Can we talk about female violence? I need to get my response straight

[GrassIsSinging]

I know this is celeb rubbish, but am finding my blood boiling over comments from FB friends and the like over the Solange Knowles -punching-Jay Z debacle.

Lots of seemingly conscious, smart, reasonable people condemning violence of any sort (great, agreed), but then saying things like 'the double standards in society sicken me...Chris brown beats Rihanna and he is a monster...Solange attacks Jay Z and people dont respond in the same way'. Others (people I thought were decent) saying 'You couldnt have blamed him for hitting back...people have a right to defend themselves' etc.

This riles me massively. Am I a freak for thinking that male violence against women IS often (not always, but very often) much more devastating than vice versa? Because men are usually physically stronger...because male violence against women is a huge problem in this world...? And that a decent man will not hit a woman, even if provoked. Is this an 'old fashioned ' view now?

Feminism doesnt mean we now have to accept men punching us, ffs!

Depressed...

1. Provide some sources if you wish, BillandTed.

1. It shouldn't be difficult to see the meaning: inter-episode, rather than intra-episode.

1. This has to do with the chronicity of violence. From the second study,

"There was no signi?cant
difference between males and females in the
chronicity of physical aggression overall".

One shove wouldn't be very meaningful, especially if there were no further violent episodes.

"One shove wouldn't be very meaningful, especially if there were no further violent episodes."

Hmm.

One shove, or even the very real threat of a shove/ punch/ push, can instil caution into someone smaller and lighter and ensure that they never challenge too hard again, just in case that threat becomes real or that shove is repeated harder.

Lots of men can control the women they live with using very little physical violence. The unspoken background threat of it is sufficient to ensure compliance.

Lots of men can control the women they live with using very little physical violence. The unspoken background threat of it is sufficient to ensure compliance.

Yup, it's usually how it starts.

The example was of a shove by the woman.

So when it's a woman shoving a man, followed by no further episodes of violence, then it's not necessarily "meaningful", unlike the other way round where the whole relationship dynamic can change?

This is kickass' example:

It's not just me that thinks that. The law can take into account the potential threat of violence from one partner to another. So, my friend whose ex-H leans over her, shouting in her face and screaming abuse can get a restraining order against him, even though he hasn't actually hit her. When she has physically pushed him out of her house and shut the door in his face, he hasn't got a legal right to get a restraining order against her, because there is no credible threat of violence there. In fact, it could be argued that this is an example of unidirectional female to male violence as she pushed him out the door, and all he did was shout. Was she being abusive? I would say she's acting in self defense. Was he being abusive? I would say he is deliberately intending to intimidate and scare her.

In this case, a shove out the door would indeed not be meaningful. If, however, the relationship were to continue and the woman were to repeatedly shove the man around...

Switch the sexes, and the same analysis holds.

My problem is that I don't think that anyone denies that men are stronger and that the violence that they commit is generally more catastrophic.
The vast majority of domestic violence and abuse is imo carried out by men and the majority of serious abuse is carried out by men.

I do have some issue with the down playing or negation of violence and domestic abuse that is perpetrated by women. I see the patriarchal spheres of influence but there is a side of domestic abuse that is more particular to women ime. There is often a more sustained level of verbal abuse, controlling, bullying and paranoid behaviours are apparent and isolating patterns are also all too visible.
Some of these women will have experienced this in previous relationships or as children. Some will have serious issues with anger, control, self esteem.
I find that the lack of help for these women is astonishing. I often feel that agencies that should or could offer help and support feel that acknowledging the issue will somehow take away from or muddy the waters of the abuse perpetrated by men.

I think that if we need to try to end domestic abuse that we must offer support to men and women. We can empathise but must get them to own their behaviour. I constantly find myself making excuses for female violence and domestic abuse because I personally do not want to face or accept it. I do not make the same excuses for men and would not allow it in my presence.
This sits poorly with me

Here's an analogy.

