Why do some women still harp on about male victims of domestic violence?

[AnnaKissedFemm]

I deliver DV training and time and time again we get women questioning the clear and stark statistics we present, pointing out that men can be victims as well and it's so hard for men to talk about it and it's even harder for men and all the stats must be wrong because of under-reporting and blah blah blah. Unwilling to accept the facts.

I know there are male victims, I get it. But they are much less likely to experience high risk, violent, sustained violence. And they are much less likely to get killed by a partner or ex-partner.

Why is this? It's so depressing.

I’d assume that the OP is not all ‘blah, blah, blah’ at work but I would support her right to be miffed if she is getting the same whataboutery response over and over while highlighting the problems of domestic violence.

It is ingrained in society that men hit women. In polite society we ignore it in the hope that it might go away or change the topic. But there are some men groups of men who remember that it used to be perfectly legal to beat your own wife (as long as it was with a stick no wider than your thumb).

My MIL lives with such a man. And he plays the fucking victim card all the time. It isn’t his fault he gets drunk and hits her. It’s society, it’s his mother, it’s MIL herself. Everyone except himself.

'What about the men' is rife. Fwiw, I do think there is under representation, and men do not like to come forward go disclose.
I'm in DV, and hear this fairly regularly, and the question that what are we doing (as women) to sort it out.
Women mainly work in DV, and have fundraised, lobbied, campaigned etc etc for years to even scratch the surface of this.
I can't understand why men don't do the same for their brothers, instead of expecting women to take on the graft.

I can... women are caretakers of all. Look at the long list of other "isms" that modern feminism encompasses... (have a read of everyday feminism to nicely demonstrate this)

'Harp on', 'blah, blah, blah'. Is anyone else picturing the DV training session as a class with Pauline from the League of Gentlemen?

I can’t understand the weird reaction on here to the OP using the phrase blah blah blah. Those of you attacking her, is that really what you take from this post? I think you might have your priorities wrong. What have you done to counter DV? OP is working to counter DV the main victims of which are women, and as someone else said murdered in their hundreds every year. Men are not murdered in their hundreds by their female partners. I suspect that’s why OP has little patience with WATM.

I can imagine how frustrating it must be to try and deliver training under a constant background noise of what aboutery especially when it’s coning from women in the room. Why can’t they feel sorry for their murdered sisters?

FWIW I feel the poor men response is another symptom of the general gaslighting that goes on around the subject of DV. It’s amazing that they can ignore statistics and I wonder if you could be quite straightforward and quite firm about the need to focus on the larger, more likely,more fatal risk. Develop a Paddington stare perhaps and don’t let them derail you.

Same reason whenever you mention that 85000 women a year are raped, people say 'but women rape too' or 'not all men rape' and such

Haven't been able to identify quite what the reason is mind, but I assume one exists.

Maybe they think there too much slap dashing of the tar brush ?

I'd consider them in the same way I'd consider female firefighters say. They exist, they're in a minority. I think it's just as anti equality to assume all abuse victims are female as to assume all firefighters are male. Maybe more so as you'd be excluding and already damaged and vulnerable group.

Why not incorporate a little about known numbers of male victims and any research into degree of under-reporting in your presentation? If you bat it away upfront perhaps you would get less discussion.

I think it's for the same reason that if you say that 876 men joined the army this year (totally made up figure) someone will inevitably ask "yes and how many women?". Your statement has obviously missed out a category. If you don't want to be questioned, you could either give upfront the number of women and the (small) number of men, or the total number of recruits (victims) without mention of gender.

anna

No i dont really understand why one aspect can't be discussed without another being brought in

And it does seem to be one way (what about the men) only

I think mentioning the different figures might work

You obviously shouldn't have to but maybe it would stop them

I think mentioning the different figures might work

I doubt it, as then it turns to 'men are victims as often as/more often than women, just they don't report it' and any other way to rubbish the figures.

anna I think it is cognitive dissonance. It is very scary for women to see those statistics and realise how at risk they (and other women) are. Easier to manage that psychologically by looking for reasons why the figures might be wrong than to admit how at risk they are from men.
Same for the "how is a man meant to know if a woman wants him to touch her" bollox around harassment/me too. Far easier to pretend that it's all a misunderstanding than admit just how many men are sexual predators and how many women are their victims.
Keep on with it, try not to be too hard on the blah blah blah. And ignore the weird posts on here. They are kind of proving your point.

Because to look at the statics that show the scale of violence directed at women is absolutely startling and it doesn't fit with our ideas about the men who are kind in our lives. Far better to suggest there is a bias in the reporting of statistics and thus invalidate the facts before them that the tricky task of unpicking what the fuck is wrong/ going wrong with men as a class.

Because to look at the statics that show the scale of violence directed at women is absolutely startling and it doesn't fit with our ideas about the men who are kind in our lives. Far better to suggest there is a bias in the reporting of statistics and thus invalidate the facts before them that the tricky task of unpicking what the fuck is wrong/ going wrong with men as a class.

I completely agree with you OP and got similar responses when I said so on here once.

We are conditioned to whataboutery, so the conditioning has to be unpacked before it is possible to accept that 99% male violence is never going to equal 1% female violence no matter how many times the media flips the script to make it seem to be so.
My mum and I used to watch Law & Order SVU. There was something off about it and so we started to count how many perps were women. You will find this to be the case throughout crime drama as well as on the news. It is the "man bites dog" style of reporting the exception. People come to believe it is the norm.

I can’t understand the weird reaction on here to the OP using the phrase blah blah blah. Those of you attacking her, is that really what you take from this post? I think you might have your priorities wrong.

But it demonstrates exactly what the OP was saying.

I hope the critics looked at Beyond's link upthread. And try this one too

vicxy

Yeah...i said might as i wasn't really hopeful

But sadly you are probably right

'anna I think it is cognitive dissonance. It is very scary for women to see those statistics and realise how at risk they (and other women) are. Easier to manage that psychologically by looking for reasons why the figures might be wrong than to admit how at risk they are from men.
Same for the "how is a man meant to know if a woman wants him to touch her" bollox around harassment/me too. Far easier to pretend that it's all a misunderstanding than admit just how many men are sexual predators and how many women are their victims.
Keep on with it, try not to be too hard on the blah blah blah. And ignore the weird posts on here. They are kind of proving your point.'

I totally agree Quentin.

It reminds me a bit of a situation years I used to get when I was involved in setting up a charity for a certain type of women's cancer. Used to take phone calls from men (and occasionally women) saying e.g. "but men get prostate cancer - what about them?"

To which I used to reply. Indeed, so why don't you set up a charity specialising in prostate cancer?" That would be followed by a long pause while they wondered how to say or imply that women should be doing it. In fairness that would be less likely to happen these days but it is astonishing how women are always expected to sort things out for men as well as ourselves.

Women cannot, it seems, be allowed to discuss their own situation without whataboutery involving men.

One of the main reasons that women have to set up DV charities and advocate for women's rights is that practically everything is run by men and men won't do anything to make life better for women without constant lobbying and begging from women. It's madness for men to then turn around and say that women have to also lobby on behalf of men. WTF? Men could just go ahead and change things, if they could be bothered, they run the place FFS! Women have to do it themselves because that's the only way to get it done. If men are too lazy to do anything that's not women's fault!!