Domestic Violence - Far from gender neutral

If 40% of funding has been allocated to men due to a set of highly misleading statistics, and no further funding is forthcoming, of course some of those funds should be reallocated to the group at most risk.

But the situation varies between local authorities.

OK, I;m not really sure what we are arguing about any more, bear...

Agree, soap box. If a hospital sees 100 cases of cancer and 200 cases of stroke, but it's currently got 3 cancer doctors and 3 stroke doctors, and a limited budget, it is a good idea to try and get funding for more doctors but in the meantime, hiring an additional stroke doctor and letting a cancer doctor go surely has to bring the highest 'population' benefit?

Understood yonic but the key finding isn't that 'the number of victims is the same but the male/female balance is different'. It's 'the problem is bigger than we thought in absolute terms and the deficit was on the male-on-female side'. The former demands a reallocation of existing provision; the latter demands an increase in provision.

IS that really the main thrust, bear? Other than the subheader, what phrase makes you think that because it's not what I took from the article?

I think that might be two different issues though.

Should funding be increased generally speaking, yes. However with austerity on the increase that's unlikely to happen.

Even if it did, the proportion needs to be correct as well as the realisation of consequences. If women are more likely to be victims of dv, are more likely to be seriously injured and more likely to be killed, that needs to be reflected in funding allocation.

Why has this thread become about male victims?

Because the main thrust of the argument in the article is that funds should be removed from male victims. At the end of the day, they are victims too.

I'm advocating that spending should be increased on female victims. But that this should not be at the expense of male victims. The key word is 'victims'.

"Women's Aid chief Polly Neate explains why we need to start prioritising women over men"

Do you mean this from the subhead, bear? Because I think that's editorialising; I don't think Polly Neate is saying 'take funds from men', she is saying 'allotment of funds should be proportionate and perhaps the current stats are misrepresenting the proportions fleeing from the most acute, repeat violence who most urgently need to get away.'

I would love there to be sufficient suitable refuge places for everyone in need and I'm sure Polly Neate would too, but resources are constrained.

So are you saying that men need 40% of the resources available

No. I'm saying that the overall spend should be higher, and that the additional overall spend should go on women's services (which would obviously ultimately mean that the percentage spent on men's services should be lower). I think men and women should be campaigning for a higher absolute spend on addressing domestic violence.

I recognise that that money has to come from somewhere, and that no cut to another service is going to be palatable. But I submit that it's not logical in this instance that it should come from the like services aimed at men. There are very few areas in which I would say that men's interests are under-represented (in absolute, not relative terms) but this is one of them.

Why has this thread become about male victims?

This news is that ONS has been misrepresenting the total amount of violent crime, with that particularly being the case for repeat victims of DV, and skewing the figures for female victims far more than male victims, and that is a really big deal.

If this is not a neutral study, explain what is wrong with the methods used in the study.

Otherwise claiming that it is DV against men that is particularly minimised is totally reversing what the news reports and research are claiming.

Bear has been around a while, scallops. Long enough to know that several other male victims of sexual assaults by women have found support on FWR, not minimisation.

Not usually on here, yonic, and I completely acknowledge that. But generally, in society, absolutely. And even on here I have seen posts along the lines of 'most of the female-on-male' violence is probably self-defence'. Maybe I'm unduly touchy on the subject, but that always feels like minimisation to me. If the genders were reverse those posters would rightly be called out on it.

Look, scallops, I support feminism. Please don't doubt me on that front. I wouldn't come here to read, learn, and try to contribute where I think it's appropriate if that wasn't the case - I've got better things to do than troll this place. And I recognise that my first post on this thread was more antsy than it should have been, and I apologise for that.

But I also care about domestic violence against men, for the reasons I've given upthread.

I've had time to mull this over a bit more now, and it just seems to me that the conclusion of the article you've linked to doesn't follow from the premises. It just seems to me that the key finding of the research is that domestic violence, and particularly violence against women. is more prevalent than we previously thought. Against that background, isn't the right approach to say that:

(i) domestic violence is a bigger problem than we thought
(ii) we need to spend more money on improving services
(iii) that the additional spend should all go on services for women?

It just doesn't follow for me that the extra money should come at the expense of men's services in a field that's already not taken seriously - it's not as if the problem of violence against men has shrunk in absolute terms. By all means take it from some other service that men benefit from equally. But please don't take it from abused men. it's not a competition.

So sorry to hear about Buffy. I hope she comes back.

Why is it, when someone says "there is a major issue with violence committed by men against women", some people hear "no one gives a fuck about violence committed by women against men". No one said that, and that is not the point. Not every conversation needs to involve men (sometimes I think we need a bechdel klaxon for this board for every time someone says but what about the menz).

If the stats showed a balance where violent crime was evenly split between the genders, fine. No class-based analysis needed. When it's massively skewed towards male violence being the norm then maybe, just maybe, that's something worth pointing out and discussing? It's not a coincidence.

Bear has been around a while, scallops. Long enough to know that several other male victims of sexual assaults by women have found support on FWR, not minimisation.

You can't begin to solve a problem if the information you have isn't accurate.

How do you assign resources or know what those resources should be if you don't have the information? At best it's incredibly inefficient at worst it perpetuates the status quo.

Buffy deregged because she got fed up of the men who hang around on here.

It matters who's doing the abusing when the majority of the abuse is by the dominant sex class against the oppressed sex class and that is part of a systemic pattern of violence.

Well said.

Scallops, I'm not criticising the articles at all. I was commenting on the post up thread about people talking about dv being sex neutral.

I also don't know what gaslighting is.

... After all, that's what the article is about. If this data provides additional information to target services, that must be better than the current situation, right?