I know you have personal experience in this matter RObert, but so have I.
I tend to think that trying to stop the ultimate form of violence, murder, should be the highest priority, surely?

Yes, we should be working on stopping ALL forms of violence, but it seems that all other forms of violence, leading to serious injury or death, are treated differently to intimate partner violence and murders.
It seems that only in this form of violence, and possibly also sexual violence, that the victims are most often blamed...and it just so happens that by far most of the deaths and injuries in these forms of violence are perpetrated by men against women.

So why can't you see that this is important to most women, who feel they get less justice or understanding in these issues than in other forms of violence? I doubt this opinion will change for many people until far more people in our communities change their views on what is right or wrong re the way women are treated.
And surely everyone wants this for their own female relatives?

@Suse,

You're like a broken record with this type of talk - "...but if 77% of DV intimate partner homoicide perpetrators are male, and 75% of the victims are female,..."

What you are talking about are very small numbers like 1 intimate partner homicide per week and in terms of the number of divorces involving children which in Australia I understand is around half of the 50,000 per year, that's a very low rate of homicides. The common denominator with a lot of those homicides is an aggrieved father who has had his relationship with his child/ren seriously interfered with by the mother (known in the DV industry as the blameless victim) and in a good number the aggrieved father has seen his child/ren living within the sphere of influence of the mother's new man.

Whilst the laws and legal processes facilitate such situations without there being a finding of guilt in a court of law, the murder of mothers will continue. Fitting GPS tracking devices to so-called perpetrators is not going to change the situation, particularly if the “perpetrator” label is used simply because of an unsubstantiated allegation.

In the dock the defendant isn't a statistic or a gender, it could be (if innocent) a human being and (if guilty) a bullying scumbag subjecting someone to a life of fear.

How do you identity politics wonks suggest the law should be drafted to deal with each?

Ms Batty, by the way, seems to consider it's not a person but a gender that should be the defendant. A neat way of ducking consideration of how real domestic violence laws should be drafted and real court proceedings should be conducted. "Y'r Honour, the gender standing there belted the daylights out of my client"

EmperorJulian,maybe the rest of us are more interested than you in seeing it stopped before someone is dead. You are obsessed with tough punishments and too excited over that part to have any interest in reducing the number of first offences. Sad.

R0bert

Suseonline, my impression is the reverse of yours in terms of perceptions of society taking DV against women seriously and acknowledgement that sometimes victims contribute to their own situations. I think society is socially tougher on male perpetrators of DV than on most other violent perpetrators, certainly seems to be the case in family law that unproven allegations can have massive penalties. An allegation of DV seems to make someone almost untouchable in a way that a fight with another male does not. 

The public version of the discussion rarely gets serious about accepting that in the majority of DV situations both parties have played a role that contributes to it, a lot of research shows that violence is often mutual and I think the role of other forms of abuse in provoking violence are seriously downplayed.

I think that when body counts are being considered in any prioritisation some proportion of suicides should be taken into account as well, unfortunately an area where the research seems to be almost non-existant but it is in my view a major elephant in the room when people talk body counts.

Driving someone to suicide by relentless verbal and emotional bullying, by coopting government bodies to help is no less violence than beating them to death. Generally in my view a lot crueler. Those who are the targets of that kind of bullying find it very difficult to get help.

I disagree with the way gender has been manipulated in the DV debate and doubt that much of it is genuinelly about prioritisation but even beyond that how many decades should that approach be allowed to continue and keep failing to significant reduce DV before its accepted that its time to change approach? The current approach might help those with an axe to grind but it does not seem to be doing much to stop DV, why would more of the same be any better?

R0bert

Yes I agree RObert that what has been done so far to combat DV has not been even vaguely successful. I would suggest though that the males who are victims of DV would also surely be part of the arguments that led to them getting hurt too?
Usually it takes 2 to make an argument of course.

The difference between the genders in DV situations though is FEAR.
At the end of the day, regardless of who started it, who said or did what, unless both of the couple have a gun each, the woman is bound to be more afraid of what the man will do to her, than he of her. Most males are physically stronger, and can shut down most violence any woman can try out on him, and then almost always come off in better shape than her.

So, I would say that it IS a gender issue re DV because women will never be safe in a home with an aggressive male who wants to hurt them. Violent men use that fear to control what they consider is 'their' woman.
I have seen it many times when visiting many homes over the years in my job.
Nothing will make me change my mind.
But I don't know what the answer is.....