a man. The women who raves on so much about sexist behavour if a man disagrees with a woman is the same who is blind to her own sexist attitudes.

I had hoped that the sexist feminist sector would stay out of this debate. They seem to be a small minority of women judging by the women I meet, but they scream sexist, sexist, sexist so loudly that it is difficult to hear anyone else. It is case of the vocal few messing it up for those who want to deal with the problem objectively.

Violence is not sexually based. It is people based. The article is conservative in number of men subjected to domestic violence, but that irrelevant. The mix is of no importance. If there is violence against a person then there is violence. The sex of the perpetrator or victim does not matter.

I survived many knife attacks but always disarmed my attacker. Do these attacks count as domestic violence because I was not injured? Do I have to be physically injured to be a victim? Women may receive injures more often that men because physical factors but when did physical injury become the sole focus?

I know several men and women who have been the victims of domestic violence. It is not the violence itself that is the main fear even though the injuries may be serious. It is the ongoing fear and anticipation beforehand that causes the most damage.

And even after the victim leaves the violent situation the violence can continue for years after in the form Dave outlined. This is one area where sex does matter. If a women leaves an abusive marriage she is believed and (rightly) the man is the bad guy. If a man leaves an abusive marriage he is not believed, there must be another reason. And the perpetrator is always will to provide the reason why the victim is the bad guy.

Dave, nothing is going to change until our society stops seeing domestic violence in sexist terms.

Gentlemen, you are wasting your time attempting to explain anything to shivers, Pynchme or any of the other radical, extremist, red, green, loony, left, femanazi's. They will always rig stats in favour of their propaganda and claim the corrected, peer reviewed, surveys, (which find the opposite of their lies) are rigged, when they are not. Check out the books &/or website of Dr. Warren Farrell, with a little investigation, he found dozens of DV surveys which showed women being more violent than men, which the femanazi's, did not, leak to the mass media, when they got the wrong results. They will not rest until every Australian child has been groomed for abuse.

And no pynchme, i have not heard of a single case, anywhere, in which a father could get any assistance from the relevant authorities to protect his children from their violent, abusive, deadbeat, mother, let alone himself, despite bruises, broken bones & knife wounds. Men like this can be found every weekend in police lock ups charged with DV offences. Even when, the crazed she-devil, has no injuries, or minor defensive injuries, much less serious than his. I suppose you could call it protective custody.

I repeat, do you support, the right of children, abused, since the 70's by deliberate government policy to sue our governments, for being "Left Behind" with their abusive, deadbeat, mothers by corrupt social workers, despite credible reports of neglect & abuse.

Whenever a femanazi speaks, i am reminded of the "Monty Python" skit in which John Cleese & Micheal Palin have a "discussion", about whether, they are in fact, "having an argument" or not & whether it has been paid for, or not, etc, etc, etc.

It is not good to see a gender war of words in this forum as it does neither side any benifit.

I agree that while gender needs to be taken out of domestic violence, if a man does hit they are more likely to do damage. What concerns me is why anyone would choose to use violence in a realionship with a loved one.

I don't think this article is trying to say its all women's fault. It is pointing out that men can be victims of violence AS WELL as women and children. Violent perpetrators are not just from one or the other gender, but can include same sex couples, women and men.

Lets tackle the issue of family violence as a community, not as a gender issue. Violence is violence and it should not be condoned.

By challenging violence in the family we might even be able to teach people that it is not ok to be violent to others in the community.

Please in this debate, leave gender or sex out of it.

Aka,

I agree with you 100% on leaving gender out of this debate/issue/or whatever else you wish to call what we are discussing.

However, what you and I want, is absolutely NOT going to happen!!

Please take into account the following:

1. There is ZERO, that is "0" help by way of emergency care, police aid, govt aid and community understanding or belief, for men who have been abused or are still experiencing abuse.
2. The govt, all NGOs and most of the Aust public, have swallowed the sweet smelling vomit that comes from the radical feminists with those organisations, that all men are abusers/paedophiles and that all women are victims of men and are incapable of committing any abuse on any human being.
3. In Victoria now, and also other states for some time too, they are teaching young boys to behave like girls. To play like girls.
But worst still, they are teaching young boys about domestic violence from preschool age upward and not teaching girls the same.
The whole program is only targetting boys, because they are still peddling the lie that females are not violent.

YOu see, the whole issue outside of this debate on this forum is 100% gender based and it is so damn wrong, that is borders on pure evil.

We need to get women in this country to stop believing the lies about domestic violence and to start to demand that the discriminatory laws and policies be scrapped and returned to a gender nutral position.
The problem is, this won't happen and we will never get past the position we are stuck in, which is the fact that all aspects of this topic are gender based and gender biased against men and boys.

The only thing all this hatred toward men and boys is achieving, is the return of the hatred back to the women.
Can't they see this?

AKA

I agree totally. That is what so many men have been trying to do for years. The perception that domestic violence is gender based is the problem. Man always perpetrator, women always victim.

It is an attitude that is enshrined in or society, our legal system, community aid systems. Simply put, we do not exist. The only person who can imagine the total isolation of being a male victim of domestic violence is another male victim of domestic violence. Not even a female victim can experience it.

Is it surprising so many men hate women? It is very hard to hold on to the understanding that it is people, not men and women, when society does not even acknowledge your existence.

This attitude is also detrimental for female victims. It engenders such fear of men into some female victims that it often makes it impossible for them to form any meaningful relationships with men. And if a women is the perpetrator where does she go for help without being a freak? There are women out there screaming out for help, and all they get is a handful of mother's little helpers.

For the sake of all victims of domestic violence just recognise victims as victims and perpetrators as perpetrators. Then we might get somewhere.

Paw, I don't agree that it is not going to happen, the voice of the Feminist Mafia is the only voice that has been heard for so long that getting the message across is going to be very difficult. The 1 in 3 campaign is a first small step but if it is nurtured it can grow.

I suggest that those taking part in this debate don't just keep it here. Email the link to your local member, state and federal. Email it to the education department telling them that what they are doing to boys when 'teaching' about domestic violence is abuse in itself. Email it to anyone you can think of who need to hear the message including Family Court lawyers.