Foxy

If all people shared your ability to empathise with everyone involved in these issues, we would be alot closer to solving the problem of domestic violence.

Pynchme

Throughout this thread, you have repeatedly asked both Anti and myself how we might advise women to act in various circumstances and now you think that "paternalism is telling people what they should feel and how they should act." If I'm not mistaken, you are a psychologist and spend your whole life advising people. I still believe that widening the definition of domestic violence to include less serious incidents is paternalism.

"Also, if you want to narrow the criteria for DV that is ok except that it will make violence towards men almost invisible again." Perhaps I should have said that minor incidents should be ignored, unless they are part of the escalation towards more serious violence. I accept that men are responsible for most of this serious violence. If we want to stop it, we need to understand all of the negative reciprocity that leads to it and not ignore the actions of female participants for fear of being labelled as "blaming the victim."

pynchme:"Violence committed by whom ?

What are you saying?"

You're not very clever, are you?

Pynchme:"I doubt that a woman would need to obtain an AVO on my son."

nice effort to dodge.She doesn't NEED to, but she did anyway. It's very easy to do: just go to the police and say "I told my husband I want a divorce and he got angry. I'm scared" Plod says "bingo, love, here's your AVO, we'll go and tell him to shift out straightaway."

Your response indicates that you would, by default, take her position as being justified and that you would support her action. Does your son know you think so little of him?

Pynchme:"how would you have managed if your ex had taken off and left the children with you?"

As I fought for 5 years to finally get equally-shared care, I reckon I'd have done pretty well, don't you? I'd also be many, many thousands of dollars better off, especially if I'd never had to deal with the spurious DVO matter as well as the Family Law stuff.

Pynchme:"how would you have organized your time and earning?"

I have been self-employed since 1999. What would you suggest?

Pynchme:"what you would advise your daughter to do if she said that she was being thumped about and had taken out a DVO."

I'd suggest she ask the police to charge him if she was being hit. I doubt the police would need to be asked, though, if she was being "thumped about", since physical assault is a criminal act. If, OTOH, she was merely having some loud rows with him, I'd suggest she was overreacting and that perhaps her own behaviour may be less than exemplary as well. If it looked to be a really dysfunctional relationship, I'd no doubt have already expressed that to her.

My children have seen first-hand what a vindictive mother can do to a father. I hope that my daughter would not perpetuate that.

foxy, you have the right of it. The law is one-sided while life is far more varied.

Foxy: <"Wives assault their husbands as often as husbands
assault their wives, and spouses are equally likely
to kill each other. Although wives are rarely a
match for their husbands in a fistfight, they are
more likely to use lethal weapons (notably kitchen
knives).">

Foxy I like your post and as you say, it's a complex area.
However, spouses are not equally likely to kill each other;
nor are the motives generally the same. Women (and sometimes children) are more likely to be severely assaulted and murdered after leaving or while trying to escape a violent relationship, than are males seeking to leave a relationship. Research findings around the world have consistently found this to be the case.

I refer you to pages 6-9 or so:
http://www.aifs.gov.au/institute/pubs/resreport15/report15pdf/aifsreport15.pdf

This study provides a more historical context of serious assault and spousal homicide, where separation is identified as a consistent risk factor for women.
http://psych.mcmaster.ca/dalywilson/SpousalHomicide.pdf

Men as victims:

http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/PDF%20files/Men_as_Victims.pdf

http://www.relationships.com.au/resources/pdfs/rest/trvol50.pdf/

The Australian Institute of Criminology study analysing homicides in Australia between 1989 and1999 found that:
• 20.8% of all homicides involve intimate partners. This represents
approximately 76 homicide incidents within Australia each year.
• Over three-quarters (76.9%) of these intimate partner homicides
involved a male offender and a female victim.
• Of these homicides, 65.8% occurred between current spouses or
de-facto partners, whilst 22.6% occurred between separated/divorced spouses or de facto partners.
• 10% occurred between current or former boy/girlfriends, and
• 2% occurred within same sex relationships (Mouzos 2000, p. 115).

In almost half of spousal homicides, there is a clear history of preceding violence (Morgan 2002, p. 26).

Differences occur with respect to domestic homicides occurring within
particular communities. For example:
• Indigenous women are far more likely to be killed by their partner than non-Indigenous women. Just under half of all Indigenous homicides
occur as a result of a domestic altercation (Mouzos 2001, p. 5). See
section on Indigenous women for further information.
• Filipino women living in Australia are almost six times over-represented as victims of homicide, compared to other women (Cunneen & Stubbs 2002, p. 160).

http://www.austdvclearinghouse.unsw.edu.au/PDF%20files/Statistics_final.pdf

Benk and Antiseptic: My requests for you to offer some information on what you actually expect someone to do as an alternative to taking out an AVO, was in response to:

1. Your claims that a woman is thinking irrationally if she is fearful of someone (bigger) shouting at her.
2. Your claims that applications for AVOs are predominantly unfounded and made by women who are vindictive.

So far you've both managed to avoid giving any clear advice on how a woman can feel safe. Maybe you can give some insights on why a bloke (or anyone) would need to be shouting at a partner and whether such a person might be better advised to learn some other ways of expressing whatever it is they're trying to convey.

As far as that goes, maybe some of your menz sites could contribute something constructive by helping people, probably men since that is their main focus, to discover better ways of managing their distress or anger or whatever it is.

Pynchme:"how a woman can feel safe."

Pynchme(in an earlier post):"how I feel wouldn't be of much relevance to the situation."

I agree...

The real issue is how a woman can BE safe; how she FEELS is of little relevance.

By making her feelings more important than his actions, you end up in a situation in which some men may feel they have little to lose by making her feeling a reality and some women end up with an exaggerated sense of their own importance.

That's pretty much the state of gender policy play in Australia today.

Pynchme

I understand that some women might feel afraid when someone is shouting at her (even if she is shouting herself). While I would like to imagine a world where everyone can calmly and maturely resolve conflicts, it doesn't appear that we will see this anytime soon.

The next best option might be a world where everyone is a little less thin-skinned. Despite all of the progress that society has made, the way that we raise young women socialises them to be alot less resilient. Perhaps if we stopped over-protecting their self-esteem and stopped telling them they are victims at every opportunity, women might be better able to handle life's ups and downs.

Encouraging them to take out an AVO after every row is a big step in the wong direction.