Broadly speaking - people have different views on issues
depending on their life experiences, their age,
their values, personality, education, and the social
circles in which they mix. However, most people will
agree that domestic violence is a serious problem
and needs less stereotyping, less labelling, and more
objectivity, in trying to find solutions to the
problem.

We've covered this topic so many times on this forum.
The tender, romantic; and passionate intimacies of
men and women are among the supreme human emotional
experiences. Perhaps no other subject is so
universally celebrated and even idelaises in literature,
art, and daily life.

But the relationships of the sexes can have a darker side,
one that involves extremes of exploitation and
violence.

The effects of domestic violence can be devastating for
the victim, involving physical and emotional damage
and the disruption of personal, social, familial and
sexual life.

Surveys suggest that each year there are couples who go through
a violent episode in which one partner tries to cause
the other - serious pain or injury. Wives assault their
husbands as often as husbands assault their wives, and
spouses are equally likely to kill each other.

One source of this violence may lie in the dynamics of the
family as an intimate environment: close relationships are
likely to involve more conflict than less intimate ones,
since there are more occasions for tension to arise and
more likelihood that deep emotions will be provoked.

Another source may be outside the family, for violence
is frequently a response to frustration. If a person
affected cannot strike back at the source of the problem
- the aggression may be readily re-directed at family
members.

We need to make it quite clear
that violence between either male or female
is equally - not acceptable in our society. Its
a sad state of affairs in which the extent of violence
in groups whose members are supposed to love and care for
one another succumb to this sort of behaviour - which
suggests that the modern family may sometimes be under
greater pressures than it can easily bear.

Foxy,
It could also be the case that since about 1970 the entertainment industry has portrayed men as either morons who are a liability to women or monsters who are a threat to them. The output of Hollwood in particular is not art, it's activism.
When I watch a program like "House Husbands" I feel like I want to beat the male characters unconscious, throw their wife over my shoulder and ride off into the sunset simply because they're all such pathetic losers. If such men exist in the real world then it's no wonder women are contemptuous of them and violent toward them, could you imagine Fred McMurray's Steve Douglas putting up with Sofia Vergara's character Gloria from Modern Family for more than five minutes?
Could you imagine Sofia Vergara's Gloria bashing and then murdering Ty Burrell's character Phil Dunphy if they were in a relationship?
We've had forty years of negative male stereotyping in the media, it's said that women are negatively affected by the media in many other ways so it stands to reason that if they are exposed only to negative images of men that they would develop negative opinions about them and be hostile toward men in general.

"just hate to see whole threads discussing the evils of women in general."

I'm with you on that. From my take on Wollie's previous posts I don't have any reason to think that was the intent. There have been plenty of posts over the years pushing the line that DV is a male problem, that it's overwhelmingly done by men etc. Outright antagonism to attempts to have the anti-DV violence message extended to both genders. I know I can't speak with authority for other men posting on this site (or else where) but mynown stance and my take on the point most others have been trying to make is that DV is a human problem, not just a male problem. That to reduce it further we need to address all DV, not just the part that fits marxist feminist views of power dispersal.

I'm hoping Hasbeen was just stiring, given his views in Muslim immigration I think thats a safe bet.

Foxy, well said. The point about killing each other in equal numbers conflicts with my current understanding but I've not looked at recent research into that. Whatever the proportions though I think there are some things in the legal system that should change to reduce the push factors involved for people going to that extreme. It won't stop it all but a simplistic one size fits view based on control and power does not help understand much at all.

R0bert

Well said Foxy, and I agree with much of what you say RObert.
I don't think Marx has any influence on the modern women of today though.
Communism wasn't good for either gender in any way I reckon.

Certainly, women today seem more generally aggressive than they were back in the 'good ol' days' when they stayed home and did what they were told.
Both genders are more aggressive now too I think, especially with the drugs now available, more alcohol fueled violence, more mental health problems, and with people now being housed so much closer together in city areas.

I agree there should be a general DV plan that addresses aggression in the home environment, because at the end of the day, children get hurt just as much from any adult who hurts them.

Jay of Melbourne, "The output of Hollwood in particular is not art, it's activism.
..
We've had forty years of negative male stereotyping in the media, it's said that women are negatively affected by the media in many other ways so it stands to reason that if they are exposed only to negative images of men that they would develop negative opinions about them and be hostile toward men in general>

Precisely and it is time the effect of the negative stereotyping on young boys and youth is taken seriously.

There are no genuine, practical suggestions here for change and from some, absolutely no urgency at all. The general attitude is one of, "Never you mind, just put it on the back burner and wait your turn, if it comes around to you one day". One gets the distinct impression that the 'Jills' are saying "I'm all right, Jack". Whereas in the gender reversed case it is all urgency, driven by self-righteous horror. Activism for one gender is OK and absolutely necessary and any radical excesses, always excusable somehow.

I posted a link earlier where Labor sees DV as affecting women and girls, exclusively. It is not so long ago that a PM, Julia Whatshername, waged a gender war on men. Obviously the radical feminist dinosaurs live on and are given oxygen in Labor. If they are so unethical and unprincipled as to wage gender war (and Class war) why the hell would any thinking, responsible citizen vote for them? For the future of boys and girls too we should always put Labor at the very bottom of the voting card.

Suse,
I wouldn't say that the tiny percentage of men and women who are violent are more or less so now than in past generations.
I can't seem to find an agreed upon figure for the incidence of violent behaviour in Australian society, it appears to be about 1 in 28 people have those tendencies, but who really knows?
There's evidence that women are more violent in the home than men, but there's evidence that even very violent men are not given to physical retaliation as a first course of action, so men's lack of retaliation could appear to skew the figures but it doesn't mean they're not winding their partners up or being verbally abusive.
The female partner in the married couple I mention in other threads is one of the most violent people I know,she's assaulted her mother and other people in the past and has a hair trigger temper. Her estranged husband is a thug and extremely abusive and cruel in the way he speaks to her but as far as we know he's never hit her or the children and his menacing persona seems to keep her violent impulses in check.
I really don't know if women are "more violent", about all we can say with certainty that in that small, dysfunctional set of people in the community violence is endemic and self perpetuating.