202 women killed by partners or ex partners

[GabbyLoggon]

That was in one year. It suprised me the figure so high. Thats 2 womenkilled every week by someone close to them....I can understand why womans hour went bananas

Sourceoif the statistics please.

actually boney - I found the figures earlier (but have lost them in a sea of other google searches I did) approx 1/4 of all DV deaths are to men (over a yearly and 10yr basis) with 3/4 of deaths due to DV being women killed.

Nothing has the educational value that really long prison sentences have, and the refusal of courts to allow visitation with children when DV has been an issue in a relationship breakdown too. What does the average man lose when his relationship ends because of DV or abuse of any kind? Very little.

The courts need to take DV that doesn't end in murder seriously -- this is far more prevalent than the murder statistics hint at, and it blights lives year in and year out, yet courts do not seem willing to make abusive men accept consequences.

Women's Aid page wrt statistics

Why does the womans aid site feels it needs to knock the female on male statistics?

If single incidents of abuse arent important, then just remove them from BOTH sets of stats.

And if the level of violence decides whether its DV or not, then remove all the 'lite' beatings from both sets. (WTF?)

(the site then goes on to talk about 'emotional abuse' of women as though it should be counted in the figures - which is a little inconsistent).

No mention of how Female on male DV is woefully underreported either (though maybe I missed it)

DV is bad for both sexes.

is this really an AIBU thread?

Every time DV comes up, female on male abuse is brought up as if one somehow cancelled the other out or as if there was some iceberg-like gross under-reporting of female violence against men and men were walking around in fear of their lives with all these vicious women out to get them.

Here's the quote I'm assuming you had in mind when you made your comments Ccpccp:

'One misleading statistic, which is often repeated, is that - while one in four women experience domestic violence - so do one in six men. These figures are, however, based on single incidents, of a criminal nature, and without regard to:

• severity of violence
• whether or not it was repeated - and if so, how often
• the complex pattern of overlapping abuse of various kinds
• the context in which it took place.

They also exclude sexual assaults - which are overwhelmingly perpetrated against women, by men - many of whom are partners or former partners of the victims. Finally, emotional abuse - which is often not regarded as a crime, but which survivors often find even more destructive - is excluded from these statistics.'

I don't know why you chose to misrepresent the WA take on statistics of DV wrt men as victims vs. women as victims. The page makes it clear why WA considers the statistics on female on male violence unreliable and really not a part of the same dynamic. DV as experienced by women is different from DV as experienced by men.

I'm not in the least surprised by the depressing statistics

My DV made the front of the papers as my ex had been a police officer (and I suppose my case was pretty extreme). That gave me no option other than to be open about what had happened to me, one outcome of which was that other people felt able to tell me about what had happened to them.

So many friends and colleagues had been/were still victims of DV it was absolutely astonishing. I had known some of them for years and hadnt had an inkling. If there is one good thing that came out of my experience, it was that at least some friends had an outlet at last. I remember one friend walking round to mine covered in blood after being attacked by her husband. It turned out this had been going on for ages....

I dont think its relevant to say men are victims of DV too. No-one is saying it doesnt happen or that it isnt important, its simply not the issue we are talking about here.

"The page makes it clear why WA considers the statistics on female on male violence unreliable and really not a part of the same dynamic"

It certainly tries to. Ignore the menz because it detracts from the women.

No recognition of underrreporting of female on male violence. If anyone said 'as if there was some iceberg-like gross under-reporting of male violence against women and women were walking around in fear of their lives with all these vicious men out to get them' you'd be up in arms.

The men should just put up with it, right? Because some other men have committed DV and what goes around comes around?

Its disgraceful really. Womens groups spent years trying to get DV recognised, and now when the truth of another brand of DV rears its ugly head they do all they can to belittle it.

They need to change the way they present their argument, because 100% sure - we now know DV is not something that only happens to women.

At one time the police did not like to get involved in dom violence. But we are told police attitudes have changed in recent years...

"No-one is saying it doesnt happen or that it isnt important, its simply not the issue we are talking about here."

I think the problem is that its never the issue that's being discussed.

I rarely get involved in disussion on MN after a thread that stuck in my minds from years ago - someone had a row with the DH, he was verbally abusive to her and (irrc) pushed past her(?) - and she tipped a glass of water over his head.

The mass general consensus was that she had done nothing wrong and he deserved it.

Yet if the situation was reversed an a woman is shouting abuse at her DH and he were to do something like that.......

As a former (long time ago - anger issues now dealth with thankfully) perpetrator of verbal and occasional physical DV against someone I think the issue of DV towards men is far too frequently swept under the carpet.

I'm not denying that 3 times as many women as men suffer DV - but I strongly feel that if people are talking about DV they should be talking about ALL DV as just because someone has a penis doesn't mean it negatively impact on them.

