When I talk about DV against women to some men.....

Thing about equality is that it encourages us to assume that the current system is just fine, and all that needs to happen is a bit of tweaking for some people to have the same options as everyone else.

How so? is feminism not a movement for equality between genders? it works both ways obviously otherwise that notion would fall apart. I don't see how equality as a word implies nothing needs to change, there is vast room for improvement on all levels!

Yes, it was, and you did put it well. I knew I should have refreshed the thread before posting mine.

Annie - your third point is sort of what I was getting at. The implication that violence is commensurable, that DV is a competition between women and men, where the group that scores the most victims loses. The underlying assumption that a serious issue like this can be boiled down to "women are just as bad as men" and left at that. And, more generally, that all feminist issues are just a "women vs men - who's worse?" face-off. DV is not a question of women vs men, it's a question of violence vs solidarity and respect.

Feminism is a women's movement. I'm afraid, these days

Really? I was always taught that feminism is about equality for both genders, my male sociology teacher was a proud feminist, surely the more men on board with feminism the better..

comments like this are what pushes me away from "feminism" not equality but the word and association

Violence towards men doesn't even register with me, an ex with mental health issues hit me but that is not the same (she was suffering mania coming off her meds as part of her bi polar) and I wander if this is where the 40% comes from?

I don't know any men who have been assaulted by their partner but I know serveral women who have been hit by male partners and even sadder is after finding the strength to chuck them out/send them to jail they then later take them back.

Those 720,000 men abused in 2013 shouldn't feel hard done by then? Perhaps they should just man up?

You won't find any of the regulars on this board coming up with an unkind response like that. However you may find counter-arguments such as: "The thick men who are dying to feel hard done by are not the ones who suffered the abuse, they're the ones who've heard about it, usually in vague statistical terms, but only bother to mention it when the subject of violence against women comes up"; and "How many of the 720,000 were abused by women and how many by other men?"

Cross-posted with a few, sorry

Part 2 I find harder to express. The implication seems to be that men and women are automatically on opposite sides, so if you want to be balanced you have to look at what women are doing to men as well as what men are doing to women. Seeing all sides would surely mean looking at it from the perpetrator's view as well as the victim's? OK, you wouldn't really want him doing that either... But the point I'm struggling with is, I think, that the way he put it suggests he thinks men who are victims of violence belong on the same side of the conflict as the men who perpetrate it, even though they will usually be different men. Thus women (as a whole) are perceived to be getting their own back on men (as a whole) so it all becomes a non-issue. Again.

This follows on to an even more poorly thought-out Part 3: the implication, probably unintended, that there's some sort of score card that can be evened out and that if enough women knock enough male partners around it can be declared an honourable draw, regardless of the imbalance of numbers and outcomes. It reduces a discussion about a serious issue to a tit-for-tat point-scoring exercise. I think that's the real point though: the "but men too" is supposed to neatly counter your opening shot and thus end the debate.

What are the people who insist on changing the subject back to male victims of DV actually doing about it though? Do they donate/volunteer/campaign for men's shelters? Do they spread awareness and campaign actively to remove the stigma suffered by victims of female to male violence? Or do they merely feel compelled to mention it whenever someone talks about female victims of DV?
On a personal note: the only time I ever encountered DV in my social circle, it was a woman abusing a man (actual visible physical abuse) and I had absolutely no idea what to do about it, who to turn to, whom to ask for help. So yes, imo there is certainly a need for more public awareness of male victims of domestic abuse - but not as a fucking "women are just as bad" debating point. Because it's precisely this sort of tit-for-tat approach that undermines intergender solidarity precisely in those cases where we need it most.

DV is not a level playing field. That 40% statistic is deeply misleading.

Im so bored of that crap, crap statistic coming up on every single thread.

All this 'women do it too' or 'women are just as bad as men' perpetuates the imbalance of the power structure as it tries to make a level playing field where there isn't one.

About 40% of DV victims are men. That's a fairly level playing field.

I could no longer be bothered explaining feminism to thick men who are dying to feel hard done by

Those 720,000 men abused in 2013 shouldn't feel hard done by then? Perhaps they should just man up?

I struggle to articulate this too. Important to see bothsides, yes, but it's funny how it is always the male side that gets so aggressively pushed, and in the face of the evidence.

It's just not in the face of the evidence though is it?

Genuinely fascinating (in a horrifying way) statistics here - www.mankind.org.uk/pdfs/25_Key_Facts_Aug_2014_(final).pdf

• please note, Refuge uses the same study for it's figures, but removes any relating to men.

To treat DV as a gendered issue does a clear disservice to the other side - it should be discussed openly and frankly by all, irregardless of any other factors.

To be fair, he does something like this with all topics - the subject gets moved onto something adjacent way before I'm done with the topic in hand. I always end up having to backtrack to the thing I was actually talking about and he looks honestly surprised and says 'I thought we'd covered that?'. I always end up saying 'No, YOU covered that, I on the other hand am not done' and then continuing to muse. He does gamely try to re-engage when this happens though - he doesn't get angry or pissy or anything, which would imply deeper feelings that the topic's not worth discussing.

