The cornerstone of the feminist approach to domestic violence is known as the ‘Duluth Model’, which is often illustrated as follows:
The Duluth Model is “based in feminist theory positing that domestic violence is the result of patriarchal ideology in which men are encouraged and expected to control their partners”. (Source)
It is my position, and I am certainly not alone in this regard, that applying this theoretical framework to most (let alone all) incidents of domestic violence is highly misleading and inappropriate.
Further, if gender inequality is the most significant precursor in relation to domestic violence, then:
Why is the incidence of domestic violence greater in lesbian couple than in heterosexual couples?
How might one explain the already high and growing levels of female-perpetrated violence generally?
How might one explain the significant geographical variations in the incidence of domestic violence? The chart below, for example, looks at variations in the incidence of DV in the Australian state of New South Wales.
Why does there exist a very considerable number of male victims of domestic violence?
How might one explain the relatively high levels of child abuse and neglect involving single mothers?
Why is the level of domestic violence so high in countries like Sweden that, even feminists would agree, have a higher than average level of gender equality?
These categories or situations of domestic violence are not the inconsequential anomalies that many propose them to be. On the contrary, they constitute very large and substantial pieces of the domestic violence jigsaw.
In an intimate partnership between two people of different genders, an unequal balance of power can be a factor contributing to DV. But what feminists refuse to concede is that the partner asserting most power need not be male, and often isn’t.
“… the Duluth model essentially views all female transgressions as being self-defensive in nature (even against children!) and can be attributed either to previous victimization by a male or to an allegedly oppressive “patriarchy” (Dutton and Corvo, 2007)”
I would urge you to take a moment now to read Jason Dale’s detailed and insightful commentary. The quote below has been attributed to Ellen Pence (Wikipedia).
Thank you for permitting me the opportunity to contribute my thoughts in relation to the work of the Inquiry, and concerning the pressing issue of domestic violence generally.
I believe the Inquiry’s Terms of Reference to be ill-considered, inappropriate, and strongly indicative of ideological bias. In what appears to be akin to a ‘dorothy-dixer’[1] on the floor of parliament, the Terms of Reference appear to have been formulated with the intention of producing a report that simply justifies a continuation of the existing failed gender-biased approach to combatting domestic violence. In so doing it seems that remaining in lockstep with the feminist movement has been accorded a higher priority than actually addressing the problem via constructive debate about the full range of potential causes and solutions of/for DV.
I fully anticipate that the only new development to arise from the Inquiry will be leveraging the Committee’s ‘findings’ in order to be institute progressively higher levels of government funding for the Domestic Violence Industry[2]. Funding for which there will likely continue to be few, if any, controls or oversight in relation to performance monitoring and accountability.
The Committee has opted to pursue a biased, parochial and blinkered approach to a complex social issue about which there are many views but few certainties. It is an approach which, based on nothing more than the cherished belief of one particular lobby group, pre-empts consideration of other, quite likely more relevant, factors.
A strong consensus exists – beyond the confines of the feminist encampment – that several factors jointly bring about patterns of domestic violence. Gender inequality is but one of these. Parental abuse and neglect of children who subsequently grow up to become perpetrators being another. I would join others in suggesting that gender inequality is, in itself, generally a relatively minor factor. Indeed, I believe that in many cases it bears little or no influence at all.
In what has become an established tactic, however, anyone proposing that gender equality is not a pivotal factor underpinning domestic violence is shamed and threatened.[3][4][5][6] The Terms of Reference of this Committee will clearly only strengthen the resolve of those who encourage and pursue such totalitarian and counter-productive behaviour.
Committee members, this is not the type of approach to adopt if you genuinely wish to identify and then win support for truly effective strategies to remedy complex social problems.
Might I suggest that the reference to ‘education’ (in the Terms of Reference) was intended to generate expressions of profuse support from the feminist faithful for further ‘public awareness campaigns’[7] and school programs[8]. This despite the fact that I am yet to learn of any conclusive proof with regard to the value of either of these strategies. Excepting of course their value to those pro-feminist advocacy groups and consultancies who will find themselves in receipt of generous allocations of public funds[9]. Additionally, in both cases I would suggest that a case could be made that such programs also have the potential to bring about certain negative outcomes.
As to diverting the discussion to examine the likely impact of toys and entertainment on the incidence of domestic violence? I feel that would likely constitute a poor investment of time and resources … these being inconsequential yet over-stated minutia in the overall scheme of things.
I reject the following positions in relation to gender equality and domestic violence:
That gender inequality is the primary contributing factor with respect to the incidence of domestic violence in Australia
That the overall picture of gender inequality in Australia is one that strongly favours men/boys
That in the overwhelming majority of cases, domestic violence manifests itself in the form of men abusing women
In contrast, individuals and organisations who ascribe to feminist ideology would count amongst the core supporters of those statements noted above. Bearing that in mind I would suggest that the Committee be mindful of the following:
The term ‘feminist’ is not inter-changeable with ‘woman’ or ‘women’ given that only a small minority of women identify as feminists [10]
Feminists do not hold any form of mandate to speak on behalf of Australian women
Feminists have a strongly vested interest in painting domestic violence as a gendered issue involving male violence towards women, including a substantial and growing pecuniary interest [11]
Feminists have a well-established ‘track record’ of engaging in biased and academically flawed research, and in misrepresenting research undertaken by others in order to support their position and/or to undermine the position of those holding alternate views.[12][13]
These last two dot points imply a need to subject the statements and conduct of feminists and feminist organisations to some reasonable standard of scrutiny, rather than simply accepting them at face value.
Gender inequality as the primary contributing factor with respect to the incidence of domestic violence in Australia
The theoretical cornerstone of the feminist approach is the ‘Duluth Model’ which is discussed in this rather illuminating email exchange[14], this academic paper[15], and in various posts in my blog[16]. In a nutshell, applying this framework to most (let alone all) incidents of DV is highly misleading and inappropriate.
Further, if gender inequality is the single greatest determinant of domestic violence then:
Why is the incidence of domestic violence greater in lesbian couple than in heterosexual couples?[17]
How might one explain the already high and growing levels of female-perpetrated violence generally?[18]
How might one explain the significant geographical variations in the incidence of domestic violence? (refer chart which follows)
Why does there exist a very considerable number of male victims of domestic violence? [19][20]
How might one explain the relatively high levels of child abuse and neglect involving single mothers? [21]
Why is the level of domestic violence so high in countries like Sweden that, even feminists would agree, have a higher than average level of gender equality?
These categories or situations of domestic violence are not the inconsequential anomalies that many propose them to be. On the contrary, they constitute very large and substantial pieces of the domestic violence jigsaw.
In an intimate partnership between two people of different genders, an unequal balance of power can be a factor contributing to DV. But what feminists refuse to concede is that the partner asserting most power need not be male, and often isn’t.
The Inquiry’s Terms of Reference are based on the premise that it is an established and undeniable fact that gender inequality is the predominant factor behind domestic violence. This is absolutely not the case. On the other hand, there are many others in the community who hold differing views – views similar to my own. In this submission I will introduce you to sources of information that very much counter the feminist position of domestic violence.
On the suggestion that the overall picture of gender inequality in Australia is one that strongly favours men/boys
Let’s assume for a moment that gender inequality is in fact the predominant trigger for the initiation of domestic violence. So just how much gender equality is present in Australian society? The feminist position is that there is a great deal of gender equality, and that it is strongly biased in favour of men/boys. I do not believe this to be the case. Feminists have a pronounced tendency to overstate or imagine disadvantages faced by women, whilst conveniently overlooking the many disadvantages faced by men/boys.
