Domestic Violence - Far from gender neutral

Hermione , exactly , the double standard makes me very angry.

My reading of the article was that there is currently a move amongst local authorities to relocate funding for domestic violence services from women's provision, to men's provision. This is because of a flawed process of information gathering, and if we examine it we find that many incidents against women are discounted. So the statistic that most of the plans are based on is false, meaning we shouldn't continue with plans to take from women's provision to give to men's provision.

This seems to have been interpreted as saying we should take from men's provision to give to women's provision. If you have been particularly affected by domestic violence against men, or if it is just an issue that you feel strongly about, I can understand that you don't want those services to suffer. I would imagine that no-one who has commented wants those services to suffer, as I think Yonic has said. The subheader is provocative and in the style to be expected from the Telegraph.

Local authorities are saying the spilt of incidents is 60/40 and reallocating money based on certain statistics, and the author of the article is saying it's not 60/40, the info is flawed so don't be so hasty. This is not women saying that money for women's services should be taken from men's services because men's services are not important.

Apologies for the long post, but I just want to be very clear about what I think the position of the article is, and what people posting here have taken from it. This is because of what I mean by derailing, as I don't think the OP was about the need to take money from men's services to give to women's services, but we have spent a lot of time discussing this. This happens frequently in conversations about women's issues and I would hope that men who are genuinely interested in these issues are able to understand the frustration when we say 'x is a thing that affects women' we then spend the majority of the discussion defending against criticisms that we don't accept that there are cases where it happens to men, or that something else negative happens to men, or that we're in some way negatively affecting men by aiming to remove an obstacle faced by women.

When I was growing up, bus were outperforming girls in school, especially in STEM subjects. This was accepted as the natural order.

When it flips and girls start outperforming boys, we are "failing boys" apparently.

Actually, the more I think about it the more angry I am about the way the figures have been complied in the past. So after 5 incidents any further attacks didn't count as crimes? So the 6th, 7th, 8th violent attack aren't as bad as the 1st, 2nd and 3rd?! Just goes to show that DV isn't considered a proper crime.

But of course boys are being failed if girls are doing better. Everyone knows that possession of a Y chromosome increases your IQ by at least 50% which makes it fine when boys are doing better but not if girls are because they should be doing at least 33% worse.

The gap in female to male domestic violence victim numbers is at least 20% (with at least 50% more female victims).

In 2014, 8.8% more girls than boys achieved GCSE C-grade passes. This gap has led to consternation that boys are being failed by a supposedly gendered education system.

But, when there are (at least) 50% more female victims than male victims of domestic violence, somehow domestic violence is supposedly "gender-neutral".

I'm amazed that even the (now incorrect) figures of 60% female victims and 40% male victims that have influenced government and support agency attitudes to domestic violence in recent years, were ever seen as gender-neutral. In other words, even when the proportion of female victims was believed to be "only" 50% higher than male victims, domestic violence has still come to be seen as gender-neutral. (From a social policy viewpoint, I'd describe domestic violence as gender-neutral only if it was 50-50 in numbers of female and male victims, and injuries inflicted were also of equal severity).

This week's revelations about under-recording of domestic violence against women suggest it is even less gender-neutral than it was thought to have been, but some people are still resisting the idea that domestic violence is gendered, not gender-neutral (at a society-wide level).

How gendered does domestic violence have to be before it's accepted as gendered? Perhaps 95 female to 5 male, 99 female to 1 male, 100 female to 0 male? For me, even 60-40 makes domestic violence gendered.

I'm reminded of the Live Aid incident Where, I think, Bob Dylan suggested on stage that some of the money raised should go to American farmers. Now To be fair, they were going through a recession at the time and many were going under, but the the event was to raise money for people who were dying. The sheer inability to appreciate the difference in scale between bankruptcy and starvation was simply staggeringly obvious to most people outside the USA though it did gain quite a bit of traction inside. To their credit, Willie Nelson and others did set up a Farm Aid benefit later, but not before ther was quite a movement to divert cash from starving and dying Ethiopians to first world farmers.

Not that this is in any way analogous to domestic violence funding........

Bear, I don't want to speak for the OP, but the post referenced the way many men have tried to change the perception of domestic violence to be an issue that affects men and women in equally high numbers. I took that posting the article was in response to the wider discussion being purposefully derailed. There is a very vocal group of people who believe that we now live in a society that benefits women disproportionately, and they actively try to derail any conversation about issues that affect women.

The article mentions that the statistics often used are that domestic violence affects 1 in 4 women, and 1 in 6 men. But 1 incidence is counted the same as multiple incidences in that statistic, does not mention the severity of the violence, and the sex of the perpetrator is not included. How many men are victims of domestic violence perpetrated by a female partner, as opposed to a male partner for example?

Of course women commit violence against men, and men who experience violence should be protected, but the article isn't calling for money to be stripped from men's resources and moved to women's - it's saying that the 1 in 4/1in 6 statistic

'Prefaces many of the tender specifications drawn up by local authorities. For example: documents which then call for a "gender-neutral approach", and in some cases even for the allocation of resources for abuse victims to move towards a ratio where 40 per cent of provision is set aside for men - meaning an even greater loss of support for women than is happening anyway as a result of "austerity".'

As far as I can see it's an attempt to halt the transfer of funding from women's services to men's services - the opposite of what you're saying is being advocated.

