Victim Blaming

[Stoolpigeon21]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/glaring-defect-in-patels-policy-on-sex-crime-7c3hz02zd

A very unpleasant tone in Melanie Philips article in today's Times

I didn't click on this earlier when reading The Times because i hate her so much. Yup, lots of victim blaming going on here. Also lots of innuendo and suggestions that daring to have more than one sexual partner ever is the sole reason for any breakdown in society. And I'm dubious about some of her statistics and references .... because we've all seen loads and loads and loads of statistics that do not agree with her so I'm not sure why one random little article and badly sourced stats would change my mind. But of course.... it will. And all those people who lie to believe that "nice" men don't abuse women can use this article as proof.

Ack.

I'm going back to never reading her stuff.

Agree. That was another vile little piece from someone who appears to be kept on the payroll solely to appeal to an unsavoury subset of the paying readership.

I read the article twice and thought it raised some interesting points. I didn't get a sense it was victim blaming. It has a cold, clinical tone (which is similar to how I write) so maybe that's why some find it difficult to read and feel it is blaming women?

I haven't read the book by David Buss that is mentioned, but I did read another review of it a few weeks ago that I enjoyed.

www.newstatesman.com/bad-men-david-m-buss-evolutionary-science-sexism-review

I thought it was fairly common knowledge that women and, especially, children are at higher risk of male violence and sexual abuse from newer / transient boyfriends. Is it now considered inconvenient to acknowledge this?

I think every type of societal change and development has its positives as well as negatives. From reading various conservative and centre-right articles, I understand that they are trying to highlight the downsides and unintended consequences of societal changes that are usually framed as '100% a good thing' by the mainstream media, cultural institutions etc. If people are being honest, nothing is ever '100% a good thing', but rather a balancing act between tradeoffs - we might collectively decide that the positives outweigh the negatives, or vice versa.

I think the point Melanie Phillips is trying to make is that although women have always experienced domestic violence at the hands of their male partners, this phenomenon, or the likelihood of it, increases dramatically outside of the framework of marriage. So a society that enables more sexual freedoms, specifically for women, along with the erosion of marriage as a societal framework, is likely to see increasing levels of physical violence against women in a domestic setting. This is attributed to men's predisposition to intense sexual jealousy, which can be reduced or encouraged based on cultural practices, but rarely eliminated in its entirety. She maintains that men bear the responsibility for their violent actions.

I'm not clear what solution Melanie Phillips is proposing. Is she implying that Priti Patel, as part of a Conservative government, should also be calling for the promotion of marriage as one of the many ways to reduce the levels of violence against women? Or is she just wanting a more honest conversation around social conventions, changes to lifestyles and family structures and the impact on women and children?
From what I've read by various socially conservative writers, they do bemoan the fact a Conservative government isn't particularly conservative in its various domestic policies, which is understandable.

I think it's an interesting viewpoint worth discussing - that increasing levels of sexual liberation for woman can, paradoxically, increase women's vulnerability to violence and exploitation from men. I've seen this angle explained in various ways by different writers on a number of topics in recent years. It's a viewpoint that appears to be consciously ignored by mainstream feminism, even in terms of debating and debunking the issues raised.

Oh of course - what a great solution. Make all the violent misogynists marry their punch bag, and they’ll magically stop hitting her.
Said no sane woman ever.

I find Melanie Phillips's views utterly repulsive.

Quite surprised that a supposedly serious newspaper like The Times would employ her. Thought she'd found her natural home in the Daily Mail.

I think the point Melanie Phillips is trying to make is that although women have always experienced domestic violence at the hands of their male partners, this phenomenon, or the likelihood of it, increases dramatically outside of the framework of marriage. So a society that enables more sexual freedoms, specifically for women, along with the erosion of marriage as a societal framework, is likely to see increasing levels of physical violence against women in a domestic setting. This is attributed to men's predisposition to intense sexual jealousy, which can be reduced or encouraged based on cultural practices, but rarely eliminated in its entirety. She maintains that men bear the responsibility for their violent actions.

Amazing, you and Melanie take the entire shift in societal normals down to more sexual freedoms, for women in particular. Not the fact that marriage is less of a thing? I find it astonishing how women's sexuality is the key takeaway and, by extension, blamed for what happens next.

If you want to argue the issues of less marriage, then perhaps we should look at why marriages break down and/or why people are resistant to enter new marriages. How often on here do we see women who want to get married but their partners aren't so keen? Or women who are forced to leave a marriage because of the behaviour of the man, making her less enthusiastic about being tied to a man in that way in the future? I'm fairly certain that any issues with marriage is NOT because women are desperate to shag more men......