The indicator most commonly advanced by feminists to ‘prove’ the existence of gender equality is the gender wage gap. This use of the wage gap statistics for this purpose is misleading has been thoroughly debunked.[22][23]
The next most commonly cited statistics are those concerning the number of male vs female politicians and CEO’s. Yes there is obviously an imbalance but again this need not be indicative of gender discrimination nor inequality.[24] Indeed if this were the case then surely there would be a Minister for Men’s Affairs, or at least men’s/boys divisions within government agencies – of which there are none. Not only is there no advocacy for men/boys whatsoever, there exists active discrimination against them in many agencies including for example the Australian Human Rights Commission.[25][26]
In terms of various other indicators of equality I would draw the Committee’s attention to the material contained in these two overseas sources:
On the suggestion that, in the overwhelming majority of cases, domestic violence manifests itself in the form of men abusing women
IF gender inequality was the primary cause of domestic violence, and IF there was rampant gender inequality in Australian, and IF that inequality favoured men/boys, then one would expect that almost all cases of domestic violence involved men abusing women. But is this the case? No, it is certainly not the case.
I would draw the Committee’s attention to the sources listed below, with many further sources available online[27]. These all demonstrate that at least one third of the victims of domestic violence are males.
“Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In non-reciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases.”
The graphic that follows, for example, was sourced from a Canadian organisation (www.saveservices.org). Interestingly, broadly similar patterns of perpetration have been observed in the UK, USA, Australia and Canada (although Australian lags somewhat in terms of the information available on male victimisation/female perpetration).
In closing I would invite members of the Committee to take a few moments to also read my submission to the recently-released Victorian Royal Commission on Family Violence[41], given that that document provides further relevant background information concerning certain matters that will also likely be addressed in this current Inquiry.
I wish the members of the Committee well in their endeavours, and I sincerely hope that the concerns I have expressed in this submission prove to be unfounded.
The inquiry that I am introducing in this post follows hard on the heels of another federal Senate inquiry into domestic violence. My submission to that earlier inquiry can be accessed in this blog post. There have also been several recent inquiries conducted by state governments.
The current federal inquiry is known as the Inquiry into Domestic Violence and Gender Inequality. It is being considered by a Senate Standing Committee on Finance and Public Administration known as the ‘References Committee’, the membership of which is listed here.
Domestic violence and gender inequality, with particular reference to:
The role of gender inequality in all spheres of life in contributing to the prevalence of domestic violence;
The role of gender stereotypes in contributing to cultural conditions which support domestic violence, including, but not limited to, messages conveyed to children and young people in:
the marketing of toys and other products,
education, and
entertainment;
The role of government initiatives at every level in addressing the underlying causes of domestic violence, including the commitments under, or related to, the National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children; and
Any other related matters.
As can be seen, these terms of reference were tailored for a feminist audience, and perfectly embrace the feminist narrative on DV. That is, in summary, that DV = men beating on women because patriarchy.
In fact each of these earlier inquiries demonstrated a pronounced pro-feminist bias, and this has greatly curtailed the breadth of issues and potential solutions discussed. Thus whilst some useful ideas were generated, these all fell well within the comfortable confines of what feminists consider to be appropriate policy responses.
As can be seen from its title, this inquiry hones in on one particular issue in the domestic violence debate that is absolutely central to the feminist perspective. The theoretical cornerstone of this is the ‘Duluth Model’ discussed in this email exchange, this academic paper, and in various other posts in my blog.
It is my belief, and one which is shared by many others, that applying this position to most (let alone all) incidents of DV is simply wrong. Focussing on gender inequality is diverting the domestic violence debate around 180 degrees in the wrong direction.
Thus all things considered, this inquiry will likely be an utter waste of time and money. So why then bother preparing a submission?
My answer? If people who hold alternative views don’t continue to publicly reject the feminist narrative, then the only voices on the public record will be those of the feminist fright-bats that populate organisations such as these. Not on my watch.
Not if we want effective solutions addressing the whole problem, rather than just more of the same costly inequitable and divisive policy failures.
The closing date for public submissions was 31 March 2016. The reporting date was nominated as being 24 August 2016, but don’t hold your breath for the last federal inquiry ran about a year overtime.
Here is a link to the list of submissions received by the Inquiry. My submission is #48, a copy of which is also available here.
Here is a link to the submission prepared by the ‘One in Three’ organisation
I was reading an article the other day that included comments concerning domestic violence made by recently appointed Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull. Within it I noticed the following quote from an outspoken Australian feminist academic and female violence enabler by the name of Dr Michael Salter:
“In the context of intimate relationships we do see women use violence but it’s predominantly self-defence. We have to reaffirm everyone has the right to defend themselves against violence”.
Sadly this is by no means the first time I have come across a feminist proposing this shameful nonsense as a truthful reflection of reality.
The dominant theoretical framework employed by the Domestic Violence Industry is known as the Duluth Model. A paper attempting to defend this approach, included the following statement:
“The vast majority of women arrested in Duluth for domestic assaults are being battered by the person they assault. Most, but not all, are retaliating against an abusive spouse or are using violence in self-defense. The notion that battered women share responsibility for the violence used against them because of provocative words or actions is a dangerous form of collusion with men who batter (Mills 2003). We do not accept that these women should complete a batterers’ program. We do agree that there are a small number of women who use violence resulting in police action against their partners without themselves being abused. This is not a social problem requiring institutional organizing in the way that men’s violence against women is.” (Source)
A selection of sources that argue either in support of, or against, the notion that women only perpetrate domestic violence in self-defence and/or after experiencing sustained abuse:
‘Understanding domestic abusers’ (undated) from the New York State Office for the Prevention of Domestic Violence. See “responsive violence”. Sure women are violent but only in order to “attempt to forestall attack, defend self and others, or control the situation”
“Fact: Self defence is no more common a reason for female violence against a partner than it is for male violence against a partner
Sources: Follingstad, D. R., Wright, S., Lloyd, S., & Sebastian, J. A. (1991). Sex differences in motivations and effects in dating violence. Family Relations, 40(1), 51–57. Medeiros, R. A., & Straus, M. A. (2006). Risk factors for physical violence between dating partners: Implications for gender-inclusive prevention and treatment of family violence. In J. C. Hamel & T. Nicholls (Eds.), Family approaches to domestic violence: A practitioners guide to gender-inclusive research and treatment (pp. 59–87). New York: Springer (also available at http://pubpages. unh.edu/∼mas2″
Firstly, a few words about Quentin Bryce. Quentin is a former Governor-General who recently chaired a state Taskforce into Family Violence the report for which was released in February 2015 (see related blog posts here and here).
Quentin deserves our thanks for performing that role without sticking out her hand for the sort of generous compensation demanded by other prominent talking heads of the Australian Domestic Violence Industry. Quentin was ill-advised, however, to issue statements during the course of the Inquiry that were pre-emptive and prejudicial, and which clearly signalled her own personal anti-male and pro-feminist agenda (example1, example2).
In the article linked above Quentin reiterates a key element of the feminist narrative as it is applied to the issue of domestic violence, that:
“Domestic and family violence is caused by unequal distribution of power and resources between men and women, it’s about the rigid gender roles and stereotypes that characterise our society, and the culture and the attitudes that support violence against women”
Domestic violence does indeed involve an unequal distribution of power, but where feminists get it wrong is that the man need not be the partner wielding the power. The feminist perspective also ignores the reality of domestic violence affecting same-sex couples.
Feminists cling to this notion however because it dovetails with a theoretical framework that they rely upon so heavily, known as the Duluth model.
