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

Jeanne

I am not attempting to justify violent crime, at all, it is wrong.I have repeatedly stressed this. Added to this, it is very clear to me that a culture that perpetuates violence against women and children is broken.

I don't believe it is "just too complicated and difficult for anyone to do anything about the problem of violence.", either. I just believe it is not as simple as telling perpetrators they are wrong and to choose to change their behaviour without ensuring they have the tools to do this. Any degree of punishment might not be enough motivation for them to stop. Prisons are full of serial offenders.

One example would be someone whose violence is about ensuring they are dominant and in control. For them making the right choice not to exert control through the threat of violence, might not feel good at all, it might cause high levels of anxiety. So they have to learn how to cope with this anxiety in order to want to choose to give up control. They may lack empathy, or repress it, because they do not ever allow themselves to be out in the position their victims are in - so appealing to their sense of empathy might have limited success. I don't view such dysfunction as permissible or excusable but I can understand how it might operate.

put not out. Typo.

I think energy and resource is better spent doing something about men's mental health services etc

I agree, Buffy, this was what I was advocating up-thread.

One example would be someone whose violence is about ensuring they are dominant and in control. For them making the right choice not to exert control through the threat of violence, might not feel good at all, it might cause high levels of anxiety. So they have to learn how to cope with this anxiety in order to want to choose to give up control. They may lack empathy, or repress it, because they do not ever allow themselves to be out in the position their victims are in - so appealing to their sense of empathy might have limited success. I don't view such dysfunction as permissible or excusable but I can understand how it might operate.

And how are you going to do this?

How is it incompatible with this campaign?

You claim you don't want to excuse violence, but don't you see that when you insist that current plans won't work, and can't work, and yet you have no concrete plans and no explanations for why you think they won't work, it comes across as dismissive?

If we all sat around say 'well, let's just ensure violent men are dominant and in control', what do you think would happen? Next time I hear things about my friend's marriage that make me worry for her safety, should I just tell her 'ensure he's dominant and in control, dear. It's very hard for him coping with his anxiety'.

Really?

And do you think it'd be a good idea for a professional working in this area to be saying that to her, either?

Jeanne, you are twisting my words. No where on this thread have I indicated that I advocated just letting a perpetrator of violent crime remain dominant. If anxiety is contributing towards dysfunctional violent behaviour, I am advocating teaching the person affected (perpetrator) how to tackle their anxiety, through CBT or similar. They need to be taught how to cope with not being in control, which involves experiencing not being in control - opportunity to learn in practise being necessary for learning for learning to take place.

No, I'm not twisting your words.

I am asking you what you actually think should be done - leaving aside the empty words, how do you propose this should be done?

If you feel disturbed by the idea of someone reassuring a violent person he should be 'dominant', maybe you need to consider there's a problem with your plan, in that when it is put into a real life situation, it suddenly looks remarkably like excusing and encouraging violent men.

Buffy I have said, I wholly am in favour of victims getting all the support they need. However on this thread I expect my, repeated, assurances of this have been ignored, because it is not at all controversial. So conversation has focussed on questioning me advocating those with the most dysfunctional behaviour getting support, I suspect because they are undeserving. However, if dysfunctional behaviour is to be tackled, the dysfunctional needs to be made functional.

Ok. So, you're saying, we need CBT for violent people.

Sure, that's fair.

And why does that mean this campaign is a bad idea?

CBT works by helping people to change how they respond to situations. This poster is actually quite close to CBT's aims, in that it is giving violent men an image of themselves as strong if they avoid violence. It's a practical, simple encouragement to change behaviour.

I don't think it's perfect or the only possible solution, and I think we've covered that. What I don't understand is why, until you're backed into a corner, all you want to talk about is how hard it is to understand violence, how much nebulous 'help' violent men need, and how little we can trust stats or established approaches. It's only when I've pushed like crazy - and I'm sorry you feel pushed - that you spit out something practical, like CBT. And even then, it's impossible to see why this makes you disagree so much with the original point of the thread.

It does feel like a series of excuses. I do get that you may not intend that and you probably feel you're just being empathetic towards violent people, and not meaning to do any harm. But excusing violence is harmful.

Jeanne

If you feel disturbed by the idea of someone reassuring a violent person he should be 'dominant', maybe you need to consider there's a problem with your plan, in that when it is put into a real life situation, it suddenly looks remarkably like excusing and encouraging violent men.

There isn't a problem with my plan because this isn't my plan. To suggest it is, is twisting my words.

I don't have a plan, I mainly talked about my reservations concerning the poster campaign. Discussing the validity of the poster, I thought was the point of the thread. There would be little to discuss if nobody talked about their reservations.

