Misleading campaign trying to con the UK about the horrific level of domestic violence committed by men against women

"(CPS stats over 5 years) 93.4% of those convicted were MALE."

That's because the chance of a female abuser being convicted (or even arrested) is almost zero, especially if she is white.

Again, you were concerned because of the success of the mras in making it clear that naming the problem is man hating - something that women must avoid having been socialised to take care of men's feelings. This care is, of course, underpinned by the threat of violence.

I recently went on a course on violence threat assessment run by two prominent experts in the field. About half way through some of us became a bit uncomfortable that all the examples were men. So we raised it as a concern. The experts told us that all the examples were men simply because there were very few incidences when the threat was from a woman. They were of course also keen to say that that didn't mean that women shouldn't be considered as potential threats, but in practice those that commit violence (this was in a post secondary educational setting) were almost all male. Later we did have an example about a woman (stalking related) but it was one out of about twenty case studies used.

Interestingly it was the women who felt uncomfortable, not the men. They all accepted the idea that men were the main threat without concern that that might mean people thought they were likely themselves to become a threat. Most people who commit violent acts are men =/= all men are violent.

Mental health and substance misuse were major risk factors in the assessment tools, but attitudes and behaviours were also key. This campaign targets attitudes and behaviours. If it changes the view that hitting your wife/girlfriend/child is normal acceptable behaviour when you get a bit pissed off/drunk then that s a very big win.

It's a similar thing to alcoholics and drug addictions: you can't work through the problems until you have chosen to do so. The poster encourages that by removing the vestiges of excuses.

As a past victim of emotional / domestic 'abuse', the main thing that stops you from perpetrating it with your own kids is simply choosing not to. Having the support to work through your own motivations and problems is nice, but secondary. You simply have to draw a line and say 'no more'. That's what the poster is doing and I really can't see a problem with that.

I'm really impressed by the success the mra tendency have had in convincing people that men who abuse are victims, women abuse as much as men and if you use a class argument (such as violence is perpetrated by men against women), you're basically saying your lovely old dad is a massive psychopath. And who wants to say that? So don't use 'men' as a class descriptor. Violence is just perpetrated by people in general who don't have a single relevant factor in common.

Men abuse women because they choose to do so. And those choices are backed up by thousands of years of oppression of women. It's only been a relatively short period of time in Western history that women have not been the property of men. The attitudes that flow from that history are still very much with us. And in many parts of the world, what for us is history is current reality for most women.

^ blaming themselves wrongly. Typo.

I'm sorry you feel like this. The facts are knowing the state of mind of the perpetrators of violence do matter if we are to prevent further violence in the future. Knowing this can help victims too as it can wrongly stop them blaming themselves or staying around for more of the same treatment.

I do understand the anger you feel towards the perpetrators of domestic violence, the fallout can be huge. But until society faces what might be going wrong and causing the abusers to abuse, as horrible a process this might be, we cannot hope to effectively tackle this.

And I can assure you, that seeking to understand the mindset of those abusers does not mean a person has to lose sight of how dysfunctional their thinking and behaviour is.

Ah, we're a clique as well.

You might have learned something had you listened, instead of coming with a fixed idea of who is to blame. Or not to blame, due to excuses.

The state of mind of the perpetrator is immaterial, except as mitigation in his trial. The fact of his violence is the only thing that is material to the crime he is committing.

I'm sorry you don't understand that. It's been explained several times by several people.

Anyway, you win. Having lived this shit, and helped far too many women who are living this shit, I'm not all that sympathetic to the myriad excuses men come up with, so you win, I can't argue with people with your views anymore. The poster is great. I hope it stays. I hope they put it on billboards around the country.

I expect it's a mix of both

^or unrecorded. I have heard of abuse cases, in previous decades, where children were not believed.

Needs

So what do you think this indicates?

To my mind there are two possibilities. Either the abuse went unreported and the damage to the victims of that abuse was never resolved or that the abuse was fabricated.