According to the Duluth Model, “women and children are vulnerable to violence because of their unequal social, economic, and political status in society.”The program’s philosophy is intended to help batterers work to change their attitudes and personal behavior so they would learn to be nonviolent in any relationship. Its philosophy is illustrated by the “Power and Control Wheel,” a graphic typically displayed as a poster in participating locations. (Source)
What galls me most, however, is the mind-numbing hypocrisy of feminists asserting that the application of “rigid gender roles and stereotypes” promotes domestic violence, whilst their ongoing portrayal of men as perpetual perpetrators relies upon applying those self-same roles and stereotypes. Cognitive dissonance anyone?
Whilst Tim Watt’s heart is probably in the right place, a combination of immaturity, male self-loathing, and a compulsion to play the role of ‘white knight‘, seems to have blinded him to reality. And that reality is that many women are abusive, that many men are victims of abuse, and that acknowledging this in no way diminishes ones ability to recognise and empathise the suffering experienced by female victims.
So, OK, how many men are we talking about here? The answer depends on a number of variables, particularly the issue of how domestic violence is defined. As a consequence the ratio of male to female victims has been found to range all the way from one in four up to three in four. Even if one only accepted the lower end of that range, that still amounts to a considerable number of male victims – and certainly far too many to simply disregard as a statistical aberration.
Detailed data and analysis in relation to domestic violence can be found in this other blog post, but I’ll provide a few snippets of information below.
One Australian survey found for example that “the rate of men reporting current partner violence almost doubled (a rise of 175%) since 2005 (an estimated 119,600 men reported such violence in 2012)” (Source)
A survey in the U.S.A reported that “We analyzed data on young US adults aged 18 to 28 years from the 2001 National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, which contained information about partner violence and injury reported by 11,370 respondents on 18,761 heterosexual relationships. Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In nonreciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases.”
A survey in the U.K found that:
(And, for comparision purposes, click here to see the Canadian results for victimisation from violence generally)
**Male victims of domestic violence who are seeking assistance, and who live in Australia, should read this information**
On the level of support provided for male victims of domestic violence
“On the societal level, women’s violence against men has a trivial effect on men compared to the devastating effect of men’s violence against women” (Source).
“Shelley Serdahely, executive director of Men Stopping Violence, in Decatur, Ga., questions the validity of studies showing women are more violent. “Women might be more likely to get frustrated because men are not taught how to be active listeners and women feel like they are not being heard,” she said. “Often women are more emotional because the relationship matters a lot to them, and while that may come out in a push or a shove or a grab, all of which are considered dating violence, it doesn’t have the effect of intimidating the man.”” (Source)
This is the mistaken belief of many within the pro-feminist domestic violence sector whose philosophical approach is proscribed by the so-called Duluth Model. An attitude that underpins the chronic under-resourcing of services for male victims of DV.
“There are thousands of shelters in the U.S. for women and even thousands for our pets, but not a single independent shelter just for men (and no federal funding). The Domestic Abuse Project of Delaware Country, PA (where I grew up) was the first to campaign to assist victims of both genders but that only meant they were one of the first to allow mothers with teenage boys to find assistance as most still see 12-18 year old teenage boys as members of the “almost clinically and psychologically dead” (as per Dr. Helen Caldicott) “foreign male element.” Many states claim to help men somehow but not a one can provide any data on the number served.
England built their first men’s shelter in 2003 after 423 shelters (now 7,500) had been built for women (forced to open in secret due to fear of violent protests). All public funding for men’s shelters in England (like most countries), however, have since been pulled as men are now told to go to women’s shelters (a 2008 House of Commons report claimed there was no need or desire for male-only shelters with the issue only being distorted by a deep-seated contempt for women). Battered men around the world are routinely told to go to homeless shelters (what, no possibility of ingrained contempt for men?).
A few countries like Holland, Serbia, and Switzerland have set aside funds for battered men shelters but they are scarce and underfunded compared to homes for battered women. Most men are still waiting for their country’s first governmentally supported refuge. We must identify the violence done by women against men, see it as a serious social problem, and face the reality domestic violence is more likely mutual or female-initiated and so our public service announcements and federal service funding urgently need to be de-gendered.
The 1975 National Family Violence Survey (Behind Closed Doors: Violence in the American Family, Straus et al.) found men and women equally abusive. The myth of subjugated women (Gelles, 1988; Kaufman, 1990; Straus, 1991) has but “crippled prevention and treatment efforts” (Scott, 2006). In 2008, Drs. Douglas and Hines conducted the first-ever national survey of men who sought help for heterosexual partner violence. It regrettably showed a large proportion of men who seek help from American domestic violence agencies (49.9%) or hotlines (63.9%) are specifically told, “We only help women.”
Many men seeking assistance from DV agencies (40.2%) or DV hotlines (32.2%) end up accused of being the batterer, a third of male victims who call the police end up arrested, and less than a third of those who consult with any mental health professionals are offered details on how to get help from a DV program. The investigation concluded the worst places for men to get help were “those that are the core of the DV service system: DV agencies, DV hotlines, and the police. The qualitative accounts in our research tell a story of male help seekers who are often doubted, ridiculed, and given false information.”
“I vividly remember accidentally walking into a “safe room” for victims of domestic violence at the court house and being pounced on by a bunch of quite militant women and told in no uncertain terms to get out of the room, for no other reason than I was male and they assumed I was the guilty party. It didn’t even occur to them that I , a male, was the VICTIM of domestic violence. The irony is that my extremely violent wife would have been welcomed with open arms in the same situation and been showered with empathy by them.” (Source: Readers comment)
“I’m not suggesting that violence against men doesn’t happen, of course it does, but it is actually really rare.” Karen Willis, Executive Officer for Rape and Domestic Violence Services in Australia (Source)
“According to study author Brenda Russell, a psychology professor at Pennsylvania State University, the officers surveyed rated male perpetrators of IPV as more “dangerous” to others than any other gender or sexual orientation.
In contrast, male victims of female perpetrators were considered “responsible” in some way for the abuse they suffered. Victims of lesbian and gay male violence were also considered more culpable and more likely to demonstrate thoughts and behaviors indicative of mental illness.”
Domestic Violence Is Far More Than A Simple Story Of Good And Bad (27 September 2016) It’s very disappointing that we are still seeing the publication of biased and one-sided articles such as this, which undermine any nascent recognition of, and support for, victims of female abusers.
Building stronger and safer communities for everyone (9 September 2016) Australia. But then in first paragraph I note the funds are to be used to “help reduce violence against women and their children”, so presumably men are included in the “everyone“.
According to figures quoted in this video featuring journalist Martin Daubney, only 10% of male victims of domestic violence in Britain report incidents to the police (versus 26% of women)
The blind spot in our domestic violence crisis (10 February 2016) This article written by a CEO of a Women’s Shelter – no prizes for guessing her sole focus. I’ve included it here though for the readers comments.
Why we don’t hear about male victims of domestic violence (13 September 2015) Whilst any coverage of male DV victims is a positive, this article is typical in the manner in which it downplays/minimises every aspect of male victimisation.
“Forty years of feminist campaigning and the influence of gender stereotypes have had a major impact on how society views IPV.” “Gender biases are highly influential in affecting people’s perceptions of the severity of IPV.”
Here in Australia, to get an idea of the level of resistance to acknowledging male victims of DV, one only has to observe the response from feminists on the few occasions when some agency or individual (e.g. Tanveer Ahmed) publicly discusses male victims. The most recent example was when the NSW Police service featured male DV victims in a campaign in early 2015:
Two posts from the Facebook page of ‘Exposing Feminism’ concerning accommodation provided by ‘DV Connect’ for male & female DV victims in Brisbane – here and here (8 July 2014)
Domestic abuse: The latest lie (19 July 2019) UK. This article addresses, amongst other things, the feminist myth that most men who suffer domestic violence are the victims of other men.