Imagine the Crips and the Bloods are in a turf war (or alternatively, an Orange and an IRA, if that makes more sense). One of them pulls out a knife. The other pulls out a gun. As an officer of the law, do you:

1. Book both of them.
2. Arrest the gun-wielder and provide services to the knife-wielder because they are a victim who was oppressed by the gun-wielder
3. Enrol both of them into a community outreach program to teach them emotional coping and self-control skills, as well as to educate them on the detrimental impact of their behavior on the wider community, their families and friends, etc.

Just saying that in literal examples of the above, Option 2 is never considered and Option 3 produces empirically-supported results.

Montmorency - I'm not quite sure what your main argument is. I know that this is a complex subject but I can't quite work out if you're arguing that context should or should not be taken into account. If we only look at the amount of damage inflicted (primarily physically from your pov, I think) then men are the main abusers. there has never been a study which show more women killing men than the other way around. In fact, there is a very consistent figure of 75% of IPV resulting in death being men killing women. So if we ignore context then women are the main victims. Even the studies which you cited clearly state that men hit more frequently, more times and with more impact.

If we do take context into account then your two recent examples are a little misleading (I believe the crips one is from The Clockwork Orange but I'm dredging my memory from decades ago)

If you take into account the context of IPV then you need to remember that we live in a society where women earn less, run less businesses, have less say in politics, are younger than their partners, shorter and weaker than their partners, have more responsibility for children and spend more time running the home. Given how much that makes the woman tied to the home/children (so less able to make independent decisions), and how hard it is for a woman to survive once separated - about 90% of single parent families living in poverty are headed by a woman - then the context of IPV is really important.

To me, it seems laughable that we see a 50/50 split between a divorcing couple as 'fair'. It would seem logical that whichever parent is going to be the main childcarer should get a split which takes into account the number of people who will be living on that money. Only in a case of 50/50 residency would it seem that a 50/50 split makes sense. Yet that is the 'ideal' to which we hold. So a woman with a violent partner looks at her monthly budget and then tries to imagine feeding and clothing her kids on half the amount. If you read any of the information about why women stay the financial insecurity, along with the emotional damage involved, is a huge factor. These issues cannot be ignored with a simple 'but women hit as well' argument. Even in bi-drectional violent relationships, the women are coming off worse, and are less often the instigators of violence.

this doesn't even touch on the other forms of abuse which precede the use of violence by a controlling person.

to the person who mentioned how women nag etc as a form of oppression/control by women - start with reading up on discourse analysis to see the truth of how much men/women speak, about what and in what ways. The nagging wife is most frequently a myth, or when she does exist is actually the result of a controlling man who denies her agency and gives her support. There are some women who attempt to control and oppress their partners, but the consistent findings on this are that they are vanishingly rare. Even where a woman may attempt to do this, the constructs of society are such that men more often walk than remain in the relationship, as it is so much easier for them.

Sadly, those are real gangs:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crips

Otherwise thoroughly agree with your post, kickass. And feel that Mont's pulling a gun vs pulling a knife is a false analogy - both can cause fatalities but only one requires close physical contact - hammer vs rolling pin might be closer to represent "disparity of blow strength"

"Even the studies which you cited clearly state that men hit more frequently, more times and with more impact."

They stated that men are overly-represented in the most severe violence.

"and are less often the instigators of violence."

Well, no, that's one of the main findings in fact.

Here is an interesting and very recent study (2014) that divided up the violence into categories of "Controlling" vs. "Non-controlling/Situational", in addition to the standard severe vs. non-severe injuries. The image has the most interesting results shown. The results for prevalence are basically similar to what the previously-cited studies found. It seems this study captures your narrative for unidirectional M-to-F violence but, as it is incomplete, adds to it.

My point is merely that the fact of men committing the most severe violence should not erase the lesser violence and aggression, which women clearly participate in as often as, if not more than, men. My point is that both sides of the equation must be taken into account when approaching a solution to the problem. My point is that women are not in fact powerless much of the time, and so should not be represented as such. Less power is not equivalent to no power.

I think that we are also in some ways saying that nothing has changed in terms of finance and autonomy.

