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

The basis for this thread in the OP was statistical raw data. As I said earlier I do not like generalisations too much. If you apply statistical data to individual case studies it can often show the statistics become meaningless in the care of individuals - being an exception does not reduce the seriousness or severity of an individual's difficulties. It is Sod's law that almost every case will involve some exceptional circumstances. Prejudice based on people's knowledge of statistics can only make the plight of people who don't fit exactly worse. This is why I would like more funds put into improving actual services. We have expensive campaign after expensive campaign whilst services are being cut.

Do all these MH issues excuse men who commit racist attacks too ?
Or just those against women of colour ?
Is rape excused by MH ?

So no more campaigns warning men against committing rape, in case this hurts their feelings.

Those are questions I don't have an answer to BigChoc.

People need to be aware of the law, certainly.

Do you object to the campaign showing a drunk 20 something climbing scaffolding and falling, because sometimes 60-somethings also get drunk and hurt themselves?

There is limited budget for public awareness campaigns and it needs to be targeted. The end. I see no point discussing this further with you, TBH.

I'd expect that campaigns to reduce rape and violence, together with the overall strategy, would be discussed at a high level, with specialists in managing behaviour and in dealing with crime.

Like the healthy eating campaigns we have had advertised and in schools?

'Change 4 life' if I remember correctly...

Change 4 life was targeted. It was colourful cartoon people so that it appealed to families and schools.

And advised switching sugary soft drinks for 'diet' i.e.artificially sweetened, soft drinks....

From DV to artificial sweeteners - that has got to be the lamest attempt at derailing I have ever seen.

Yeah, Saskia. I'm going to stick to the disengaging plan!

Not an attempt at derailing, Saskia but in direct response to this comment:

Add message | Report | Message poster BigChocFrenzy Wed 02-Sep-15 20:38:17
I'd expect that campaigns to reduce rape and violence, together with the overall strategy, would be discussed at a high level, with specialists in managing behaviour and in dealing with crime.

The suggestion being either a discussion with 'specialists' at a 'high level' does not necessarily denote quality of campaign or perhaps that every campaign does not involve such educated experienced people - whichever applies.

Yet more abused statistics and misunderstood science.
Change 4 Life went with the current scientific consensus, based on peer-reviewed research by respected scientists, not scare stories by bloggers, 3rd-rate science hacks or Paleo fanatics.

As a scientist I have debunked the sweeteners scare with detailled scientific references before, but I cba to fill a feminist thread with it all.

Your alternative strategy appears to be to ignore the consensus of experts in the field and to go for a chaotic ragbag of vague wishes plucked by amateurs at random.

Previous expert strategies and campaigns have successfully managed to make overt racism and homophobia socially unacceptable, without alienating the white heterosexual majority.
These strategies have resulted in acceptance of laws to punish those who commit racist or homophobic crimes.
So these experts did a great job.

For some perverse reason, you want to use every excuse and obfuscation to avoid hurting the feelings of violent men.

But now to say you disagree with experts in a totally unrelated field, hence we should not trust the experts in tackling violence is a new low.

The Dunning–Kruger effect yet again (where ignorant amateurs grossly over-estimate their own competence in a field)

So what is your particular expertise here BigChoc?

My concern over not disregarding feelings and how people handle them, including the relation to dysfunctional behaviour, is because I think better understanding is crucial in order to find out why violent crime occurs and preventing it. Not because I want to excuse it or brush it under the carpet.

I also understand people who have been abused often then go on to abuse themselves. Because of this trend should we have a similar campaign which is targeted towards them as perpetrators? I think this would potentially be highly insensitive and possibly triggering.

All I am calling for is a little sensitivity. Not in order to excuse but in an attempt to find solutions and prevent more abuse.

I also understand people who have been abused often then go on to abuse themselves.

Interestingly, it seems that it's mainly men who have been abused who then go on to abuse. Not women. So this campaign pretty much hits target. It shows men that DV is unacceptable something remarkable numbers of them don't truly understand and, if they were abused as children, reminds them of the fear they felt in order to maybe remind them that they are human beings. A win win.

If the fear and anxiety, caused by an abuser, led some men to be damaged in the first place, how does reminding them of it, possibly invoking a 'flash back' type scenario, in a public (unsupported) place help?

The thing is, the poster says nothing about why the abuse is happening, just that it needs to stop. How can that be a bad message?

Domestic violence advocates do think these things through when formulating campaigns. It is a fairly common understanding that many violent men obviously don't care at all how their violence affects the women they abuse, but that they just might care about how that violence affects their children.

I have read and re-read this thread, with a view to reevaluating my comments, but still the way it has developed (with myself being accused of derailing and posters announcing they are 'disengaging') has puzzled me.

So I decided to read more of the feminist boards and found this thread interesting,

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/feminist_theory/2243549-Evidence-basis-for-feminism

So, as I was advocating, life experiences are considered of value, alongside more positivist data. Which was my point regarding domestic violence having a much wider context than gender...which I thought needed to be analysed and tackled. I don't really 'get' why this view was met with such antagonism, apart from it providing a counter perspective to the one offered by (practically all of the) others on this thread.

Ah, we're doing feminism wrong as well.

Thanks for your input... and yes, I really am disengaging now, can't be arsed with the endless 'what about the poor men'-ing and the 'women do it too'-ing and trying to get us to feel sad for people who choose violence.

Well done. You win.

Have a

Not very enlightening...

I see questioning this particular 'clique' is deemed unacceptable. Shame, I might have learnt something...