Hi all

I don't think this is an "either/or" issue; as someone pointed out, it is not about gender, it is about violence and abuse and control. I had a very dear friend who lived with an extremely abusive woman for 50 years or more, culminating in her actually stabbing him. He would never retaliate, nor report it, no matter how bad the verbal, emotional and physical attacks got. His wife was an alcoholic, and attacked him when she was drunk, and that was pretty much every day. The three children they had couldn't wait to leave home.

This man was a wharfie, and more than capable of defending himself in any other situations.

When I spoke of more/better reporting, it would mean that more reliable statistics would be out there, and the problem would then have to seen to be the multi-faceted issue that it so clearly is. Is the solution for men to take out intervention orders in these instances? Those reports would then have to be included in family violence statistics, and thus taken more seriously.

Just a thought.

Cheers
Nicky

Some great posts.

Robert, a man I know very well went through some serious problems with an abusive woman. It was pretty scary, especially as there were young children involved she had no problem insinuating might come to some harm.

She makes a habit of taking out DVO's against any man she happens to be in a relationship with and something doesn't quite go as she planned. That this is possible is abominable, it severely diminishes the seriousness of a DVO endangering lives.

As I've said on a number of threads on this issue: Violence is not the prerogative of either gender, but serious injury from DV affects more females than males. What needs to happen is that when a DVO is taken out, by either party, SERIOUS consequences must follow. A minimum of one year follow-up for BOTH parties with regular counselling. When one person lodges the third DVO some big alarm bells should go off.

What would make a great campaign is showing different scenarios of types of abuse/violence. For both genders and towards children. Violence in any form towards anybody is unacceptable.

I don't think there would be many women who would object to depictions of women being violent towards men and that this is unacceptable. I for one would think that a good thing.

yvonne, excellent post. Things may be changing but my experience on OLO suggests that a lot of people (not just women) really object to the idea of women being portrayed as the agressor. I've never really understood the objection, my impression is that doing so would take away from the fight against violence against women. They want the issue to be shown as a gender issue.

I see that as a different issue to the actual number perpetrating DV but with some interconnection. If you took the Qld Health website at face value then it is hard to argue for an across the board program.

Different scenarions and in the case of children involving neglect as well as abuse would be great. The child sexual abuse issue seems to have become the media focus for child abuse although in terms of substantiated abuse and negelect stats it's only a small proportion.

R0bert

'What would make a great campaign is showing different scenarios of types of abuse/violence. For both genders and towards children. '

That's all I argue for, but somehow I get lambasted for being insensitive to the plight of female victims of domestic violence whenever I do.

'Violence in any form towards anybody is unacceptable.'
Yes. But we have a situation where the government itself says only violence against women is unacceptable. In fact really only violence by men against women, even when lesbian couples have been proven to often contain a lot of violence by women against women. Sort of puts the motives of the adverts into perspective really.

Let's then argue for campaigns that state:

Violence against women: Australia says No.
Violence against men: Australia says No.
Violence against children: Australia says No.

Some of the men seem to object to men not being included as victims of women, but only perpetrators. But there was no objection of not being portrayed as victims of other men. Or of children being portrayed as victims of both.

The news at the moment is pretty grim in the violent death stakes.

yvonne,

Why do we need three campaigns? A campaign that deals honestly with the subject of domestic violence and it's affects on all parties involved.

'But there was no objection of not being portrayed as victims of other men. Or of children being portrayed as victims of both.'

You're seeing an objection should be based on equality of air time for victims, where as I see the lack of equality with treatment of abusers as well. As I said, why no violent lesbian relationships? So really, the focus of the ad isn't on the women victims, it's on the violent men.

The effects on children as you say aren't mentioned, and that could help to pull a few heart strings of abusive men surely. But I suppose we don't want to pull heart strings, as men have no heart, they just must be punished.

Obviously you couldn't display children as victims of women though, as women are mothers. Mothers will always put their children first, and if they don't, they really need help as any women who abuses her children is acting so out of character she must be under enormous stress or mental illness. Men on the other hand are violent by nature, and need punishment not help, and are often paedophiles not to be trusted around children anyway.

In fact I cant think of any advertising campaigns to curb women's behaviour. If you watch TV, no woman has ever drunk too much (How will you feel tomorrow), driven under the influence of alcohol (Ever seen a woman avoiding RBT patrols), exceeded the speed limit or driven recklessly (No flat chested, or fat ass advert?), not exercised enough (life be in it! Norm) or hit her partner (Australia Says No).

If I'm not mistaken, even the new binge drinking adverts concerntrate on the father sinfully asking his child to get him a drink, and more sinfully being so drunk that he doesn't immediately do as his wife tells him when cooking the BBQ.