I'm not twisting anything.

Read my post. I said, if your plan is put into a real life situation, then it becomes appalling. You said that violent people need to feel 'dominant and in control'. The point is, that sounds lovely when it's a vague idea about CBT, and some kind of 'help' you want to provide. It's less good when you think about the actual ramifications of making people feel that way, isn't it? So, if it would be a bad idea in practice, maybe it's worth considering it might be the wrong approach?

The issue I have with your 'reservations' is that they don't seem to rest on anything more complex than 'I don't like the idea that violence is gendered and I want to excuse violent men'. I accept you don't seem aware that this is how you're coming across, and I think you'd probably be quite shocked if you could see how your posts read. But it is a problem, especially on MN where lots of women are survivors of DV.

It does feel like a series of excuses. I do get that you may not intend that and you probably feel you're just being empathetic towards violent people, and not meaning to do any harm. But excusing violence is harmful.

But I don't excuse violence, so you have no reason to have a problem with me here.

From my observations over a few threads, I suspect this is because I do not project feelings of anger towards the perpetrators of violent crime. Calling perpetrators 'bastards' or similar seems to evoke a sense camaraderie across the boards. However this unsettles me as I don't associate anger as embueing someone with power.

Imbuing. Typo.

You are excusing violence every time you insist it's to do with more than violent people deciding to be violent, I think.

I don't call perpetrators 'bastards', do I? You're now attacking someone who isn't me.

Anger doesn't imbue someone with power, no: but people who are prepared to be violent are powerful because they have decided they will hurt another person. Most of us don't do that, no matter how angry we are. And all the magic thinking in the world, all the platitudes about how you don't feel anger imbues someone with power, won't change that, will they?

Jeanne I did not claim perpetuators of violence need control, in fact rather the opposite. They need to learn how to cope not having control.

Wanting, seeking and asserting control is different to needing it.

Ok, I apologise: I follow you now. But I still don't agree, and I still think you are excusing violence. We could spend all day (again) speculating about why violent men are violent. Do they seek control? Were they genetically predisposed? Was it society?

Your approach seems to be that we must concentrate on these speculations, and vaguely-defined 'help' and 'understanding'. Yet, you don't like the idea of a poster that is based on well-known statistics and effective previous campaigns, and you link this back to your speculations about causes.

Don't you see that as long as you keep doing this, you are providing cover for men who are violent, who get to keep on doing what they're doing and trotting out the same old excuses: 'it was so hard for me, I just couldn't control myself' or 'I needed help, she doesn't understand me, I just lashed out'. You're buying into those excuses and perpetuating them, and unless you can back that up with actual interventions - not vague suggestions - I don't see the point. It's damaging to keep these ideas in circulation. It gives them credibility.

I was not talking about you, specifically, Jeanne, in terms of language used on these boards.

cap, I've just AS'd FWR for the past month. There are just fourteen uses of that word, and several in contexts that suggest most men are not bastards, eg:

'I find it hard to believe that the men who did the hack wouldn't react with 'leave the bastard' too if it was their sister or mother who was getting beaten up, raped and exploited by their partner on a regular basis.'

A couple are what I'd read as jokey, including me referring to William the Conqueror. Who was, I'm sorry to tell you, an actual bastard.

I'm sorry, but I think you are exaggerating, or misremembering.

Don't you see that as long as you keep doing this, you are providing cover for men who are violent, who get to keep on doing what they're doing and trotting out the same old excuses: 'it was so hard for me, I just couldn't control myself' or 'I needed help, she doesn't understand me, I just lashed out'. You're buying into those excuses and perpetuating them, and unless you can back that up with actual interventions - not vague suggestions - I don't see the point. It's damaging to keep these ideas in circulation. It gives them credibility

No intention of providing cover. Seeking to find out and tackle, what causes people to inflict DV, is not excusing it.

I was talking about boards (plural) not just FWR, Jeanne.

Of course you were.

And no, I'm not searching the entirety of MN to see how often someone uses 'bastard' to describe their cats, their computers, or historical figures of dubious parentage. If you come up with an actual point to make, loosely related to the thread or the campaign, I'll look forward to hearing it.

I think my points, relating to this thread, have been sufficiently explained. I only elaborated and repeatedly explained some more, due to the incredulity I encountered here. Which has had the unfortunate consequence of exaggerating just one aspect of my viewpoint, which people here seem to find most controversial. The rest we probably agree on, the importance of supporting victims, providing adequate mental health services, support to tackle substance abuse.

^That controversial aspect being that I don't love the poster, as far as I can see.

Yes, I believe in rehabilitation too, as an aim. Simply because, not believing in this, does not leave us with many palatable options of how to deal with crime.