None of this can offset the reality that, if budgets are limited and resources are disproportionately allocated between two issues, the allocation is a clear 'target' to look at, just as the NHS is doing every day when choosing between oncology/cardiology/physiotherapy/obstetrics etc.

bear, I understand your personal interest, but I am outraged that funding which should have been allocated to women has been incorrectly allocated elsewhere. Ideally, all funding would be increased. But if that doesn't happen, the allocation of the current funding needs to be re-assessed.

I'm not saying that men don't need support in escaping domestic violence - of course they do, but I'm not sure why they should be receiving higher funding per person/incident.

I certainly don't fall in to the 'blaming' idea of physical strength either. If it were as simple as that they every woman would walk away from DV the very first time they were alone without their partner.

"Yep, fair point, nowhere really, and I've sort of acknowledged that."

Well, sort of - but then in your most recent post you say that the article suggested that. I definitely think it would be unfair to argue that it is implicit!

" However there are plenty of posters on this thread who seem to be going with the strapline and are content for men's services to be cut. "

Again, I think every poster on this thread would rather there was more funding for DV shelters than any kind of funding cut happened.

Leaving aside the strapline, which was written by a telegraph editor not her, where does she say funding for men's shelters should be cut?

Yep, fair point, nowhere really, and I've sort of acknowledged that. I could argue that it's implicit but I'm not sure that would be fair. I do wonder if the sub at the Telegraph was partly on a wind up. However there are plenty of posters on this thread who seem to be going with the strapline and are content for men's services to be cut. I'm not sure whether that's a failure of logic on their part but I think it's something that should be challenged.

And I'm not going to do it, because it would be a dickish thing to do in context, but as this thread has grown there are a quite a few comments that could be classified as 'minimising'. Blatantly, you don't buy into this attitude, Yonic, but it is prevalent, and among those who should know better too.

"But it seems obtuse to me (and suggests a lack of empathy) for that to come from the equivalent service for men."

Again, I really don't think Polly Neate is suggesting this. Leaving aside the strapline, which was written by a telegraph editor not her, where does she say funding for men's shelters should be cut?

I agree the comment from knitting dad was minimising.

If men are affected they are in a better position for defence/attack as they are on average physically larger and stronger.

With respect, this is minimisation and victim blaming. In any event, it will rarely be accepted that a man has hit back in self-defence.

If this was a thread about men's issues - testicular cancer, for example, how long do you think it would take for a woman to try to change the course of the discussion to ovarian cancer? It's anecdotal, but I have never seen this happen. I have also never seen a conversation about women's experience not be interrupted in this way.

But the initial article (or at least the strapline), and the OP, isn't solely about male-on-female violence. It's about the proportion of male-on-female violence to female-on-male violence. So it's an article and an original post about men's and women's issues. The initial article, and some posters on this thread, suggest that funding should be diverted specifically away from male victims to compensate, despite these being no fewer in absolute terms.

If the original article and OP said nothing beyond 'DV against violence is shockingly under-reported. We need to invest more' then I would be in 100% agreement. However that's not what it says.

I understand and agree with the whole patriarchy thing. But that is scant consolation when (as happened to my brother) your female partner has chucked an iron at you. He wasn't benefiting much from his male privilege (which I accept is a thing that exists) at that point. As I've said upthread, a victim is a victim. They need their interests defended too.

If the money to improve women's DV services needs to come from somewhere, I'm happy for that to be a funding stream that currently benefits men disproportionately (support for certain apprenticeships? there must be loads). But it seems obtuse to me (and suggests a lack of empathy) for that to come from the equivalent service for men.

If men are affected they are in a better position for defence/attack as they are on average physically larger and stronger

You see, that reads to me very much like victim blaming. There are all kinds of reasons why men might not physically defend themselves or retaliate, even when they are taller or stronger. Being the victim of DV is never a good position for anyone.

The one instance where men's physical strength might have an influence is precisely what Sylvia Walby's figures imply – in order for abuse to be sustained or repeated multiple times, it is likely to require physical violence, or at least the effective threat of physical violence. And the main discourse of physical violence in our culture is men's violence against women, with all its symbolic offshoots (how women deserve it, how without a man they are worthless, etc).

"Movember should be about raising money for breast cancer" said no woman, ever.

If this was a thread about men's issues - testicular cancer, for example, how long do you think it would take for a woman to try to change the course of the discussion to ovarian cancer? It's anecdotal, but I have never seen this happen. I have also never seen a conversation about women's experience not be interrupted in this way.

knittingdad: You were wrong, if someone is throwing glass at you, your life/safety is in danger. It's a trope of masculinity that men believe they are invulnerable, especially when the person attacking them is only a woman. But the inequality between men and women in terms of how they fear violence mustn't be confused with the inequality in their actual experience of violence. Both are important; both are depressing; both are gendered; but they're different and have to be tackled separately.

almondcakes: Repeat Violence by Acquaintances is distinct from DV, even when it happens in the home – for instance, violence committed by flatsharers. I agree, it would be nice to see the details – I wonder how much of this takes place in institutions (workplaces, care facilities, etc).

I think it's reasonable to say that we are all in agreement.

i) Both women and men are affected but women are affected to a much greater extent

ii)If men are affected they are in a better position for defence/attack as they are on average physically larger and stronger

iii)A greater proportion of the budget should be directed toward reducing violence towards women (whether directly or indirectly through tackling pervasive sexism in society)

What the budget should be and where is should come from is less straightforward.

Mide, the people killed by their partners will very frequently have suffered previous DV from them. So yes, the frequency of death is a proxy for the frequency of serious abuse.

I feel like I'm missing something here. Are we now judging how bad things are by how many people get killed? Seems a strange way of looking at things to me.

Are the women who get abused but not murdered by their partners less in need of help?