‘Victims and Witnesses of Crime Court Support’ is an Australian organisation that supports male victims of violence (incl. domestic violence) in the court system
“Across almost every study, gender came out as a significant factor: the male participants were more tolerant and more willing to stay in relationships that involved aggressions. This was unexpected, but may reflect a reluctance within men to define their partners as aggressors and themselves in some sense as victims, as seen in low reporting rates of domestic violence against men.”
Domestic violence refuge provision at crisis point, warn charities (4 August 2014) A good response to this article was then penned by Ally Fogg entitled ‘Throwing domestic violence victims to the wolves‘ – well worth reading. Despite there being very few beds available for men, when cutbacks are made (or accountability enforced) then men are blamed. The same thing is happening now in Australia. Women demand empathy from men (regarding DV) but when men seek support they are shamed.
I have absolutely nothing personal against Rosie Batty, and in fact as a parent myself I have a great deal of sympathy for anyone who has lost a child under such horrific circumstances. Her tragic loss has provided her with a unique and potentially valuable insight, but it does not qualify her to direct public policy on dealing with domestic violence in the community. She is but one person affected by a scourge that has affected thousands of Australians.
This is a complex topic and we need to hear about, and be open to, the experiences and opinions of many others. We should also ensure that we consider different theoretical/ideological perspectives and not, as is done now, exclude serious consideration of all but one approach (feminism/Duluth Model).
Rosie has transformed herself and/or allowed herself to be transformed, into a veritable battering ram for the domestic violence industry. Feminist advocates and their allies in the media and political sphere have, like so many roman centurions, arranged themselves around her and are pressing her forward. Broader political events here in Australia have added further momentum as politicians look about for suitable populist issues with which to score cheap points and/or divert attention from other matters. This is patently obvious in Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull’s adoption of DV as one of his personal cause celebre.
This focussing of attention could have been a great thing in terms of getting decisive action on the issue of family violence and related issues like child abuse and elder abuse. But it won’t be. It won’t be because the whole episode is being choreographed by the archly-feminist domestic violence industry.
As a result all we will get is more of the same old failed and shockingly biased resourcing decisions and ‘initiatives’:
The continued turning-the-other-way when it comes to supporting male victims of DV and their children
The continued turning-the-other-way in relation the incidence of violent behaviour by women
The continued insistence that both the problem and its solution rests entirely in the hands of men
The continued emphasis on the discredited ‘Duluth model‘ of theorising domestic violence
The continued pouring of millions of dollars of public funds towards feminist consultants and advocacy groups
The creation of yet more consultative groups and the convening of more inquiries/royal commissions.
None of which have been proven to have any significant effect on reducing actual rates of perpetration and/or re-offending
And thus now we are witnessing a competition amongst state and federal politicians as to who cares the most about domestic violence, with ‘care’ manifesting itself through hideously costly inquiries and hand-outs to advocacy groups.
“The mother of Luke Batty says Australians need to have a greater understanding of family violence. Rosie Batty has also urged men to address the problem, in a long and emotional interview less than a week after her 11-year-old son was killed by his father at a Victorian cricket ground.”
Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten seized the opportunity of Rosie’s appointment to climb higher upon the feminist bandwagon by calling for a federal Royal Commission on domestic violence. Someone should remind him that a federal inquiry is already underway and is due to report in March 2015.
Predictably the media then went to the Government to ask them whether they would support a national Royal Commission. Thank goodness that the Government stood its ground against this misguided proposal – at least thus far – although they did make other concessions.
Ken Lay is one of the most well-recognised ‘white knights‘ on behalf of the Australian feminist movement, known for his frequent use of the incorrect statement that the “overwhelming majority” of domestic violence was perpetrated by men upon women.
I posted a quite cordial comment in response to this article but gee whiz, look what happened:
This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn’t abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.
Imagine that, a pro-feminist news source (The Guardian) censoring a (polite and non-threatening) dissenting viewpoint. Seriously now, this happens so often that I really must get into the habit of creating screen-saves each time I post a comment. (And so I did – refer below)
Rosie Batty on why passion must lead to change on family violence (7 Feb 2015) In this article Rosie again makes no mention of the existence of male victims or female perpetrators. Rosie also suggests that the courts are biased towards the interests of the men’s rights movement and the rights of fathers.
‘Stop blaming the victim’: Rosie Batty to address MPs (2 March 2015) Rosie admits that the factors driving violent behaviour are “not readily understood“, whilst in the same paragraph asserting that it’s all about “gender inequality and “men’s sense of entitlement that a woman is their possession“. Except for violence committed by women, of course.
“The prospect of a feminist party in Australia intrigues Ms Batty. But she is not sure if she would make the giant step from activist to politician. “I would never discount it … who knows, all I do know is that I genuinely want to make a difference and so if I was comfortable and confident that I could make a significant difference through a political career, I think I would definitely consider that. I think it would be a real privilege to be given that opportunity.””
Is Rosie Batty Using Her Child’s Death For Her Own Fame And Fortune? (25 Jan 2015) Whilst many will consider this an unduly harsh and cynical assessment of the situation, I’ll let you be the judge as to the validity of the points raised within the context of the broader Australian DV debate.
In exchanges within the reader’s comments section that follow various articles on the topic of DV, I have noted supporters of Ms Batty asserting that she is a champion for all victims of domestic violence. Her own Twitter profile makes it quite clear that is not the case.
Firstly, what do I mean by the term “fudging” in the context of this blog post?
to present or deal with (something) in a vague or inadequate way, especially so as to conceal the truth or mislead and/or
to adjust or manipulate (facts or figures) so as to present a desired picture.
So how do feminists and their allies, go about fudging statistics? Well the most common technique used, so prevalent that it’s virtually a hallmark of feminist literature, is to report statistics in relation to female victimhood in the absence of comparative figures for men and boys. Such information is (or at least, was) generated in surveys but usually went unreported, unless doing so would support the feminist perspective.
Thus subsequently, and in a worrying trend, more and more research projects undertaken by pro-feminist organisations don’t include male subjects in surveys. Here is an example from the Australian Human Rights Commission (July 2023):
Nor does contemporary research typically investigate impacts on males and/or attitudes towards men (examples here, here, here, here, here, and here).
Clearly with corresponding data in relation to males unavailable then rapporteurs can easily deflect requests for contextual information. Information which would, in many cases, otherwise weaken their claims of gendered victimhood.
Thus biased researchers can represent a social problem as being gendered when it is not. And so the next researcher builds on existing incomplete research and concludes and/or implies in their report … this problem rarely affects men, or affects men in different & lesser ways, etc (but we can’t be sure because no data). And the cycle of gender bias in research, and subsequently in policy formulation, rolls on.
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation believe the reverse to be true, and that there is a ‘gender data gap’ with “male-biased surveys that fail to capture women’s perspectives, their needs and their economic value”. They provide a 3rd world example upon which I am not qualified to comment, but with regards to 1st world countries their proposition is laughable. This Australian feminist writer, Kristine Ziwica, is pushing the same line (12 March 2019).
A paper by Dr. Murray Straus addressed the issue of feminists distorting domestic violence data. He identified the seven primary methods they used as being:
To suppress Evidence
To avoid obtaining data inconsistent with the Patriarchal Dominance Theory
To cite only studies that show Male Perpetration
To conclude that results support Feminist beliefs when they do not
To create “evidence” by citation
To obstruct publication of articles and obstruct funding research that might contradict the idea that male dominance is the cause of PV (see this post)
To harass, threaten, and penalize researchers who produce evidence that contradicts feminist beliefs (see this post)
I was studying the readers comments in relation to a rather biased article about domestic violence. One comment was from a respected spokesperson on men’s health issues, Adam Blanch. Adam was talking about the latest ‘Personal Safety Survey‘ undertaken by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. This is what Adam had to say:
“Domestic violence is about people who are angry, jealous, distressed and mentally ill acting out their frustration. The motive for ‘control’ and ‘power’ is only present in a very small percentage of DV, and both sexes do it to the same extent.
