When I talk about DV against women to some men.....

[Fireirons]

They immediately turn the conversation around to women being violent towards men. Yep. Women are also violent. I agree.

Yes there is no way violence is acceptable either way

But I cannot even begin to articulate my arguments about how women are often helpless, abused to an extent to being too terrified to leave, have no financial independence, no where to go, threatened, raped etc

I was shaking with anger the other day by a guy who just shouted me down...........that proved my point to a way. He asked for stats and then didn't believe them and tried for 45 minutes to Google stats for male DV.

Are there rescue centres for victims of male domestic violence seeking sanctuary?

I have nc for this.

Yep I have experienced DV.

Same here.

It's as though just identifying that there is a need for women to have this support pisses off a certain type of man.

I'd go one step further and say that, when I have provided links/phone numbers to men's support groups who have done a "what about men" thing when we're talking about DV, they have been ignored or I've been told they must be crap because they aren't famous like the women's ones. Who's fault is it that the various support groups for men are not well known? Because I'm going to take a wild stab in the dark and suggest that it's not feminists who are stopping anyone from spreading the word. In fact, this feminist has told several people about them.

Doesn't this then link back to what the OP said? A man spending time, energy & anger to prove a woman wrong but not to use all that in support of male victims. It's so common. That's why some feminists get arsey about men asking what about men. They aren't being arsey about male victims themselves.

Buffy I've seen that happen in real life. As soon as the woman retaliated the man called the police. She has needed hospital treatment in the past. He is fine. She is now in counselling to work on her issues to stop her being a "DV perpetrator" while he is seen as wonderful for helping her despite her issues (which he helped cause). She doesn't even have her own phone anymore & she works with him. He has destroyed her and owns her.

thats just it, the man i know who was a DV victim, i could write his story out and it would have red flags, typical pattern abuse all over it.

The fact that in a moment of weakness, after years of systematic bullying and emotional abuse, he engaged in a short term online emotional affair has allowed his ex-wife to pass herself off as the victim, the wronged woman who was cheated on.

Its the same for many men, only you replace the cheated on with their wife/spouse being pushed into physical retaliation, and the man can suddenly say they are the victim.

People seem to forget, the abusers are master manipulators, its always about making them appear squeaky clean and innocent.

Helena Kennedy wrote about how women perpetrators of violence are judged far more harshly than men, both by the legal system and by wider society. Men are expected to be violent, women are not. Women are expected to be the peacemakers.

It's very interesting, and very true, imo. Threads on MN have horrified me sometimes - the woman holding a newborn baby in bed, arguing with her dh. Her dh went to take the baby from her, she kicked him away. How do you think that went for her? It was shameful.

The woman whose dh's job was to take the recycling bin out - in a temper he threw the bin and all the recycling went everywhere. He refuse to clear it up, so she cleared it up, and whilst doing so threw a drinks can at him. He wasn't hurt. She was vilified on that thread, for being 'violent'.

Funnily enough, you never get men asking 'AIBU to headbut, punch and kick my dw?' Or: 'She annoyed me, so I slammed her against the wall, and broke her ribs. WIBU?'

Or, WIBU to strangle the mother of my child to death after a text argument because i'd been in the pub all day? Legal system: "well, YWNBcompletelyU. Seven years imprisonment. The Gaby Miron Buchacra case

It's from various feminist sources though, every time i've dipped into the feminism forums here i've struggled to associate with the conversation, and when it crops up in the news it's not normally positive.. idk really i'm happy to have my perceptions changed, i want feminism to work and be successful i'd just like to see a more considerate and reasonable approach to issues than i see demonstrated currently.

the last thread i saw that was similar, a woman was asking about if she was abusive because she had scared her dh in an argument by waving her arms in a threatening way so he thought she was going to hit him, but because he had said something innapropriate to dc people were saying he was abusive, and even went as far as to say the anger management therapy he'd had had just been an exercise in justifying violence!

Do you know who Baroness Helena Kennedy is?

Baroness Helena Kennedy

I mean, no offence to feminist bloggers/columnists - but she's not not that.

She's a barrister and human rights lawyer, a member of the House of Lords, who writes from her experience of the legal system.