As for the pregnancy thing, I know I've seen plenty of research that suggests that abuse ramps up in pregnancy and I don't believe for one second that in most cases its because the man isn't sure that the baby is his. It's far more likely that the man starts to see a woman prioritising further someone or something that isn't him.

Does anyone have a share token or achieve link

Rape within marriage used to be legal, child abuse used to be ignored, and prostitution has always existed; so I'm just not seeing any evidence for the assertion that women's freedom ('sexual' or otherwise) leads to an increase in male violence.
It just becomes more visible when we are no longer the property of a man.

TiredButDancing I read her piece twice to try and understand the point of view she was trying to make and my post was a distillation of my interpretation of what I think she was trying to get across.

I try to make a conscious effort to do that these days when reading articles I may instinctively feel I need to disagree with, because I think to effectively argue against someone, I first need to understand what it is that is being said. They may have some good points, they might have some bad ones, they might be oversimplifying or overcomplicating issues and so on.

As I said, I'm not clear on what she thinks the solution is to this problem that she described.
The questions you raise are good ones, but I have not come across an exchange between conservative and liberal writers/speakers that attempt to engage with the points raised by either side.

@Cabinfever10

Does anyone have a share token or achieve link

Sorry! I hadn't realised most people won't have been able to read the article!

Try this link.
archive.is/Pny6F

But why should we have to guess what she thinks or feels? Her article, on first reading, very clearly associates domestic violence as being at least partly because of women's increased sexual liberation. She makes a token effort to say that this doesn't justify it, but it's pretty weak in comparison to the overall message which is that all these women who choose to have multiple sexual partners is why society is breaking down.

She's a bloody columnist. Her job is to make her opinions known and clear. So I'm not going to attempt to see her side or whatever. I'm going to take the article at face value and continue to think her attitude towards women's sexuality and her thinly veiled blame of women for men's violence is disgusting.

Fair enough TiredButDancing. I found it interesting to read as it coincided with another article I happened to come across about David Buss' work, so it was a different angle to consider even if the premise is a bit simplistic.

Thank you @NonnyMouse1337

Camille Paglia has said something similar for many years - that sexual liberation for women is inherently related to an increase in certain kinds of risks to women, including the risk of sexual and physical assault. She thinks this is a worthwhile trade-off, because she sees sexual liberation in a very positive way and puts a lot of weight on freedom of choice, but she's not utopian in imagining that doesn't have consequences.

Calling this perspective "victim blaming" is kind of an odd approach, either it's true or false, or somewhere in between, it's nothing to do with blaming anyone. This tendency to want to decide what is true based on what we'd like to be true is pernicious.

It is well known, as mentioned above, that when kids in a family are exposed to boyfriends and step-fathers they re more likely to be abused, that a string of men in their lives like this is a risk factor, important enough to be noted by social workers. I would be surprised if abuse of the mother was also not more common in such instances. Unpicking why seems difficult, we know as well that one of the biggest risks for poor outcomes in children in terms of education, jobs, not going to prison, etc, is coming from a home with no father - it tracks better than class or poverty or race. This is something Glen Loury has talked about a lot in a different context, but if we think about what that might mean fir families more generally it's not difficult to hypothesise that instability increases the likelihood of abuse.

This reminds me a bit of the debate in the early 80s around divorce, where some people were upset that if we said divorce is bad for children overall, it would mean that we were forcing women in really bad marriages to stay. Somehow in this view it was better to just say that children were resilient and were better off if their parents were happy, rather than say divorce was sometimes necessary but not without consequence. Of course it was a crock, while undoubtably children in really bad situations were better off if their parents divorced, divorce overall does affect children negatively and the generation of children that came out of the plethora of divorces of that period made that quite clear when they were in a position to speak up.

It is well known, as mentioned above, that when kids in a family are exposed to boyfriends and step-fathers they re more likely to be abused, that a string of men in their lives like this is a risk factor, important enough to be noted by social workers.

The victim blaming is when this sort of change in society is blamed on women's sexual liberation, ie on women. When we know it's bollocks. that the single women who falls prey to a second abusive man is very unlikely to have left her first partner/father of her kids because she wanted to be more sexually liberated.

The idea that marriage is a brake on domestic violence is unproveable at best and a straight forward lie at worst.

Domestic violence was once considered a norm and so unremarkable. No statistics exist, as someone else said rape in marriage wasn't even a concept for many. Ditto the rape and abuse of female servants.