The entire Duluth model, which asserts that domestic violence is about ‘Gender power relations’, has been so extensively disproven by legitimate researchers that no fair minded person without a ‘gender agenda’ could possibly subscribe to it.
PS. the ABS personal safety survey has some serious methodological issues that appear to have been built in, twice, to bias the outcome in favour of a ‘Gendered’ view of DV.
The 2012 report sampled less than 20% the number of women than men, down from 25% in the 2005 survey. though overall they increased the numbers for both genders for 2012, the male sample size is so small that many of the findings are unreliable again.
They were criticised for only using female interviewers in 2005, so in 2012 they trained a few male interviewers to be available on request. However, they don’t appear to have told the interviewees that they were available. This was based don ‘expert advice’ that both men and women would be more comfortable with female interviewers, these experts are unnamed. Who are they. Are they male? have they worked with male victims of abuse? What qualifies them as experts. I’ve worked with thousands of men, and I can assure you that most men will not reveal the same information to a woman that they will to a man.
This lack of transparency and sample balance is unacceptable for research conducted at this level.”
The Bureau shrugged-off this criticism and in September 2016 successfully obtained AHRC approval to only employ female interviewers in relation to a survey that encompasses the issue of domestic violence.
“Professor Triggs granted the ABS the exemption, accepting their submission, which included studies from not-for-profit groups, stating men were more likely to be perpetrators of DV and women were more likely to tell their stories to other women” And so disregarding the flipside … that male victims would be more likely to tell THEIR story to other men.
This is hardly the first time I have encountered concerns raised by authoritative sources regarding the credibility of domestic violence research, and in fact it appears to be an ongoing issue.
Australia’s ABC has a reputation for pushing the feminist agenda, with one example being the article ‘Domestic violence of epidemic proportions a ‘national emergency’: campaign groups‘ by Ursula Malone and Juanita Phillips. Nothing like turning up the rhetoric to keep that government funding flowing through to feminists and their organisations during these difficult economic times. And all based on fudged statistics, in particular that “Domestic violence is the leading cause of death and injury in women under 45“.
That statistic was sourced from this 2004 report by VicHealth. Indeed, that report was essentially 44 pages of taxpayer-funded feminist bias wherein violence towards men was dismissed in one sentence in the preamble: “Although men are among the victims of intimate partner violence, evidence suggests that the vast majority of victims are women and that women are more vulnerable to its health impacts”. That statistic was discussed in this 2014 article by Greg Canning and in this scorching rebuttal of the Malone/Phillips article by Men’s Rights Sydney (also available on the AVfM web site).
Now let’s look at three examples of misrepresentation from Australian feminist advocacy group ‘Our Watch‘:
1. This well-written 2013 letter from Dr Greg Canning to Natasha Stott Despoja concerns serious omissions and misrepresentations in a speech that she gave on DV (see also the reader’s comments). I am advised that a reply was never received from Ms Despoja.
2. This February 2015 article is laughably disingenuous and quite likely signals a new tactic by players in the Domestic Violence Industry: ‘Natasha Stott Despoja: ‘people are sick and tired of the statistics‘. Or in other words, ‘we are getting called-out for using false or misleading statistics too often now, so let’s publicly discredit all statistics and continue the argument on the basis of subjective and anecdotal evidence alone’.
“The vast majority of sexual assaults are not reported to the police. Given for example that only 17 percent of women who experienced sexual assault by a male perpetrator (in their most recent incident of violence) reported it to the police (ABS 2012), the actual percentage of false cases is likely to be tiny. By one estimate, the actual percentage of false cases as a proportion of all rapes (reported and unreported) may be closer to 0.005 percent.” (Flood, M, 2014)
An Australian MRA by the name of Paul Rogers brought this error to their attention stating (in part) that:
“Even Wikipedia doesn’t suggest that false rape allegations are as low as you claim, which is saying something. I have provided an excerpt below from Wikipedia to highlight that your claim is many orders of magnitude lower than even the lowest value claimed by most authorities … I urge you to state the truth rather than continue to cherry-pick outlier claims because they support your misandry.”
I should also point out that it’s not only feminist groups that engage is this sort of misrepresentation. In this media release, the advocacy group SAVE denounces the use of misleading information on domestic violence by none other than (then) President Obama himself.
Demonstrating the remarkably one-sided manner in which feminists view the world, in the following article a feminist journo criticizes a men’s rights group on their use of statistics:
In a further blog post I look at the feminist predilection towards ‘tweaking’ the definition of terms such ‘domestic violence’ and ‘sexual assault’ in order to better support their claims of female victimhood and generally bolster public support: See Finessing definitions to preserve the image of female victimhood
The references listed below alternately discuss or exemplify bias against men, as perpetrated by journalists and others (often working in the sphere of domestic violence, sexual violence and related fields):
One of the most egregious, shameless statistical falsehoods I’ve seen in a long time, one that thoroughly shames @MayorofLondon & @TenderUKin the recently published Teachers Toolkit on addressing gender-based violence & abuse (22 February 2023) UK Twitter thread by Ally Fogg. But on the positive side, and following lobbying by men’s rights activists, some statistical corrections were implemented
Our uni teachers were already among the world’s most stressed. COVID and student feedback have just made things worse (19 July 2021) Some student respondents in a survey said some mildly critical things about some teachers, a bit more in the case of female teachers. In the old days you would take about the factors that may have contributed to these perceived weaknesses in teaching practice. Not now though. Now the snowflake patrol moves into action to spend the rest of the paper talking about why the survey respondents were wrong. Sexist and wrong. Damn them.
Elite journal under fire over racism (13 April 2021) Article by Stephen Rice which is behind a paywall at ‘The Australian’. Not directly related to misandry, but an example of how social problems are massaged to satisfy the fears or preferences of woke folk.
Not the full story (30 March 2021) Media Watch video. Yet another example of what happen when you start with a pre-determined narrative and then have to make everything fit around it.
Domestic violence on the rise during pandemic (13 July 2020) “The survey of 15,000 Australian women in May provides the most detailed information in the world about the prevalence and nature of domestic violence experienced by women during the pandemic.” How many men did they say were surveyed? That would be *none*. Here is a link to the web page of the agency that produced this research.
Domestic Abuse: The latest lie (19 July 2019) Most men who are victims of partner violence are in homosexual relationships, right? Wrong. But it doesn’t stop feminists from claiming it is true.
Whose research got us a picture of a ‘black hole’ in 2019? It was a girl right? See this tweet from Tom Golden with linked video that tells the story that the media didn’t.
Articles like the linked one now tell us how horrible the “trolls” are for “targeting” the female scientist, but funny how they don’t address the facts of the case – did she only produce 6% of the coding or not? See also this paper from ‘A Voice for Men’.
‘Blatant spin’: SBS accused of sifting data to show ‘sexist’ Australia, and SBS’s ‘sexism’ doco is just blatant propaganda (21 November 2018) Both of these articles appeared in The Australian newspaper, and are behind a ‘paywall’. Watch this Bettina Arndt video for some good background on this issue.
And of course there were various flow-on articles, such as ‘Are men victims of sexism?‘ (3 December 2018) which conceded that the male gender had some problems, that none of these were due to women, but that men were using feminism as a “scapegoat”. Then ‘Here’s how audiences reacted to ‘Is Australia Sexist?‘ (4 December 2018)
La Trobe bans my talk on the fake rape crisis, by Bettina Arndt (2 August 2018) This article concerns the exaggeration of the incidence of sexual assault in Australian universities by the Australian Human Rights Commission and others.