Lego: i'd just like to see a more considerate and reasonable approach to issues

Sabrinna: Women are expected to be the peacemakers.

Are you 100% sure, Lego, that you're not dismissing feminist arguments because they don't fit your idea of women being peacable, placatory, and generally nice?

Some feminists are angry to a degree that strikes me as unreasonable - so are some men, some black people, some muslims, some old people, and some of everyone basically.

By far the vast majority of feminists aren't unreasonable. It's fairly normal to feel angry when considering injustice and, in such cases, it's wise to express that anger honestly & assertively. A lot of people dislike women being honest & assertive, especially when they have a good point. But you don't get your injustices addressed by apologetically whispering in a corner, do you?

I was just imagining Rosa Parks sparking a revolution by simpering nicely at the white men and saying she'd really rather not move if it wasn't too inconvenient for everyone or Martin Luther King gently telling America that discrimination isn't awfully nice really, and perhaps people might like to consider whether they're being completely fair. Or Spartacus's mates mumbling "I dunno who he is"

woman was asking about if she was abusive because she had scared her dh in an argument by waving her arms in a threatening way so he thought she was going to hit him

She didn't hit him. That's the point. Yet she was being labelled abusive.

When men hit, punch and kick women, they do them damage. They hospitalise them. They kill them at a rate of 2 per week, each week.

When men hit women it is about control, about ownership and power over women - those men think that their place in society is above the women they live with. And that's patriarchy.

There is no way it is a level playing field. Not on any level.

sabrinna no idea who that is if you were asking me!

I accept the consequences of course, pay inequality, women working double/triple shift, lack of representative female mps etc. all of those should 100% be challenged and criticised.

I'm not totally sure that's the social norm though, i think there's a lot of awareness and support for female victims of dv, yes there should be more and police could be better trained to deal with it but on the whole i think society is very sympathetic to female victims. Maybe that's my issue, i just think conversations should be respectful to all and sometimes acknowledge that at the root of it, bad people do bad things, not just men.

Are you 100% sure, Lego, that you're not dismissing feminist arguments because they don't fit your idea of women being peacable, placatory, and generally nice? what on earth gave you that idea?!!! i have no such ideas about women and never have i've always been outspoken myself and applauded outspoken, ballsy women!! you are totally misunderstanding me, and to clarify, not all feminists act this way but it is a section and a section that make themselves heard i don't think it's doing any good.

She didn't hit him. That's the point. Yet she was being labelled abusive.
yes quite rightly, i didn't say on that thread "she is abusive" but that behaviour was abusive! only earlier on on this thread someone cried their exasperation at women who don't think they're abused "because he didn't punch me" using threatening, intimidating behaviour to scare someone is abusive behaviour.

I can't tell what it is you're arguing tbh, lego.

I'm not looking for an argument, i just put my opinion out there and have been responding to people's questions/comments

At least you know who Helena Kennedy is now

But why are so many of the bad people who do bad things men?

The narrative in society is already bad people do bad things not that men disproportionately to their percentage of the population do the bad things.

When this simple, verifiable, quantifiable fact is pointed out it is not received well by most of the population. Instead there's angry denial like the OP encounteted, or feminists are mean (even when it's men being hideous to male victims of dv).

I mostly just ignore feminists I disagree with. They are not the problem I face in the world. It serves the patriarchy well for women to get tangled up in infighting. It's nothing new, but it's nothing new to have women policing other women. It's sort of an intellectual body policing, oh your feminist views are just a bit fat, they take up too much space, perhaps you could have slimmer feminist views & maybe dress them up a bit prettier to be more attractive to men.

just to clarify again.. i have zero interest or notions about women censoring themselves to please men or anything similar.. zero.

Lego, I don't think feminists would be happy to just leave it at "bad people do bad things". I think the narrative would need to be more along the lines of "society is currently set up in such a way that women are systematically disadvantaged. So when bad people do bad things, this often plays out in a gendered way."

This could include a male victim of dv feeling emasculated and open to mockery. This is a problem of a sexist society, and something feminists would want to see change.

(I should say this is based on my own probably pretty feeble understanding of feminism - I've not been here long, nor read a great deal. But I'm sure others will say, if they think my understanding is way off.)