Domestic Violence - Far from gender neutral

[scallopsrgreat]

Domestic abuse could not be further from gender neutral. Wake up Britain

Yep so those MRAs are gaslighting us. Just in case you had any doubt.

I've just skim read it and it doesn't seem to link to the research which I'd be interested to read.

"This is due to a 'cap' on the number of crimes recorded, which stops counting after five repeat incidents against one victim. When this cap is removed, she said, violence against women by intimate partners rises by 70 per cent and violence against women by acquaintances by 100 per cent. It particularly affects those women who know, or even live with, the perpetrator. " Pretty shocking.

"...the Crime Survey of England and Wales (CSEW) doesn't account for a significant proportion of attacks on women (and that nearly half of all violent crime is committed against women)."

It also links to another article about the same thing: Million violent crimes a year 'cut out' of official figures

Actually it's not that men may not need 40% of the limited funds, they may well. But is that proportionate to problem and therefore do women just need the 60% left? The article is saying no.

Why has this thread become about male victims?

This news is that ONS has been misrepresenting the total amount of violent crime, with that particularly being the case for repeat victims of DV, and skewing the figures for female victims far more than male victims, and that is a really big deal.

If this is not a neutral study, explain what is wrong with the methods used in the study.

Otherwise claiming that it is DV against men that is particularly minimised is totally reversing what the news reports and research are claiming.

So are you saying that men need 40% of the resources available

No. I'm saying that the overall spend should be higher, and that the additional overall spend should go on women's services (which would obviously ultimately mean that the percentage spent on men's services should be lower). I think men and women should be campaigning for a higher absolute spend on addressing domestic violence.

I recognise that that money has to come from somewhere, and that no cut to another service is going to be palatable. But I submit that it's not logical in this instance that it should come from the like services aimed at men. There are very few areas in which I would say that men's interests are under-represented (in absolute, not relative terms) but this is one of them.

"Women's Aid chief Polly Neate explains why we need to start prioritising women over men"

Do you mean this from the subhead, bear? Because I think that's editorialising; I don't think Polly Neate is saying 'take funds from men', she is saying 'allotment of funds should be proportionate and perhaps the current stats are misrepresenting the proportions fleeing from the most acute, repeat violence who most urgently need to get away.'

I would love there to be sufficient suitable refuge places for everyone in need and I'm sure Polly Neate would too, but resources are constrained.

Why has this thread become about male victims?

Because the main thrust of the argument in the article is that funds should be removed from male victims. At the end of the day, they are victims too.

I'm advocating that spending should be increased on female victims. But that this should not be at the expense of male victims. The key word is 'victims'.

I think that might be two different issues though.

Should funding be increased generally speaking, yes. However with austerity on the increase that's unlikely to happen.

Even if it did, the proportion needs to be correct as well as the realisation of consequences. If women are more likely to be victims of dv, are more likely to be seriously injured and more likely to be killed, that needs to be reflected in funding allocation.

IS that really the main thrust, bear? Other than the subheader, what phrase makes you think that because it's not what I took from the article?

Understood yonic but the key finding isn't that 'the number of victims is the same but the male/female balance is different'. It's 'the problem is bigger than we thought in absolute terms and the deficit was on the male-on-female side'. The former demands a reallocation of existing provision; the latter demands an increase in provision.

Agree, soap box. If a hospital sees 100 cases of cancer and 200 cases of stroke, but it's currently got 3 cancer doctors and 3 stroke doctors, and a limited budget, it is a good idea to try and get funding for more doctors but in the meantime, hiring an additional stroke doctor and letting a cancer doctor go surely has to bring the highest 'population' benefit?

OK, I;m not really sure what we are arguing about any more, bear...

If 40% of funding has been allocated to men due to a set of highly misleading statistics, and no further funding is forthcoming, of course some of those funds should be reallocated to the group at most risk.

But the situation varies between local authorities.

Yonic, if I ran a hospital that was fucked for both stroke and cancer patients, I would be letting orthodontists and podiatrists go. It's unpalatable but better than the alternative.

If the ratio of violent crime victims male:female is 12:33 (if I've done my maths properly from those articles, it's not totally clear what the actual ratio is, nor is it clear how it applies specifically to domestic violence), then surely for every £12 spent on male victims of violence there should be £33 spent on women? That wouldn't 40% on men, it's more like 25%. So if 40% of an available pot is being spent on men and the pot isn't getting any bigger why would it be unfair to redistribute the 15% back to women?

Right, so by analogy you'd cut funding on traffic wardens or something and increase it to refuges?

The writer of the article isn't a minster who can make those decisions though. And I still don't think she is advocating cutting male refuge spending in preference to increasing overall funding. We've obviously interpreted it differently.

I think the thrust of the article is that DV is a. a far more serious issue than previously believed and that b. it is very much a gendered issue connected to sexism in society. As such, there needs to be something done about sexism in society and violence against women because of the vastness of the problem.

Polly Neate would absolutely welcome extra funding. I think its a bit ridiculous to suggest that she would want to 'steal' it off the men in some kind of competitive arm-wrestle. She campaigns all the time for extra funding.

"This news is that ONS has been misrepresenting the total amount of violent crime, with that particularly being the case for repeat victims of DV, and skewing the figures for female victims far more than male victims, and that is a really big deal." Yes absolutely. I linked to the second article because I felt that was actually better at explaining it.

Right, so by analogy you'd cut funding on traffic wardens or something and increase it to refuges?

Spot on. Sorry, I've obviously not expressed myself well. But surely you'd agree with this?

And yy almondcakes. That is absolutely what I took for it. The research not only spells out the scale of the problem but at least goes someway to explaining the nature of it too.

I would like to see the original figures. I am pretty shocked by the whole thing.

I had always believed, as is commonly said, that men were at far greater risk of violent crime. This research is saying women are almost half of the victims.

I also want to know about the 100% increase in acquaintance violent crime against women. Is that DV or things like violence related to stalking from a man the woman has never been in a relationship with?

Why has this thread become about male victims?

Because women are never, ever allowed to discuss DV or any other deeply gendered phenomenon without having to reframe it around men. Not on Twitter, in the real world nor on the feminism part of a parenting forum. It's not even men's fault, it's what they are socialised to do from birth so I completely don't blame bear and the other man (sorry, can't remember the handle) for doing it, but it does show why women's only spaces are so important when talking about things like this.

Yes I wondered about the acquaintance violence too almondcakes. That was particularly worrying.

Repeat acquaintance violence situations are sometimes reported. There have been some carried out against disabled women that got into the papers, but as it is much more common than is realised, how do we prepare ourselves - look out for potential perpetrators and watch out for signs someone else may be experiencing it? I don't think it gets much as discussion as DV, or at least I don't feel as aware of it.

Oh, and before I get leapt upon for being mean to men, or not understanding the issue, I really wasn't having a dig at anyone on this thread.

Puffins, it was the reversal that shocked me. The news is that DV against women in particular has been minimised comparatively to men's, and this has somehow been turned around on this thread to claiming that it is men's situation that has been particularly minimised.

It is shocking, however inevitable it is. And it is inevitable.