When care becomes control – financial abuse cuts across cultures (17 January 2017) As I state in this post, most papers on financial abuse ignore the reality of male victimisation, and this is yet another example. In the absence of conclusive proof that only women were victimised one would expect a researcher to survey men and women. Failure to do so, as in this and many other cases, is evidence of gender bias to support a particular ideological narrative.
Cutting to numb the pain of sex abuse: interviews with young women in drug treatment (12 August 2016) Australia. Although this article focuses on the needs of young women, the underlying research surveyed both genders. Whilst I have yet to review the findings in detail, my default position is one of disquiet regarding the merit of applying different fixes to men and women. Without a very thorough understanding of all contributing factors, esp. in relation to cause/effect, there is a real danger that we may misinterpret the true situation. Also, from what has happened in the field of domestic violence for example, there is a real danger of a monopolisation of all available resources for the treatment of women.
Anti-abuse campaign targets university students (22 February 2016) Australia. Typical of Our Watch research this survey appears designed to deliver a pre-determined finding of gendered female victimhood. The article reports one part of the picture, but where are the responses to (for example) how many boys were pressured “to do sexual things”? Whether girls respect the ability to consent in relation to boys who are drunk, etc.
(I believe there to be a question mark over the extent to which the Australian Research Council is itself free of gender bias. I say this not in terms of funds provided to male versus female researchers, but in terms of social research projects with a feminist orientation being strongly favoured. Consider the examples provided of feminist research mentioned in this other blog post, as well as this article which will be discussed in a future post. The author of this article presenting a feminist-concordant perspective on the gender pay gap was also ARC-funded. These spreadsheets look at the nature of projects funded by the ARC)
“The Children’s Rights Report being released today found one in every 28 people had also experienced sexual abuse as a child, while a further 23 per cent of children have witnessed violence against their mother”. This conveniently neglects to mention that various studies have found that as many kids have seen their mum hit their dad, as per vice versa. Here is one Australian source.
Victim-blaming rampant in Australians’ attitudes towards violence against women – study (25 November 2015) And what of victim-blaming when men are the victims? And of community attitudes regarding violence towards males? Guess we’ll never know because the last thing feminist researchers want to do is provide context for their claims of female victimisation.
In this June 2015 paper the One in Three advocacy group recounts the bias and antagonism they faced whilst contributing to the Australian Senate Inquiry into Domestic Violence
ABC misleads. No, it’s not more dangerous to be a woman, by Andrew Bolt (14 April 2015) One of the precious few examples of an Australian journalist pointing out the distortion of data by feminists. And here and here are examples of the types of pro-feminist articles that Andrew was railing against.
The following collection of reddit discussion threads detail moderator bias and censorship in relation to threads/posts concerning domestic violence and child abuse – See example 1, example 2, example 3, example 4, example 5 and example 6 (27 October 2014) Includes the following quote from a moderator responding to a query as to why a post was removed: “It needs to be the right information from the right people. Here’s a shorthand guide: if you are an MRA or TRP, you need not bother posting. If your information may tend to make women look bad, same.”
Are domestic violence figures bogus? (22 February 2014) Includes discussion of the notorious ‘intimate partner homicide is the leading cause of death for African-American women ages 15 to 45’ statistic myth
I spoke to hundreds of men about rape and domestic violence (24 September 2014) Note that this is a different survey to that discussed by Adam Blanch earlier. It is certainly feasible that interviewers might influence survey respondents. It hardly fills one with confidence about the reliability of the results when interviewers are prepared to go on record with such strong views on the matter being investigated.
If manipulating and misrepresenting statistics to suit an agenda was a crime then the feminist authors of this “fact-sheet” should be in jail. Many of these so-called facts are debunked in papers listed in this other post about domestic violence, whilst others demand the smallest measure of common-sense to confirm just how misleading they are.
“A third of family murders involved a female as the killer. In sibling murders, females were 15% of killers, and in murders of parents, 18%. But in spouse murders, women represented 41% of killers. In murders of their offspring, women predominated, accounting for 55% of killers” (Source)
The paragraph above was extracted from a 1994 publication, not because patterns of gender perpetration have changed greatly but because the feminist filter has been imposed so completely now, that we only see articles like this one that present statistics in a manner suggesting that women are the perpetual victims of oppressive male malevolence. (Refer to Reddit discussion thread here)
These final linked articles address the predominant influence asserted by feminists in conducting research, and in the subsequent formulation of DV policy:
Regarding the table below … hardly an ‘epidemic’. The only increase is in male victimisation. It’s no wonder that, in pushing its ‘epidemic’ barrow, the Domestic Violence Industry increasingly relies on statistics generated by help-line call centres instead. And of course we can trust the integrity of those sources.
“Advocacy research consists of collating available evidence or producing new information to support a pre-determined policy position. Advocacy research is commonly carried out by pressure groups, lobby groups and interest groups (such as trade unions) and, occasionally, by political parties, journalists and academics – especially those working in the social policy field.”
“It is difficult to criticize advocacy research without giving an impression of caring less about the problem under consideration than do those who are engaged in magnifying its size. But one may be deeply concerned about problems such as rape, child abuse, and homelessness yet still wish to see a rigorous and objective analysis of their dimensions. Advocacy research that uncovers a problem, measures it with reasonable accuracy, and brings it to public attention performs a valuable service by raising public consciousness. The current trend in advocacy research is to inflate problems and redefine them in line with the advocates’ ideological preferences. The few impose their definition of social ills on the many – seeking to incite moral panics. This type of advocacy research invites social policies that are likely to be neither effective nor fair.”
With regards to the Latrobe Uni study noted above, why not include people of any gender who are concerned about any form of harassment or assault on public transport? In other words get the big picture of what’s occurring. Ditto for all the studies/article regarding workplace harassment that restrict themselves to considering ‘sexual harassment’, knowing full well that this is likely to focus attention on the female perspective.
My initial post about domestic violence within this blog can be found here, whilst other DV-related posts can be located by clicking on the ‘domestic violence’ tag at the bottom of this page. It is suggested that this post also be read in conjunction with:
Most people were sickened to learn of this violent unprovoked attack on an old man in Australia, which was subsequently discussed in this rather insightful article by Jim Muldoon. One perpetrator subsequently went to court in September 2014 and walked free on a good behaviour bond. No surprise there.
This was not an isolated episode though, and there have been many recent instances of violent crimes involving female perpetrators. Including more attacks on the elderly man (a 2018 example). Indeed, the numbers of women committing violent crime is increasing significantly. Further, the gap between the rate at which violent crimes are committed by men and women is slowly narrowing as male perpetration has either plateaued or declined in many jurisdictions. This trend casts further doubt on the veracity of claims that the number of male victims of domestic assault is inconsequential.
“A third of family murders involved a female as the killer. In sibling murders, females were 15% of killers, and in murders of parents, 18%. But in spouse murders, women represented 41% of killers. In murders of their offspring, women predominated, accounting for 55% of killers” (Source)
The paragraph above was extracted from a 1994 publication, not because patterns of gender perpetration have changed greatly but because the feminist filter has been imposed so completely now that we only see articles like this one that present statistics in a manner that suggests that women are the perpetual victims of oppressive male malevolence. (Reddit discussion thread here)
The first group of linked articles/papers below explore the general issue of violence by females. A second and subsequent collection of links relate to specific acts of violence by women/girls.
Given all of the above it’s frightening how few anger management programs there are available for women here in Australia. In fact the only dedicated program of which I am aware is LifeWorks. If you know of others then please let me know and I will list them here.
Links to online sources dealing with the issue of violence by women/girls (other than specific incidents or case studies)
Australian Domestic Violence Homicide Statistics 2018 (19 June 2018) Most DV-related homicides in the first half of 2018 were committed by women. A reality very much at odds with the misandric messages issued by the feminists who have adopted the Eurydice Dixon tragedy as their current cause celebre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Female_suicide_bomber A google search on the words ‘female suicide bomber’ will also reveal many papers on the subject as well as details of specific incidents that have appeared in the media (example).
