Violence against women

[LesserOfTwoWeevils]

Don't know if I'm feeling strong enough for a discussion, but wanted to pass on this link:

www.huffingtonpost.com/soraya-chemaly/violence-against-women-is_1_b_1121001.html

thanks for linking this. It would be a good article to discuss with people as part of the 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence which we are in the middle of (Nov 24 - Dec 10).

Thanks for posting Weevils. It might be worth quoting the statistics from the article:

"Consider femicide, which is the murder of women because they are women:

?In the United States, one-third of women murdered each year are killed by an intimate partner.
?In South Africa, a woman is killed every six hours by an intimate partner.
?In India in 2007, 22 women were killed each day in dowry-related murders.
?In Guatemala, two women are murdered, on average, each day.
?Honor killings, the murder of women for bringing shame to their families, happen all over the world, including the US.

What about slavery, which is what trafficking is?

?Women and girls comprise 80 percent of the estimated 800,000 people trafficked annually, with the majority (79 percent) trafficked for sexual exploitation.
?This number is on the low end. The U.N. International Labor Organization (ILO) estimates that 2.5 million people worldwide are victims, of which over half live in Asia Pacific.
?Trafficking, in the form of the importation of female sex slaves and use of children as sex workers, is on the rise in the U.S. and internationally has reached epic proportions.

Still not outraged? Because if not, there are always euphemistically titled "harmful practices" -- which are violent forms of torture and rape. For example:

?Approximately 100 to 140 million girls and women in the world have experienced female genital mutilation/cutting. Every year more than 3 million girls in Africa are at risk of the practice.

?Over 60 million girls worldwide are child brides, another euphemism if I ever heard one, married before the age of 18, primarily in South Asia (31.1 million and Sub-Saharan Africa (14.1 million).

?These numbers don't include bride burning, suspicious dowry-related "suicides" and "accidental" deaths or other hateful acts.

Now we're at plain old domestic and sexual violence:

?Every nine seconds in the US a woman is assaulted or beaten.
?According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, women experience about 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year.
?Around the world, at least one in every three women has been beaten, coerced into sex or otherwise abused during her lifetime.
?As many as one in four women experience physical and/or sexual violence during pregnancy, for example, which increases the likelihood of having a miscarriage, stillbirth and abortion.
?Up to 53 percent of women in the world are physically abused by their intimate partners - defined as either being kicked or punched in the abdomen.
?In Sao Paulo, Brazil, which is so much fun to visit, a woman is assaulted every 15 seconds.
?In Ecuador, adolescent girls reporting sexual violence in school identified teachers as the perpetrator in 37 per cent of cases."

The only thing I would say, is that all of the women and girls above aren't victims of violence as a sort of abstract concept, they are victims of men who choose to behave that way.

Interesting facts!

90% of DV is committed by Men against Women. However it should be noted that men are 5 times less likely to report DV.

The : "every 9 seconds a woman is assaulted in the US"... that surely can't be true as that would mean that: 3.25million assault cases would be registered... however official statistics list on www.disastercenter.com/crime/uscrime.htm

Violent incidents and aggravated assaults come in at less than 2million.

In the UK i read a survey recently that actually put Domestic Violence at about 50/50 and the only reason why 90% of DV is committed by men against women is because women are much more likely to report it.

Also because men are physically stronger, the injuries women sustain are more likely to be prevelant. There is more, however it never ceases to amaze me how little attention is shown to Female on Male DV.

Riakin, you've probably been reading studies based on the widely discredited "Conflict Tactics Scale" model if you've found stuff showing relationship abuse is about 50/50. You won't find any reliable data like British Crime Survey, NHS or police records that support such a distorted view.

This recent study from the NSPCC, for example, showed that violence and abuse in young people's relationships is gendered violence. It's young women and girls who experience emotional, sexual and physical violence from male partners and even where they "fight back," the physical and psychological impact on the young women is greater than on the young men.

I disagree that little attention is focussed on violence against men in relationships. I can hardly recall a rl conversation, an article in the media followed by reader comments or a radio or tv discussion programme about domestic abuse were very, very early on, someone points out that men suffer abuse to or suggests it's worse for men than for women for reason x, y or z.

Like racist attacks by people of colour on white people, like harassment of non-disabled people by disabled people, like discrimination by gay men and Lesbians against straight folks, yes, it does happen. But, the dynamics and context are different and while any kind of abuse or violence in a trusting relationship is wrong, is condemnable, we can't get away from the fact that women and girls suffer in disproportionately high numbers compared to men and boys.

Its not from that at all. Domestic Violence i firmly believe is definately 50/50 or not far shy of that figure. With reference to the British Crime Survey, NHS or Police records. You are right, there won't be the evidence simply because there isn't the reporting.

The studies by the NSPCC also concluded in a publication in 2009 that: "showed that girls who had rung its Childline had said they were more likely to be a victim of physical abuse from their mothers than their fathers" and indeed 37% of physical abuse to young girls was from mothers compared 25% for Fathers.

And according to the NSPCC website: "Infants and boys are more likely to be physically abused than older children and girls." and continues: "The rate of physical injury to registered children is highest among the under one year olds (DoH, 2001) and boys." and a little more "Young women were also more likely to have experienced serious physical abuse in their childhood than young men (Cawson et al, 2000), though young men had experienced more intermediate physical abuse.".

Indeed continuing with NSPCC statistics: "whilst a quarter were living with their natural mother and a father substitute (Creighton, 1992)."

You firmly believe against all the evidence Riakin? Why?

indeed 37% of physical abuse to young girls was from mothers compared 25% for Fathers.

Who was the other 38% from?

The subject of this thread is violence against women. The NSPCC/Bristol Uni study I cited is entitled, "Standing on my own two feet: disadvantaged teenagers, intimate partner violence and coercive control." It refers to abuse within teen relationships which the study concludes is markedly gendered.

You are talking about abuse of children by their parents, kinship carers, etc., which is something very different. Basically, you seem to be changing the subject because you don't have the evidence to back up "what you firmly believe."

Are you not familiar with how the British Crime Survey is carried out? There tend to be higher figures for reporting of violence in relationships by both men and women as compared to say, police figures, because data is anonymous and there is no requirement for a victim to make a complaint.

Can you cite the evidence showing that men are less likely to disclose violence against them from a partner than women are? If you are just assuming that men keep shtum and women run to the police every time there's an incident, then your argument has no basis in fact.

I think it's pretty clear that your agenda is to be provocative, not to engage in constructive discussion about the issue, so I think I'll just toddle on and do something more useful with my time than refuting your baseless assertions. Ciao!

Ah, and the conspiracy theory stuff about Marianne Hester! So, you're happy to cherry pick data from NSPCC reports that suit your agenda, but reject evidence from another NSPCC report (that Hester wasn't even involved in,) because you don't like its conclusions. Oh, right.

The irony is that if men are less likely to report to the BCS, it is partly (?mainly) because of patriarchal notions of masculinity.

The Patriarchy is bad for men too.

Apparently it takes an average of 35 attacks before a woman will report her violent partner to the authorities.

Most women who are raped by men don't report it either.