Read Anne Bronte's 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall'.
An Aunt of mine eloped with a young man in the 1930's. He turned into an abusive alcoholic- the family response was 'you've made your bed so must lie on it'.
My grandfather's mother ran away from an abusive husband.
All these women would face social criticism.

Melanie Philips is an idiot. She's confusing idealised fairy tales and reality.

@TiredButDancing

It is well known, as mentioned above, that when kids in a family are exposed to boyfriends and step-fathers they re more likely to be abused, that a string of men in their lives like this is a risk factor, important enough to be noted by social workers.

The victim blaming is when this sort of change in society is blamed on women's sexual liberation, ie on women. When we know it's bollocks. that the single women who falls prey to a second abusive man is very unlikely to have left her first partner/father of her kids because she wanted to be more sexually liberated.

Blame is a useless word in this kind of context, it's a word that applies to individuals and their choices, which is not what the article or we are discussing, given that we don't have an individual and her circumstances before us. This is about society wide beliefs and behaviours, how what happens at population and statistical levels.

As a group, we know that children who are in homes where there is a live in boyfriend or step father are more at risk than those where they are with a biological father, and a succession of such men increases the risk.

You don't have to be a genius to say that a culture where that kind of household set-up is more common will tend to put more kids at risk than one which doesn't, and that one way to minimise abuse would be to minimise those kinds of scenarios. I doubt many think that should go so far as saying that women stay with abusive men who father their kids, which is often suggested and the implication on threads like these, but it's a real straw man.

But whatever possibilities might be looked at as a reasonable way to use that information to better things, the only way to get to any good outcome is going to be to begin with understanding the real data. We can reject information because we don't like the implications but that will never lead to any solutions.

Is it marriage of itself ?

Or is it other factors that mean marriage doesn't happen that also correlate ?

Eg poverty , low self esteem etc ?

@SmokedDuck The article specifically refers to women's sexual liberation and blames this for domestic abuse. Which is what was being discussed here. The point is that the complex issues at play are NOT included in the article, instead, women's desire for "sexual liberation" is used as a quick reason for domestic abuse.

[quote TiredButDancing]@SmokedDuck The article specifically refers to women's sexual liberation and blames this for domestic abuse. Which is what was being discussed here. The point is that the complex issues at play are NOT included in the article, instead, women's desire for "sexual liberation" is used as a quick reason for domestic abuse.[/quote]
Yes - what she is suggesting is that the sexual liberation movement is tied to increased instances of people trading partners more frequently. Which it is. There was also an increased incident of children born outside of a stable relationship as a result of the sexual liberation movement.

There are plenty of people, even in feminist circles, who will argue that sexual liberation has been more to the benefit of men than women, and in many cases has, as much as it's allowed some women to pursue the sex lives they'd like to, it's meant others can't demand the kinds of commitments they would like in sexual relationships, or that they are pressured to enter into sexual relationships before they have that kind of assurance from a partner.

Social change is rarely black and white, but more a push and pull. If we want sexual liberation (whatever that means which is rather a can of worms) we find it has wider effects than just individual women's choices and all women live with those effects.

Whatever. Lots of words. Lots of bollocks. I'm never going to blame women's "sexual liberation" for society's ills. You are. I'm pretty sure I've argued with you before under different names for both of us. See ya.

It’s not victim blaming, it’s an uncomfortable truth no doubt but it’s not victim blaming.

@korawick12345

It’s not victim blaming, it’s an uncomfortable truth no doubt but it’s not victim blaming.

It is victim blaming because it focuses on what the victim does not the perpetrators.

Yes more partners increases risk but that is because "men" are a risk. You need to tackle why men are a risk not expect women to alter their behaviour.

Men have sexual jealousy - not their fault, nothing can be done.

Women have sexual freedom - they should be married to stop making men feel jealous then they won't get battered.
🤷🏻‍♀️

Long term and or marriage not protective definitely not for serious abuse. Lots of recent murders domestic violence murders during virus pandemic been middle aged and older women and from longterm relationships. More hidden maybe cos longer it goes on, more woman's confidence to try to leave is destroyed and also harder often for older women to get help. Harder partly cos harder after longterm you so used to it and more cut off but also harder cos of wrong ideas like what's thought in this thread and Phillips woman so support places less set up to help cos they don't think it's needed as much. One of biggest reason for increase in abuse cases is not enough safe housing especially after housing benefit cap happened. Also not always enough or right type of support.