“Women have increasingly assumed more operational roles in jihadist terrorism activities, as have minors and young adults. One in four (26%) of the arrestees in 2016 were women, a significant increase compared to 2015 (18%)” (Source)
“The February CDC study found that, over their lifetime, 44% of lesbians had been physically assaulted by a partner (more than two-thirds of them only by women), compared to 35% of straight women, 26% of gay men, and 29% of straight men.”
“Teens cheer as schoolgirl bashed, thrown down stairs“. By another girl – though that bit’s left out of the headline (15 March 2022). Crime occurred at Bundaberg, Queensland. Article is behind the Courier-Mail paywall.
Girl’s teeth knocked out in alleged bashing (6 February 2020) See how far you need to read through the article before it’s disclosed that the attackers were female. Do you think that would have been the case if they were male? Most unlikely
One of many video clips on the net showing a woman beating a man in public, with no-one intervening … until the male strikes back. More such videos can be seen in this post. (September 2019)
“An 11-year-old girl is in a stable condition in a Melbourne hospital with multiple gunshot wounds, after a supermarket brawl between two women allegedly later led to a shooting”
Man shot at Labrador (22 August 2016) Why are both the media and police so coy (i.e. gender neutral) when the perpetrator is a female? The man subsequently died. At least this article told it as it was.
The policeman was quoted as saying “I certainly don’t condone the behaviour but I can certainly see the funny side of it as well.” Bet he wouldn’t have said that if a man had pushed him.
Court documents reveal Jackson, who only got her licence back in January after a two-year driving ban, has twice had restraining orders taken out against her, both by ex-boyfriends in 2012.
One of the men claimed to have received 72 phone calls from Jackson in a single day. He accused her of later trying to break into his house through a bedroom window after leaving menacing voicemail messages, including “I’m going to hurt you”.
The Unknown History of Misandry A comprehensive blog that discusses the issue of female sociopaths and serial killers, featuring innumerable case-studies
Domestic violence (DV), also referred to as Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) or Family & Domestic Violence (FDV), is a shocking blight on the community. This is a scourge that inflicts substantial negative impacts on the lives of countless men, women and children. Whilst definitions have evolved and broadened, DV is loosely defined as “physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse“.
It is important to acknowledge that DV encompasses man on man, women on women, man on woman, and woman on man violence (both cis- and transgender). Further, in many instances violence is perpetrated by both partners as shown in the accompanying diagram. There is also a strong nexus between the incidence of child abuse/neglect and subsequent perpetration of domestic violence by affected individuals upon reaching adulthood.
The Wikipedia entry for ‘Epidemiology of domestic violence‘ provides readers with useful background information on this topic. For those willing to read something a little meatier, I would recommend this paper by esteemed DV researcher Malcolm George. Malcolm walks the reader through the historical context to the current debate about gender differences in violent behaviour and the way that society responds to the issue.
Many of those working within the DV sector, particularly here in Australia, only choose to acknowledge one element of the problem – that part involving male perpetrators and female victims. It is no coincidence that most staff within these government agencies, universities and NGO’s are strongly influenced by, and biased towards, feminist ideology. The feminist position is unequivocal, and it is that domestic violence = men’s violence towards women. Here is an example of that mindset, and here are many others.
This routine failure by feminists to recognise and discuss male victims, female perpetrators and bi-directional violence is no accident or coincidence. It is a deliberate strategy to build their brand, and in so doing demonise the overwhelming majority of men who have never, and would never, hurt or abuse their partner.
As a result, and in order to support the feminist narrative, a great deal of ‘cherry-picking’ and misrepresentation occurs in relation to the statistics provided in DV literature. In addition, the design and implementation of survey instruments is too often tainted with bias. This issue, that of feminist efforts to hide or discredit legitimate research and/or generate false or misleading statistics, is explored in this further blog post.
You will note, as you scroll down this page, that there are a multitude of sources of DV statistics, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States. Here in Australia, much less research has been undertaken – particularly in relation to male victimisation. One of the more significant sources is the Australian Bureau of Statistics Personal Safety Survey 2012, which found that one in three victims of domestic abuse were male. The results of overseas studies generally found levels of male and female victimisation that were closer to parity, and in some instances even higher rates of victimisation for men that women.
Unfortunately many journalists display remarkable tunnel-vision when addressing the topic of IPV. Indeed some have suggested that the media is complicit in the same sort of systemic gender bias against males noted earlier amongst those working in the field of DV.
Turning to my first example, an article called ‘Til death do us part’ which appeared in The Australian newspaper. It consisted of five pages of heart-wrenching coverage of men’s violence towards female partners, but made no mention of any other form of domestic violence, i.e. m-m, f-f, or women on men. Similarly this February 2014 article from The Mail newspaper also neglected to mention that men can be victims too.
Fiona McCormack also ignores male victims and female abusers this item on Australian ABC TV … except in an aside where she implies that anyone who raises the issue of women abusers is only seeking to “excuse” the behaviour of male abusers. This is very much akin to the feminist predilection of labelling anyone who questions various aspects of sexual assault (e.g. false rape allegations) as being “rape apologists” “victim blamers” etc.
Now let’s turn to this article by Charlie Pickering (more about Charlie here). Charlie is concerned that more attention is paid to the issue of random one-punch attacks on men, than on the violence visited nightly on women people in their homes. He goes on to state:
“For a long time, the termdomestic violence has softened and normalised what is really going on. A more accurate term is ‘men’s violence against women’. Not ‘violence against women’, because that takes the responsibility for it away from those who need to be made responsible.”
This belief, that by acknowledging male victims and female perpetrators, we are somehow ignoring the validity and the pain of female victims is absurd, yet unfortunately commonplace in public discourse. The fact that there may be somewhat fewer male victims does not, nor should not, make domestic violence a gendered issue.
A precious few writers, like this one, suggest a more practical and unbiased approach to the issue:
“When it comes to the statistics about domestic abuse, it doesn’t matter to me how many men to how many women experience domestic violence. Domestic violence is a power issue more than a gender issue. Intimate Partner Violence affects men and women, and I really do not care in what proportion …
Within anti-domestic violence advocacy, there seems to be a trend to pit female victims against male victims and vice-versa. I do not know who is behind it, nor do I know if there is a “who” to blame. I do know that blame has no place in this fight against domestic abuse, especially when victim blames victim for any reason …
In a perfect society, men and women are equally protected under the law not because more laws were made to protect one sex but because in each mind and heart of all people, women and men are respected equally, and the individual contributions or crimes are our only measures of judgment. However, this ideal is as far away from our current reality as the idea that no person would seek power over another.”
Many others within the wider community have, however, embraced a biased and incomplete representation of DV, liberally salted with misinformation, at face value. Who could blame them, given that so many sources are bellowing out the same relentless message about male perpetrators and female victims, whilst studiously ignoring other elements of the issue.
Here in Australia, let’s look at this page within the web site of the Department of Social Services entitled ‘Women’s safety’, and the linked 28 page literature review prepared by ‘Urbis’ consultants at a cost of $220,000. One would have assumed, especially given the enormous cost, that the review would have encompassed all forms of abuse and perpetration. But, unfortunately, it did not.
In fact the review states that “Male perpetrators of domestic violence or sexual assault against men and female perpetrators of either offence against men have not been considered in this literature review. It is acknowledged that in practice the great majority of programs will be targeted towards men who commit domestic violence or sexual assault against women.”