Many women now have the financial wherewithal to leave abusive partners and do not. It is a much larger picture. The same is true for men who are abused. They may be able to leave but the nature of the relationship that they are in is such that they are frozen within it.
There are also many men who stay in abusive relationships because they are frightened of what might happen to their children if they leave. This isn't purely a one way street but a pretty grim cycle with help only really available for men.

When I spoke earlier about verbally abusive women I was not talking about 'nagging'. I was discussing an element of domestic abuse that is felt very keenly and that can be hugely damaging to the recipient.

"My point is that women are not in fact powerless much of the time, and so should not be represented as such. Less power is not equivalent to no power."

And?

What are we to make of that?

What light does it shed on the reality of domestic violence, the consequences thereof (2 men a week are not being murdered by their female partners) and the original subject of the thread, which is exploring the pretence that DV is committed in a contextless vacuum with no differing power relations, physical disparity or psychological aspect?

You do know that the ratio of male/female earnings has changed very little over the past decade? the 'average' (mean) figure is 75c. to every $ earned. In post-grad professional situations, where the male and female have the same degree, same results, same industry, same company, same boss, then men typically earn 7 - 11 % more than their female counterparts. (Forbes)

So when you say 'many' women, how 'many' does it need to be? Because there are some women who earn more than their partners, but the numbers are incredibly small and not on the increase. If by 'many' you mean more than 100, then I would agree. If by 'many' you mean a significant % of the population, there is no evidence for this.

You could argue that living within a welfare state means that no-one is ever in the position to stay in a relationship when they are at risk. The factors which make it hard to leave, even when money isn't the issue, are still relevant. They also apply far more to women than men. If you look at the figures for the relative wealth of women survivors v men survivors, then men are better off.

"What are we to make of that?"

It's really a simple point. To make my earlier analogy less specific, what some might see as a power-structure wherein there is unmitigated victimization of women by men (with respect to DV/IPV) is actually more like the one between a pair of warring gangbangers. It's just that one of them is better-armed than the other.

From my first post: Clearly, a gender-specific approach to domestic violence/abuse must go much deeper than simply targeting or relying upon gender stereotypes.

It matters as to the solution, see?

Right.
So you're ignoring all the structural inequality in society which underpins and supports the violence by one of the gangs then?

That sounds like a not particularly valuable or feminist approach to violence.

Also acknowledging structural inequality is not relying on gender stereotypes. It simply er, acknowledges structural inequality.

Better armed?

You mean physically, psychologically, economically, legally, socially?

"So you're ignoring all the structural inequality in society which underpins and supports the violence by one of the gangs then?"

I'm claiming that this is what you are doing.

"Better armed?"

Better weapons, better armor. If you really need another instantiation, imagine one has a dagger and street clothes while the other has a mace and Kevlar.

Why?

I find your posts bewildering and opaque.

Are you here to communicate or obfuscate?

There was another discussion on here recently about the minimisation of women's sporting achievements, and how the gap in speed and strength between genders was exaggerated in order to keep focus away from women's sporting abilities and achievements. So, which is it? Are women really massively weaker? Because the other thread did not seem to think so. Which might suggest that levels of physical damage inflicted might come down to levels of aggression, temper and attitude rather than pure physicality.

"I find your posts bewildering and opaque."

How? That's unhelpfully vague.

I'm doing my best with each post to articulate the idea very carefully and clearly. Fundamentally, it involves realizing that structural, contextual, or raw physical disadvantage does not preclude the disadvantaged party from engaging in the same problematic behaviors as the other party, and at the same rate and with the same detrimental effect to the social fabric.

More bluntly, refusal to target both male and female behaviors and mindsets in light of empirical evidence that both contribute substantially to the problem at hand is simply an abdication of responsibility and credibility.

But - correct me if I am wrong - feminism does not seek to alter women's behaviour/mindset. It seeks to alter men's. Is that a fair summation?

No, it should transform both, or else it is at best incomplete, and at worst ineffectual and irrelevant. Presently, that is why I stress the importance of the considerations I've presented on the issue of IPV.