AIBU to think Jo Swinson framing lesbians as DV abusers is playing into homophobic tropes?

[ArcheryAnnie]

In an interview with Andrew Marr, Jo Swinson answered a question about transwomen in domestic violence refuges by talking about the hypothetical case of an abusive lesbian partner.

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000bqht/the-andrew-marr-show-24112019

Can women be perpetrators of domestic abusers? Yes, of course they can. Some are. Some of those are lesbians, even. But overwhelmingly violence against women is committed by males, by a huge, huge margin.

Here's what the Office for National Statistics says about victims: "In three-quarters of domestic abuse-related offences the victim was female (75%). This proportion was similar for the majority of offence categories, but for domestic abuse-related sexual offences the proportion of victims that were female was even higher, at 96%."

And here's what the Office for National Statistics says about perpetrators: "Reflecting the profile of victims and perpetrators shown in earlier sections, the vast majority of defendants in domestic abuse-related prosecutions were men in the year ending March 2018 (92%)."

This isn't, and can't be, a clinical discussion where you can discuss hypotheticals and it doesn't mean anything. Homophobia exists, and outdated homophobic tropes - such as the aggressive, predatory lesbian - fuel that homophobia. That Jo Swinson chose to focus entirely on a hypothetical lesbian abuser has consequences.

Either Jo Swinson does not realise that she is playing into outdated stereotypes of aggressive, predatory lesbians, in which case she really is not qualified to discuss these issues at all. or she is very aware of these outdated stereotypes, and is playing into them anyway in order to manipulate people into accepting the idea of mixed-sex DV refuges (thus removing the ability of many women to access refuge space at all), in which case we can judge her on who she is happy to throw under the bus.

Which is it, Jo?

This is my point about how people who are actually probably properly homophobic and transphobic cover it up with a veneer of being woke and then totally reveal themselves under pressure because their wokeness has no real foundation in how they view the world.

So - when presented with the issue of males in refuges - Swinson doesn't hear anything but 'blah blah male gaze' and she responds with 'yeah but lesbians have the male gaze, 'cos they fancy women innit?'

It's deeply homophobic.

This hits the nail on the head.

By her logic women abused by women within lesbian relationships must be housed around no women. It’s not just not letting lesbians in, it’s keeping women abused by women away from the triggers of being around the same sex as their abuser. Which is bs, as I’m sure any women who has been victim of dv from a lesbian parter will confirm. I’ve not been in that situation, and I’m straight, but I grew up with a very emotionally abusive mother who knowingly let me be sexually abused by her boyfriends, and she subjected me to some medical abuse and some physical abuse. This ofcourse has effected how I respond to women- I chose a male therapist for this reason- but I would think its bs to suggest that anyone abused by a woman can’t be around other women who may remind them of their abusers and make them feel unsafe. We don’t only turn away straight men from dv refuges (that are single sex, or for women who have been victims) we also turn gay men away, doesn’t matter that they won’t have beaten or raped their female parter because they don’t have female partner, it matters that they have the same sexed body type as the victims abusers. Her argument is illogical, false equivalency is it? I can never remember the correct term.

Even if dv in lesbian relationships is 3x higher (which I don’t buy) or the usual tropes or women abuse male partners as much or more than men abuse women (which I’ve seen trotted out on similar discussions) the reality is men are murdering women at alarming rates -1-2 per week in uk- and we don’t see anywhere near the same rates of men being murdered by women or women being murdered by women. I am v pro emotional abuse being considered dv also, partly because it causes the same harm as physical or sexual abuse, and partly because there’s enough literature to indicate that women leaving an emotionally abusive partner is at the same risk of being murdered by him as women leaving a physically or sexually abusive partner, so I’d hate to diminish the effect of emotional abuse/harm, but I do wonder if the stats from certain places about lesbian dv or female on male dv include the likes of being called a stupid muppet for not picking up socks as emotional abuse and muddy the figures that way. The other realities that stand out is that women rarely offend outside of personal relationships- and as a victim of a woman I’m not discounting the harm they cause- but in terms of risk assessment this makes it massively less likely they will target random women or children at a refuge (or toilet etc) and that any woman has a reasonable chance of being able to defend herself against a woman, where as men have much stronger body types and we have way less chance, if any, of being able to protect ourselves against their threat (and of course we shouldn’t bear that anyways, it’s a victim blaming pov, but in terms of risk assessment a refuge would need to undertake this would be a factor).

I can't watch the iPlayer but I don't really get the upset about this. I think she was merely pointing out that, say, if I (a woman) were the victim of domestic abuse by a woman, having man-ban alone wouldn't help. You need far more than that.

This is a predominantly women's only forum, and I know this will not be popular, but the truth is that us women have MUCH higher expectations on other women than we do of men... which in its own way contribute towards inequality. Many women seem to accept incredibly bad behavior from men because 'they're boys' / they are used to it... but if a woman was any less than perfect, she's basically Cruella de Ville. I see this at work... and in politics. Let's face it: we have Boris Johnson. If Cruella didn't go gaga over Dalmatians, she'd be better than him!

We've seen this behaviour before... with Hillary.

Somehow – and I don't know why – developing countries are actually better at electing women than us in developed countries who go on and on about equality but eventually bottle it when it really comes down to the wire.

Rant over.

I think she was merely pointing out that, say, if I (a woman) were the victim of domestic abuse by a woman, having man-ban alone wouldn't help.

Lightban the point is that the number of women abused by other women is very, very much smaller than the number of women abused by men, so it's derailing nonsense for Swinson to focus on that as a possibility. And the further problem is that Swinson doesn't appear to know (or does know, and doesn't care) that "aggressive lesbians" has been a homophobic trope for, oh, forever, and she's playing right into that.