Yes, that makes perfect sense … there are no programs for female offenders so let’s pretend they don’t exist. Such circular logic is (almost) unbelievable. And no, there is no corresponding ‘Mens Safety’ page within the DSS web site.
To be fair, the authors of some studies do admit that there are many female perpetrators and male victims, and that little research has been directed towards these groups. They also admit that there are probably many similarities between male and female perpetrators of IPV. They then invariably proceed, however, to offer a variety of justifications to continue their focus on the ‘domestic violence = Mens violence towards women’ model (example).
When misleading statistics are repeatedly exposed the feminist reaction is to move the goalposts by expanding the reach of the definition of domestic violence to encompass sexual violence, and less tangible forms of non-physical ‘violence’. This serves to both maximise the perceived magnitude of the problem, as well as support the anti-male narrative.
Naturally those areas where female perpetration is substantial, such as child abuse and elder abuse, are totally ‘out of bounds’. This theme is explored in this separate blog post. The same approach has been taken by feminists to prop up the notion of the existence of a ‘rape culture‘ in western societies.
Those of us concerned about men’s rights seek to have all aspects of domestic violence considered, as well as seeking remedies to specific issues such as:
the lack of resources to assist abused men and their children
laws and legal procedures that are based on the assumption that the male in the relationship is the abuser
negative and biased behaviour towards men who seek assistance, for example the screening of (only) male callers to abuse help-lines to determine if they are in fact perpetrators (example)
A selection of statistical sources that haven’t been doctored to support the feminist narrative
References examining assaults by women on their spouses or male partners: An Annotated Bibliography by Martin S. Fiebert. This bibliography examines 286 scholarly investigations: 221 empirical studies and 65 reviews and/or analyses, which demonstrate that women are as physically aggressive, or more aggressive, than men in their relationships with their spouses or male partners. Here is a link to an updated June 2013 version of Fiebert’s bibliography.
Partner Abuse, Volume 1, No. 1, 2010 The first edition of a new journal created to showcase academic research into domestic violence without gender bias
“Almost 24% of all relationships had some violence, and half (49.7%) of those were reciprocally violent. In non-reciprocally violent relationships, women were the perpetrators in more than 70% of the cases.”
More than 125,000 women homeless because of domestic violence (15 February 2016). The only figures for male victimisation that were mentioned – because they appeared to support the feminist perspective – were drawn from this media release from a government agency. What’s not mentioned though is that the relatively low numbers of men seeking assistance are indicative of factors other than simply lower rates of male victimisation, incl.:
the rampant genderbias of ‘help-lines’, advocacy groups and even government agencies
the (widely-known) lack of resources available to help male victims (with or without children, and
the much greater incidence of non-reporting of DV by men (compared to women)
This article and related reddit discussion concern a move in Victoria, Australia, to alter the law in relation of using self-defence where death of a partner occurs (article) (discussion)
General sources regarding Intimate Partner Violence
Prevalence of recorded family and domestic violence offending: A birth cohort study (17 September 2024) The Australian Institute of Criminology has a known pro-feminist bias, but one statistic was interesting “nearly 1 in 10 men (9.6%) born in NSW were found to have been processed against by police for a family or domestic violence offence by the age of 37.” Now we just need to account for the influence of distorting factors such as false allegations.
Domestic abuse: The latest lie (19 July 2019) UK. This article addresses, amongst other things, the feminist myth that most men who suffer domestic violence are the victims of other men.
“The proportion of male victims who told police about their domestic abuse increased from 10.4% in 2014-15 to 14.7% this year as charities said more men were shaking off the stigma of talking about their suffering.“
How Victoria’s family violence system fails some victims – by assuming they’re perpetrators (14 November 2017) I thought this paper was going to talk about men being misidentified as DV aggressors, but oh no, apparently it happens to women all the time <facepalm> and men exploit this to obtain intervention orders to protect themselves (& their children) from women who aren’t really hitting/abusing them.
Shocking domestic abuse statistics don’t show the real picture: it’s even worse (14 December 2016) UK. This is one of several articles written by feminists in response to the recent release of stats showing the large (and increasing) number of male victims. Essentially they say ‘it doesn’t matter how many men are victims, women have it worse and we should focus entirely on them’.
Stopping Fathers Committing Family Violence (13 December 2016) The Victorian Government (Australia) ignores female perpetrators of domestic violence – it’s something only dads do! Disgusting bias
This is one of countless examples of how feminist DV advocacy groups seek to minimise both women’s role in perpetrating abusive behaviours, and its degree of impact on male victims.
“The findings of an in-depth domestic violence study, which showed violent conduct almost evenly split between the genders, are potentially cause for concern, a senior police officer says.”
The gender of domestic violence (8 June 2016) NZ video concerning the difficulty experienced by researchers whose findings showed that women were equally likely to abuse.
For Nelson Women’s Refuge manager Katie O’Donnell, the solution to New Zealand’s domestic violence problem is more straightforward. “People say it’s a really complex issue. Well, it is a complex issue but also it isn’t – guys just have to stop doing it”
The surprisingly common reason John hits his partner (14 October 2015) Of course a male batterer is profiled, but watch the fur fly when someone suggests a contributing factor that doesn’t fit the feminist Duluth Model.
Tara Moss: ‘We can’t let trolls hijack the domestic violence conversation’ (5 March 2015) Australia. This is the feminist concept of a “conversation” – we talk & you shut-up. If you try to join our conversation then you are a troll. And, as is becoming increasingly common of late, no reader’s comments were permitted on this article.
Can domestic abusers be rehabilitated? (1 February 2015) Gynocentric/pro-feminist bias but worth reading in conjunction with the comments contributed by readers
Telstra introduces domestic violence leave (13 January 2015) Australia. Article implies only women are victims of domestic violence and leaves us guessing as to whether the company policy is sexist/discriminatory – or just the journalism
Why don’t we speak up when we see signs of domestic violence? (1 October 2014) This article in a pro-feminist web site provides a stereotypical feminist perspective on the subject. What was notable was that almost all the readers comments attacked the author’s obvious anti-male bias. This article forms the focus of this blog post.
In this article a feminist writer, Amanda Hess, attempts to rationalise why domestic violence by a female sports star should be addressed differently than in the case of a male sports star (22 September 2014) Most of the 600+ readers comments that followed disagreed and told her so in no uncertain terms.
‘Lollies at a childrens party and other myths: Violence, protection orders and fathers rights groups’ by Miranda Kaye and Julia Tomie (1998). Another detailed but flawed paper in support of the feminist position on DV. Its main line of attack is that available statistics don’t support claims made by men’s rights advocates. It conveniently ignores the fact that most Australian DV research is undertaken by feminists and biased towards finding ‘evidence’ to support a pre-determined conclusion. Thus the accuracy and impartiality of the research is the real issue, rather than the credibility of the whistle-blowers.
The paper also misinterprets and/or takes out of context, many of the comments it attributes to fathers groups in an attempt to portray them as irrational or unreasonable. Finally the authors attack specific statements put forward by fathers groups despite the same arguments having been used (at other times) by feminists in support of their own (feminist) perspective. The authors of this paper, for example, want to jump from one camp to the other (and back again) in relation to the issue of whether behaviour other than physical violence should be included in the definition of domestic violence.
We need to show it’s just not manly to hit out (9 July 2014) Nonsense article dripping with white knight bias … “The idea that the woman may be equally to blame, even if she is also violent and even the initiator of the violence, is simply not acceptable”
A reddit discussion thread about the anti-male bias evident in the web site of an American domestic violence centre’s web site. Unfortunately such bias (i.e. stating or implying that all men accessing the site are abusers and that all women are victims) is also common in domestic violence centres in Australia.
The Duluth Model is “based in feminist theory positing that domestic violence is the result of patriarchal ideology in which men are encouraged and expected to control their partners”. (Source)
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