Misleading campaign trying to con the UK about the horrific level of domestic violence committed by men against women

[BigChocFrenzy]

A dadsnet thread came up last night on active, asking us to sign a petition to the Royal Borough of Greenwich that they change their poster against domestic violence "Dad's have to change."

The thread claims FALSELY that "women perpetrate physical and emotional abuse at comparable rates to men"

This campaign is pushed by the usual suspects of F4J and Torygraph, part of a broader aim to downplay male violence against women. It is conning an increasing number of people, especially those inclined anyway to make excuses for men.

Karen Smith has an excellent blog analysing statistics to show domestic violence is overwhelmingly MALE:
(CPS stats over 5 years) 93.4% of those convicted were MALE.

Female victims are far more likely to suffer violence, to suffer more repeated incidents, to suffer worse injury.
Contrary to popular myth, men are MORE likely to report an incident and to continue with prosecution.

Home Office statistics for England & Wales show on average per year:
. 100 women killed by past or present male partners
. 10 men also killed by MALE partners
. 20 men killed by female partners

So, 20 female killers for every 110 male killers.

See also the very sad Counting Dead Women

Not no posters, rather they should not be seen as the primary course of action. When funds are scarce, I fear that creating posters is a bit like ticking boxes. They can make it look like a problem is being tackled more than it is.

We should concentrate on the female killers, obviously more of them are getting away with it.

I thought you were worried about the posters triggering a sudden loss of control?

That is a concern too. I have said before, I don't believe the problem of DV is one dimensional.

Many men who are violent with their intimate partners when drunk or high do not commit violence against anyone else when in that state. If you treat their addiction without addressing their choice to use violence, you will likely just have a clean and sober batterer.

I never suggested choices should never be addressed. However this cannot be done in isolation, that is without acknowledging and tackling addictions, anxieties, deluded thinking, unresolved anger, fears and whatever else has contributed to the abusive behaviour.

Yet it's so uncontrolled that you only attack your partner and in most cases have worked out if he/she is going to be easy to manipulate and abuse by date 3

This.

Any answer to that one, capsium? What exactly is it about this 'uncontrolled' anger that you seem to imagine excuses everything, that means it affects people's partners/children and doesn't seem to extend to the wider community who believed 'he was such a nice man'?

Jeanne

You seem to conflating 'excuse' with 'explain'.

People who have problems managing their emotions and behaviour are often able hold it together for limited amounts of time, with purposeful effort, but are not so good at sustaining this effort. So they let their 'guard down' at home as they feel safer. They might not like going out in public either.

I don't excuse this at all. But don't find this phenomenon surprising either.

But you are refusing to explain anything.

Can you explain why violence happens?

Can you explain why it is gendered?

Can you explain why it affects women and children so disproportionately?

Jeanne I am saying there is no one easy answer. Each case will be individual and complex.

But simplistically:

Why gendered? Socialisation over many generations leading to physical propensities which might develop dysfunctionally, depending upon the environmental conditions affecting gene expression epigenetically (so a meta stable propensity)

Why violence happens? It is a primal animalistic instinct. It happens in other species.

Why women and children are affected? They are typically vulnerable - in that they rarely fight back in defence.

Ah, 'simplistically'.

So you are saying men are naturally violent, and unable to overcome their animal instincts to batter their women and children.

Sorry, no. I don't believe it for a moment.

If humans were unable to deviate from the worst of animal behaviour, we would also have no issues with murder or racism. We'd kill the elderly and we'd eat our young.

I always find it interesting that those who follow the 'it's nature innit' argument never look at the fact that animals have also been seen to ostracise violent members of the group, especially those who harm children, to care for their elderly and young, and for weaker members of the group.

What you are proposing are excuses, not explanations.

Jeanne you've completely ignore where the epigenetic, meta stability I talked about.

If something is inherited epigenetically the gene expression can be varied, in that it can be affected by environment. Which means some people will be affected and some won't by the same gene due to the possibility of epigenetic variance in the expression.