Interestingly, it seems that it's mainly men who have been abused who then go on to abuse. Not women. So this campaign pretty much hits target. It shows men that DV is unacceptable something remarkable numbers of them don't truly understand and, if they were abused as children, reminds them of the fear they felt in order to maybe remind them that they are human beings. A win win

Also interestingly it is my understanding (based on a lecture at Westminster uni's domestic abuse course but I didn't really look into it further) that most of these disclousures of experances of abuse tend to come up as self reported in sentencing reports and no where else.

It is exactly the same lack of discussion / lack of willingness to discuss the motivations of the target audience of campaigns which perpetuates gender stereotyping.

I don't think the few examples of DV, I knew of, from my experience , 'trump' the statistics given. However I was pointing out that, because the statistics cited weren't detailed enough to record any other determining factors of DV, apart from the sex of the perpetrator, they did nothing to validate the poster. Yes, the poster might have targeted men as the group which are more likely to commit DV but there was little willingness to discuss whether this campaign adequately references the state of mind of the perpetrators of violence, which frustrated me.

Sigh. I'm going to leave this here and go.

No one disbelieved your personal experiences. However, the majority of personal experiences of family violence have been committed by the man in the family and these cumulative numbers are why the poster is as it is. Yes, it doesn't apply to all situations of family violence, but you seemed to want the few examples to trump the many, for unclear reasons.

It's always nice if people learn things, but once out of school, that's down to an individual's motivation and isn't anyone else's responsibility.

Not very enlightening...

I see questioning this particular 'clique' is deemed unacceptable. Shame, I might have learnt something...

Ah, we're doing feminism wrong as well.

Thanks for your input... and yes, I really am disengaging now, can't be arsed with the endless 'what about the poor men'-ing and the 'women do it too'-ing and trying to get us to feel sad for people who choose violence.

Well done. You win.

Have a

I have read and re-read this thread, with a view to reevaluating my comments, but still the way it has developed (with myself being accused of derailing and posters announcing they are 'disengaging') has puzzled me.

So I decided to read more of the feminist boards and found this thread interesting,

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feminist_theory/2243549-Evidence-basis-for-feminism

So, as I was advocating, life experiences are considered of value, alongside more positivist data. Which was my point regarding domestic violence having a much wider context than gender...which I thought needed to be analysed and tackled. I don't really 'get' why this view was met with such antagonism, apart from it providing a counter perspective to the one offered by (practically all of the) others on this thread.

Domestic violence advocates do think these things through when formulating campaigns. It is a fairly common understanding that many violent men obviously don't care at all how their violence affects the women they abuse, but that they just might care about how that violence affects their children.

The thing is, the poster says nothing about why the abuse is happening, just that it needs to stop. How can that be a bad message?

If the fear and anxiety, caused by an abuser, led some men to be damaged in the first place, how does reminding them of it, possibly invoking a 'flash back' type scenario, in a public (unsupported) place help?

I also understand people who have been abused often then go on to abuse themselves.

Interestingly, it seems that it's mainly men who have been abused who then go on to abuse. Not women. So this campaign pretty much hits target. It shows men that DV is unacceptable something remarkable numbers of them don't truly understand and, if they were abused as children, reminds them of the fear they felt in order to maybe remind them that they are human beings. A win win.

So what is your particular expertise here BigChoc?

My concern over not disregarding feelings and how people handle them, including the relation to dysfunctional behaviour, is because I think better understanding is crucial in order to find out why violent crime occurs and preventing it. Not because I want to excuse it or brush it under the carpet.

I also understand people who have been abused often then go on to abuse themselves. Because of this trend should we have a similar campaign which is targeted towards them as perpetrators? I think this would potentially be highly insensitive and possibly triggering.

All I am calling for is a little sensitivity. Not in order to excuse but in an attempt to find solutions and prevent more abuse.