Meh. It's what he's like. Bloody frustrating sometimes though.

It's harder to tell with people you don't know, though; I can see how he'd come across as a right apologist sometimes.

My DH always turns it round to 'Yes, but men suffer too' very quickly. I always challenge it, and he always says that it's important to look at all sides of the subject.

Part 1 of a short series of thoughts:

Why should violence against men be another side? If it's all of a piece then he shouldn't bring it up as "yes, but". There is no "but". He might just as well say "Yes, but violence takes place outside the home too", well yes it does; is that any reason why domestic violence mustn't be talked about? You're talking about the violence that does take place within the home, without in any way denying that violence takes place elsewhere. You're talking about violence against women, without in any way denying that violence against men also happens. There are a lot of nasty things that happen to children, and another discussion may be the very time to bring that up, but right now we were discussing adult-on-adult violence. Won't someone consider the pets? Can we talk about dogs now, I mean some people are really cruel to their dogs but then again some dogs bite back... Oh, and some people are having their throats cut in the Middle East so let's not talk about women, or men, or children, being slapped in a flat in London.

In other words it's classic derailment: you can't talk about this issue because we have to talk about all the other ones as well. So the issue you wanted to discuss gets drowned out in the problems of the entire rest of the world. Thus, you see, neatly putting your wee issuette on the "not very important in the scheme of things" pile.

Male violence against women is so normal and expected that it fails to shock, whereas women attacking men is not so normal and expected, so more newsworthy.

Just to add a personal anecdote: My youngest son has SN and has sometimes hit me without meaning to, simply because of his problems with coordination. The last time he did so was with a wooden toy horse and I ended up with a black eye. So normal is it to assume DV if you see a woman with a black eye, that people immediately assumed that my DH had done it to me. I even had a very kind woman offer to put me up for a few days to help me get away!

...than me.

Can I take this opportunity to thank all people on here who are so much cleverer and better able to think.

And what Jackie ^^ said.

I struggle to articulate this too. Important to see bothsides, yes, but it's funny how it is always the male side that gets so aggressively pushed, and in the face of the evidence.

What really gets me is when women come out with this. same old tired story themselves, oh won't someone think of the menz. I try to talk them round but they get so angry. Well we all do I suppose!

I saw someone, SardineQueen I think it was, do an effective little critique of the figures that say men are more troubled by violence. I can't remember it all and can't find it again (wish MN had a better search facility) but I think it was primarily about the definition of violence and how often it was reported. For instance, at the lowest level, no one bothers to report the daily crappy sexual harassment, the jeering and groping, that women get, because it is just daily crap - normal, and not considered important. But perhaps we should view it as emotional abuse, it certainly has the same effects. And the quantity of casual sexual harassment is horrendous. That would turn the gendered victims stats on their head.

If it's essential to look at all sides of a story, I wonder why the side you wish to discuss requires a subject change when it comes up?

My DH always turns it round to 'Yes, but men suffer too' very quickly. I always challenge it, and he always says that it's important to look at all sides of the subject.

I can't quite articulate why he's at least partly wrong in his approach (and I am a blood articulate person), but he is.

It worries me sometimes

If you only look at the stats for violence which is severe enough to require medical treatment eg cuts, broken bones, internal injuries then it is overwhelmingly women that are injured by their male partners.

The problem with the usually reported overall stats is that they just give numbers, they don't distinguish between someone throwing a teddy at their partner and someone who stabs their partner.

Op

This long running thread may give you some background for discussions.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feminist_activism/1065291-Victims-of-Violence

There is also a difference in severity of violence and repeat of violence within the relationship when men perpetrate the violence. And of course women are taught to fear men (and the reasons for this can be valid) whereas men (as a class) don't fear women. The power dynamics at play are very different.

All this 'women do it too' or 'women are just as bad as men' perpetuates the imbalance of the power structure as it tries to make a level playing field where there isn't one.

Are there rescue centres for victims of male domestic violence seeking sanctuary?

Men often face different problems eg if suffering financial control often a woman is discouraged from having a job where as a man is more likley to be in work but having to hand over money. This causes a problem when going in to a refuge because it means losing yoru job. The problem is the same but much more common with men.

The agencies dealing with this will say the problems are different and the solutions too can be different.

The bottom line is that violence and abuse in relationships is wrong whether it is male on female, female on male or same sex.

The difference is scale and the difficulty of women leaving.

I have started conversations with the above statement about it being wrong, then moved on to 'can you name any men killed by their partner/ex-partner?', you sometimes get a response along the lines of, "well there was that road rage woman". Then ask them the same about women killed by partners.

Then get them to google the numbers of women killed by partners/ex-partners, there are about 2 a week and they don't hit the headlines because it is so common.

For some reason the numbers coming from google are somehow more acceptable to than from a woman's mouth.

There is obviously an argument about us (women) not being believed, but sometimes the male fragile ego can be left in tact because they 'discover' something they didn't know that they can share with their 'mates'.