Was you thinking Clarkson when you made that last remark?

seriously we split the genders to emphasise the serious aspect of violent
men on women

I assume there has been research done on
violence by women on men. (look it up)

you cannot lump them all together because men are physically stronger than women. (and probably do more serious damage.)

I would sooner take a punch from Gabby Logan....than Terry Wogan...

But, yes, Baroquin, debate can get frustrating at times. cheers.

The DV figures wrt to male victims should be seen in the light of who perpetrated the violence. For example, Chris Brown (murdered by Raoul Moat) is an example of domestic violence.

The 2 women who die a week figure also doesn't include suicide as a result of DV.

Also:

'What the current Department of Health campaign should say is ? a women raped every 6 minutes ? before going on to add that just over a third of those women can expect to be raped more than once in the next 12 months, if nothing is done to help them.'

no - I'm talking about the impact on the men that are murdered or injured by their partners, or those that suffer emotional or verbal abuse.

The impact on their lives is no different to the women who suffer the same (ableit in larger numbers)

Am hiding this thread now though as a proper disussion about domestic violence - including (or exclusively about) men will never happen on Mn.......or probably anywhere atually.

This type of thread annoys the shit outr of me, the perfectly brilliant OP, Gabby, but the threads are littered with whiny shite about the poor men that are affected. Aside from the oine post that talked about her DB, I am always so ashamed of women that can't be on the side of women.

What about rape in marriage, does that happen to men too? What about the amount of men in a family that abuse children, shall we cite the comparatively tiny handful of women that do it too?

16% of reported DV attacks were on men....we don't know if that was by women or other men.

Write to Woman Hour, Barog, they cover the gender front on violence.

ccpccp....WOMENSAID not everyone's aid.

Whats to stop these men starting their own threads and discussions? Why keep on hi-jacking others threads to insist on men being made the focus when they are not the vast majority of victims?
Women matter enough for violence against them to be taken seriously and steps taken to stop it. The what about the menz whining isn't designed to add to the debate, it's designed to shut it down and halt progress.

Very impressed with your posts Gabby. Didn't know you had feminist friendly tendencies.

"Am hiding this thread now though as a proper disussion about domestic violence - including (or exclusively about) men will never happen on Mn.......or probably anywhere atually."

Well why not start a topic on it? It seems a bit odd to me to want to turn this thread into a 'ah but what about violence towards men' one. When a woman talks about rape on here, should we make sure that men who are raped are also acknowledged? No because we're talking about women being raped, not men. Does that mean that we think that male victims suffer less/are less important/whatever? Of course not.

I always got the impression that WOMENSAID was a relatively impartial group dealing with the fallout of DV/rape etc, which is why I'm shocked that they are trying to rubbish the female on male figures. It seems compassion only extends as far as their interest group.

I could be totally wrong on this though. Are they a mouthpiece for feminist activism?

We are all free to post on whatever threads we want. Saying that 25% of all DV is against men on a thread that bashes men for DV is perfectly fine. In fact - its essential as there are some out there who want DV to be a purely male on female crime for its political value.

Thankfully these myths are being busted. Sorry if that frustrates yet another man bashing thread.

'Saying that 25% of all DV is against men on a thread that bashes men for DV...'

Again, consider who the perpetrator is in these 25% of cases.

Sorry just two questions on the issue as I'm not essentially well versed in it.
Are there any stats which would be considered objective on the issue?
And secondly what do people think can be done to improve these statistics? (sorry obviously not just the statistics, I mean what could be done to bring down the levels of DV)

It's very telling that a discussion that focuses on women's situations and problems is seen as 'man-bashing'. No one here has said that men are never victims of violence or that it isn't traumatic for them when they are. Just that that's not what we happen to be discussing here. Agree it's very annoying that this seems to happen any time there's a discussion on (male) violence against women, it gets derailed into an argument with men about men, making them the centre of attention once again. It's very childish behaviour (look at me! what about me me me!) and grown men should be ashamed of it.

And if men feel there's not enough provision for male victims, e.g. shelters and similar support, then they need to get out there volunteering and fundraising and organising like women did. Not whining that their mummies feminists haven't done it for them. The shelters and support organisations for women were not handed to us on a plate, they're the product of many women's hard work and time and money and effort.

I'd agree with large parts of your first paragraph (i.e. what is being discussed is topic A and it is fine to discuss this topic in isolation.)

However ( and I'm not estactic to be using the "if it was men saying x instead of women" argument) in your second paragraph to deride a lack of support for men who do suffer from DV as "whining because their mummies haven't done it for them" is a pretty poor message to send out when the thrust of your post is that you are claiming that there is no man-bashing going on.