Comment piece on domestic violence in the times today - another good column from James Kirkup

Brilliant. Really rate James Kirkup.

men deserve nothing but contempt for seeking to minimise male violence and claiming equivalence where none exists

Yup

There have always been men who do the right thing and support women like they should - they're just few and far between. I think child abuse and children's well being need to be made a bigger deal of as well.

Society should be focused on protecting children's rights and well being first, then women's rights, then men's. It works backwards, though. Men come first, then women, then children.
They're not kids for long. The dysfunction children have suffered in their most formative years is what's made the world such a mess today.

-Something is definitely going wrong somewhere with our boys, which we all pay for later.

James Kirkup is staunchly commonsensical and bold. I like that he's facing NAMALT head-on although the comments are, inevitably, rich in NAMALT:

Astute readers will note that I am writing about domestic violence as something that men do. Some might take umbrage at that, for a range of reasons. There is a certain sort of man who cannot hear domestic violence mentioned without reflexively claiming that this is an evil that falls at least as much on males as females; they can often be found in the online comments section of articles such as this one. So let me pre-empt those comments by saying that men deserve nothing but contempt for seeking to minimise male violence and claiming equivalence where none exists. There is a problem of men suffering domestic abuse but it is simply not of the same order as male domestic violence against women.

Other objections take the form of “not all men are abusive”. Which is true but spectacularly — and wilfully? — misses the point…All men can and should be part of the effort against domestic violence.

Joan Smith has actively researched the frequency with which men who go on to commit abhorrent acts have domestic violence in their pre-history.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/05/many-terrorists-abuse-women-research-extremist-attackers-violent-misogyny

The article argues that violence in the home, which is where most violence by men against women happens, is regarded as a women's issue whereas it is men who are responsible for it and for solving it.

It highlights The Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill, currently being debated in the House of Lords, which adds "a new duty for police forces, councils and other public bodies to take co-ordinated action to address violent crime. In the bill’s present form, that doesn’t include domestic violence. A cross-party group of peers led by Baroness Bertin, once an aide to David Cameron, is trying to change that by amending the bill.

The government’s objections, which I think ministers will be sensible enough to abandon, say something about those national priorities and how important we collectively consider domestic violence.

Ministers say they can’t accept the Bertin amendment not because they don’t think domestic violence is important but because they don’t want to tell officers and officials on the ground to treat it as important. The government argues that local violent crime plans should be made locally, not dictated from Whitehall."

Some of the comments are hard to read. Remember ladies, male violence is your fault.

But I’m glad to read the article.

I was very impressed by James Kirkby's column, especially how he comes straight out and placed the problems with DV at the feet of the men. It's maddening that once again a bill to tackle violent offenders is being set up to swerve the problem of DV, suggesting a local approach leaves us in a position where the Police can focus on everything else and ignore the suffering of women.
Sadly, there is still so much ignorance surrounding DV. I really have learnt a great deal from MN about Red flags and the need to look critically at people's behaviour, if we could teach the next generation of women not to tolerate this behaviour, to treasure themselves and their safety that would be a wonderful legacy

What would it take for some people to stop making it about themselves and just attend to the content of an article?

I often assume there is some sort of bat signal that goes out to defend the menz. I assume the comments from the NRA brigade lining up to criticise Alec Baldwin are from the same boiler room.

To be fair, I also think a number of the feminist commentators are here too.