^where I said. Typo.

Yes, thank you for glossing your terminology, in case I'm really slow of thinking. I appreciated that.

Unfortunately, I did also think it made you sound as if you had neither an argument, nor a response.

Do you have one?

Why exactly is it that violence is gendered - ignoring the fact that (as we all know), not all men are gendered, and some aren't?

Why is it that this violence disproportionately affects women and children?

No more flannel answers that reduce to 'uh, some men aren't violent', please.

*not all men are violent, not 'not all men are gendered'.

Though, frankly, I know why I made that slip and I'm pretty sure gender is the root cause.

Because of the nature of epigenetic gene expression means environment (and our response to it), affects the way genes can be expressed. So a physiological state can be passed on, to some extent, but given the right environmental conditions, dysfunction might never arise.

www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/scientists-discover-how-epigenetic-information-could-be-inherited

So there is a combination of sources, environmental ones (socialisation, diet, stress factors) and inherited physiological state. Both sources interact with each other and with the person experiencing them.

Centuries of male dominance and sense of ownership.

Sorry ^the above is why I believe there can be a predisposition in the first place.

Triggers to activate a predisposition towards violence could be substance abuse and stress.

Although within sectors of society where male dominance and sense of ownership remains as a culture, this factor is not omitted, which feeds back into the group's physiological state.

Six generations of feudal privilege stirred in Lord Peter's blood and all that...?

Did cave people turn violence on their own family group (genes)? That would seem to be contraindicated by the selfish gene's best interests.

Domestic abuse is not a anger issue, it is a power and control issue.

Amen. Rape isn't about an uncontrolled urge for sex, DV isn't about an uncontrolled anger response.

My abuser somehow managed perfectly well to control his 'anger' and violence around everyone except me and his mother. Funny that. So even if it is a gene, even if there is some kind of hard-wired tendency, these men can in fact control themselves when they want to. There's something that prevents them from lashing out at absolutely everyone and only doing it in private with vulnerable (and often female) people. That is why it is a choice to commit violence and not some kind of uncontrolled, unrecognised, victim-themselves status.

For me, understanding why that man did what he did was completely secondary to reclaiming my life, confidence, self-esteem and power. Who cares why he did it? He was a deeply troubled misogynistic sadist - so what? Am I cured now? Is he?

At a society-wide level, the more support we give to victims, the better. The more we (sometimes using posters) say DV isn't OK, the better. The more light we shine on these issues, the better. The more DV isn't kept private, the better. The more we say we are not afraid of abusers, the better.

This poster is just saying that violent men can change their behaviour. That it is possible. Whether you think that behaviour is caused by genetic tendencies or socialisation or victimhood or patriarchy, the solution at an individual level is still changing that behaviour.

And if all abusers are victims, the focus should still be on helping and supporting victims. Not pussyfooting around perpetrators.

I've had enough now, I'm tapping out. I don't want to get so angry I go and beat someone up

"Whether you think that behaviour is caused by genetic tendencies or socialisation or victimhood or patriarchy, the solution at an individual level is still changing that behaviour. "

YY to this and the rest of your post.

I'm out now too, this is not a thread that's helping victims any more.

capsium, you're not actually saying anything here, are you? You're saying 'men might be more violent than women because Science Big Words' and hoping we'll all say, reverently, 'ah! Science Big Words! It must be true!'

Violence is not a matter of genetics. It is not located somewhere on the Y chromosome. It is partly a matter of socialisation, sure, I believe that - but that in no way explains why a poster encouraging fathers to feel that violence isn't macho, is a bad thing. You have talked a lot, very vaguely, about 'understanding' or 'individual cases'. You have not provided any actual answers, or any understanding of what contributes to a culture of gendered violence.

Do you actually have those things to say?

Because increasingly, your posts sound like ways of justifying this culture, making it sound as if it's just too complicated and difficult for anyone to do anything about the problem of violence.